Michigan man charged with selling counterfeit Microsoft software

A man from Michigan was arraigned in a U.S. federal court on Thursday on charges of mail fraud and selling counterfeit software worth over US$1.2 million that he purchased from China and Singapore, the U.S Department of Justice said Thursday.

Bruce Alan Edward, 48, of Atlanta, Michigan, was charged in an indictment returned on Oct. 24 and unsealed on Nov. 1 by the federal grand jury in Bay City, Michigan, DOJ said in a statement. He was arraigned on Thursday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.

Edward allegedly distributed counterfeit copies of Office 2003 Professional and Windows XP Professional by selling copyrighted works on eBay and then using the U.S. Postal Service to deliver the counterfeit software, according to the indictment which charges Edward with five counts of criminal copyright infringement and one count of mail fraud.

The indictment charges Edward with making more than $140,000 between May 2008 and September 2010 by selling more than 2,500 copies of counterfeit Microsoft software that had a retail value of over $1.2 million.

If convicted of all counts in the indictment, Edward faces a maximum of 45 years in prison and $1.5 million in fines, DOJ said. He could also have to forfeit all criminal proceeds and counterfeit items and any property used to commit the alleged criminal activity, if convicted.

Software piracy has been on the decline in the U.S., but the commercial value of software piracy in the country still adds up to almost $10 billion, with 31 percent of computer users admitting to pirating software, Business Software Alliance, an antipiracy industry group, said in August. Since January, BSA settled a number of cases of unlicensed software including eight cases representing a value of more than $2.5 million, it said. 

John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and general technology breaking news from India for The IDG News Service. Follow John on Twitter at @Johnribeiro. John's e-mail address is john_ribeiro@idg.com

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Iranian minister faces US sanctions for Internet censorship

The U.S. on Thursday said it ordered sanctions against Iran's Minister of Communication and Information Technology, Reza Taghipour, and other entities and persons responsible for engaging in censorship in their country.

Taghipour is blamed by the U.S. for ordering the jamming of satellite television broadcasts and restricting Internet connectivity, according to a statement from the U.S. Department of State.

Iran has for some time considered separating its own internal networks from the global Internet describing it as unsafe. Earlier this year, the Iranian Students' News Agency quoted Taghipour as saying that the Internet is an "unsafe network," and that Iran would use local software to create a national grid.

The Iranian government has also put restrictions on Internet users, according to civil rights groups.

Others sanctioned by the U.S. are Iran's Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance and its Press Supervisory Board, which are said by the U.S. to have limited freedom of expression through their censorship and closure of newspapers and the detention of journalists. The Department of State said it is also designating key individuals and entities "responsible for assisting the regime in its crackdown on and censorship of the Iranian people."

The actions were taken under Section 403 of the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act of 2012, signed by U.S. President Barack Obama in August, and executive order 13628, which Obama signed into effect on Oct. 9.

As a result of the action, "U.S. persons are prohibited from engaging in transactions involving the designated individuals or entities, and all designated individuals and members of designated entities are subject to a ban on travel to the United States," the Department of State said. The action also blocks, or freezes, the property and interests in property of the designated individuals or entities.

The U.S. has already imposed a number of sanctions on Iran in connection with its nuclear program, which Iran insists is for peaceful purposes, but the U.S. holds may lead to Iran building a nuclear bomb.

The sanctions on Thursday which target "individuals and entities who have engaged in censorship or other activities with respect to Iran on or after June 12, 2009" was included in one of three orders sanctioning a total of 17 individuals and entities, including those charged with terrorism and with proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

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China Telecom aims to upgrade to LTE FDD, but authorities will decide

As China continues trials of its 4G networks using the government-backed LTE TDD technology, mobile operator China Telecom is aiming to go another route and deploy LTE FDD technology for its upcoming 4G networks.

The Chinese government has yet to issue 4G licenses to operators. But China Telecom, with 152 million mobile subscribers, wants to upgrade its existing 3G networks to LTE FDD technology, said Xu Fei a spokesman for China Telecom on Friday.

For the past year, the company has been running trials using an LTE FDD (Frequency-Division Duplex) network in the Chinese city of Guangzhou, Xu added.

LTE FDD is a variant of 4G LTE technology currently dominant in use among mobile operators across the world.

China, however, is pushing the development of LTE TDD (Time-Division Duplex), a variant which is based on the country's own 3G technology called TD-SCDMA (Time-Division Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access).

LTE TDD trials are already under way in the country and will be expanded to 100 cities in China next year. Rival operator China Mobile stands to benefit the most. The company currently uses the TD-SCDMA standard in its 3G networks, and is expected to upgrade them to 4G using LTE TDD technology.

China Telecom, on the other hand, uses CDMA2000 3G networks, a technology widely used outside the country. But no operators have yet to upgrade from a 3G CDMA network to 4G using solely LTE TDD, Xu said.

"The FDD-LTE technology is more mature," he said. "So we think this is the better road for us to take."

China Telecom, however, won't be the one to decide that. The Chinese government has the final say when it issues the 4G licenses, Xu said.

In September, a Chinese official signaled the government could issue those licenses near the end of next year.

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Judge to consider Samsung's questions about jury foreman

A court in California said Thursday that it would consider Samsung Electronics' concern that the foreman of the jury deciding a patent infringement lawsuit between Apple and Samsung had concealed information.

A jury in California decided in August that the South Korean company must pay Apple US$1.05 billion for infringing several of its patents in Samsung smartphones and tablets.

Samsung has, however, asked for a new trial of the case, alleging that the foreman of the jury, Velvin Hogan, was untruthful and biased. In the voir dire, a court procedure of questioning prospective jurors for potential bias, Hogan did not mention that he had been sued by his former employer, Seagate, for breach of contract after he failed to repay a promissory note in 1993 and filed for bankruptcy six months later, according to the filing on Oct. 2.

Samsung has a "substantial strategic relationship with Seagate," and is the single largest direct shareholder of the hard drive manufacturer after selling it a business division last year, it said in the filing.

On Oct. 30, Samsung filed a motion to compel Apple to disclose the circumstances and timing of Apple's discovery of certain information regarding the jury foreman.

Judge Lucy H. Koh of the District Court for the Northern District of California, San Jose division, wrote in her order on Thursday that the court will consider the questions "of whether the jury foreperson concealed information during voir dire, whether any concealed information was material, and whether any concealment constituted misconduct."

"An assessment of such issues is intertwined with the question of whether and when Apple had a duty to disclose the circumstances and timing of its discovery of information about the foreperson," Judge Koh wrote.

The court will address Samsung's motion to compel at a Dec. 6 hearing. If the court grants the motion, it will likely order supplemental briefing before ruling on Samsung's motion for judgment as a matter of law, Koh said.

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