Sonos has a global “portfolio of 630+ issued patents and 570 applications covering all manner of tech innovation,” spokeswoman Lizzie Manganiello emailed us Wednesday on our query about the company’s plans to commercialize the invention for which it landed a U.S. patent Tuesday on techniques of embedding ads as “structured metadata” in a “digital media playback system” (see 1808280002). “Some of these inventions have made their way into Sonos products, many have not yet, and some never will,” said Manganiello. “We’re not going to comment on our roadmap other than to say we won’t do anything that degrades the consumer listening experience.”

Sonos landed a U.S. patent Tuesday for techniques of embedding ads as “structured metadata” in a “digital media playback system” for distribution to “multimedia players” installed in a home's “zones” and giving users the interactive capability to respond through a dedicated “input interface” on a controller. “Traditional” ad channels “can only provide static content and cannot engage potential customers interactively,” said the patent (10,061,742) based on a January 2010 application and naming Jonathan Lang and Ron Kuper as inventors. Lang is Sonos director-innovation and Kuper director of the company's Advanced Concepts Lab. The internet’s rapid growth offers advertisers “a unique opportunity to make interactive advertisement campaigns possible by allowing end users to close the loop, namely inducing users to click on an advertisement being served or linking the users to the actual product or service,” said the patent. Music publishers “supplement their revenue with advertising and connecting the audience with other products or services,” it said. Placing ads “between two musical pieces may not get a close attention from a listener as the listener may switch to another piece of music when a previous one is over,” it said. “There is a need for solutions that allow advertising to happen anytime an advertiser may deem appropriate.” Sonos didn’t comment.

The International Trade Commission released a limited exclusion order in Tuesday's Federal Register prohibiting import of certain graphics systems and TVs from Vizio and Sigma Designs, after finding the two companies infringed patents held by Advanced Micro Devices. Vizio and Sigma didn’t comment Tuesday.

China should continue to strengthen antitrust enforcement agencies, improve pro-innovation structures like intellectual property rights, and challenge government-created barriers to competition, said FTC Commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen Tuesday in Beijing. “Negative effects of government intervention in markets can be even more problematic than the actions of private actors.” She recommended Chinese antitrust enforcers follow the FTC's and DOJ’s example of focusing efforts on consumer welfare, not impacts to corporate competition. She warned Chinese authorities against using antitrust enforcement tools as a means for protecting domestic companies and industries against foreign competition. China started enforcing a new antitrust law in 2008, the same year its three anti-monopoly law agencies signed a memorandum of understanding with the FTC and DOJ. Ohlhausen credited China for continuing a joint dialogue with U.S. regulators, including Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim. She commended the China State Council’s June 2016 decision to establish a fair competition review system to prevent “excessive and inappropriate government intervention.” She emphasized China’s need to strengthen IP rights, as U.S. businesses accuse the Chinese of stealing IP information from American companies. “The countries that protect IP rights within their borders tend to foster innovation, those that fail to create the necessary predicates to investments in innovation lag behind,” said Ohlhausen.

Modern voice-control systems rely on “wakeup” words captured in a mic that the system must hear before acting on a spoken command, but those words may be inaudible when a speaker is playing loud music, said a Bose patent application (20180018965) published in January at the Patent and Trademark Office. Bose’s solution is to reduce or mute the music when a gesture command, such as sharp up or down hand motion, is detected. The user can then speak a command, without the need to shout or use a wakeup word, it said: The motion detector can be a camera in the room or accelerometer mounted on headphones. The Bose patent predates a filing from Facebook (20180167677), published June 14, for easing command and control of electronics products by suggesting that everyday “ambient” sounds can be recorded and embedded like watermarks in home entertainment content. Ambient sounds can include machinery noise, the sound of distant human movement and speech, creaks from thermal contraction, and air conditioning and plumbing noises in a household, said the patent.

Bowers & Wilkins about three years ago began commercializing a speaker-cone material it calls Continuum as a lower-cost alternative to Kevlar, but has said little on the technology behind it, except for a January 2017 blog post. More technical details about Continuum are now available from a U.S. patent application (2018/0184208) published June 28, based on a May 2015 filing made at about the same time that the first Continuum speakers went on sale. The patent rights have been assigned to EVA Automation of Redwood City, California, the company that bought B&W in 2016. The unnamed material has “the same or better acoustic performance” than Kevlar, and is made from woven glass fiber, embedded in resin and coated with reflective aluminum, which in turn is protected by a layer of lacquer, said the application. When illuminated with light, a speaker diaphragm fashioned from the material appears to have a sparkly “unusually striking” appearance, it said. Phenolic, epoxy or melamine resins are suitable, but “many layers may be required to achieve the required thickness,” said the application. Tuesday, B&W didn’t comment.

The International Trade Commission opened a Tariffs Act Section 337 investigation into Bose allegations that 14 companies are infringing the patented designs Bose uses in its StayHear earbuds, said a Friday Federal Register notice. Bose seeks exclusion and cease and desist orders against the 14 respondents, alleging infringement of six patents granted between 2012 and 2016 that describe various methods of earpiece “positioning and retention” or “passive noise attenuating” (see 1806010044). The ITC gave the 14 companies a June 8 deadline to comment on the public interest ramifications of an exclusion order, but none did, docket 337-TA-1121 shows.

The Patent and Trademark Office issued U.S. patent number 10,000,000 Tuesday to a Raytheon invention for a frequency-modulated laser detection and ranging system with possible applications in autonomous vehicles, medical imaging devices and national defense, said the agency. “Given the rapid pace of change, we know that it will not take another 228 years to achieve the next 10-million-patent milestone,” said Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, referring to the first U.S. patent issued July 1790 to Samuel Hopkins for a process of making potash for fertilizer. When inventor Joseph Marron, a Raytheon engineer, applied for the patent three years ago, little could he predict he would land the milestone number in 2018, he said in a company statement. "It's equivalent to a guy who buys a lottery ticket every month," he said. "Eventually, it hits."

Comments are due Friday at the International Trade Commission on the public-interest ramifications of a Bose Tariffs Act Section 337 complaint alleging 14 companies are infringing the patented designs Bose uses in its StayHear earbuds, said a Thursday Federal Register notice. In the complaint (ITC login required) filed May 24 in ITC docket 337-3320, Bose seeks exclusion and cease-and-desist orders against the 14 respondents, alleging infringement of six patents granted between 2012 and 2016 that describe various methods of earpiece “positioning and retention” or “passive noise attenuating.” Before Bose developed the technology in its StayHear earpieces, “prevailing in-ear earbud designs were uncomfortable and unstable,” said the complaint. Most earpieces also “were often unstable in users’ ears, making them difficult and inconvenient to use,” it said. Bose “invested hundreds of hours of labor at its U.S. facilities to research and develop a solution to the issues with the prevailing in-ear earpiece designs,” it said. Exclusion orders against the 14 companies “will not adversely impact U.S. consumers,” it said. Bose “has the ability and capacity to replace the sale of earpiece devices subject to exclusion in a commercially reasonable time,” it said. Representatives of the 14 respondents didn’t comment Friday.

Roku landed publication Thursday of a U.S. patent application describing an “example apparatus” for skipping portions of content on a streaming device that are “of little or no interest to the user,” using metadata stored in the device’s database for triggering a “skip command.” On-demand availability of content “is commonplace,” but the “electronic and computerized storage and delivery of content offers the potential for far more than just the availability and vanilla playback of content,” said the application (2018/0152489) filed in November 2016, listing CEO Anthony Wood and Vice President-Intellectual Property Joseph Hollinger as inventors. “It is possible to generate content recommendations that are tailored for individual users, as well as to customize the viewing experience to each user's personal preferences.” Existing devices and services “fall short in many areas” in that regard, it said. Many force users to experience content in a “linear manner, requiring them to view portions of content having little or no interest,” it said. “Too often, media systems and services fail to leverage the immense knowledge base of the Internet and other sources when presenting content to users.” Though streaming content may be readily available on an on-demand basis, “related information is not, at least not in an easily accessible manner,” it said.