Congress is back and patent reform is at the top of the Senate’s agenda this week. The House-passed legislation (H.R. 1249) will be before the Senate for a procedural vote this evening, with votes on amendments and ultimately a final vote later this week. The key issue still looks to be the funding provision, where amendments are expected to be offered to maximize PTO funding and prevent any fee diversion. If the bill passes without amendment, it will be expedited to the President for enactment. However, any amendments would send the legislation back to the House.
Last week, SIIA joined the Future of Privacy Forum’s (FPF) Application Privacy Working Group and became a sponsor of the FPF project, ApplicationPrivacy.org, an effort to help develop voluntary privacy principles and best practices for mobile software applications. SIIA joined the project out of the conviction that the industry does not need government regulation, but rather to help focus the industry’s voluntary adoption of transparent practices regarding collection, use and protection of consumer data. SIIA strongly believes that a trusted environment for users is critical to ensure continued growth and innovation in the mobile marketplace.
Also last week, SIIA submitted comments to the European Commission’s (EC) cloud computing consultation, a public inquiry to develop a European cloud computing strategy that the Commission will present in 2012. While this is a laudable objective to stimulate a European cloud industry, SIIA’s comments highlighted the challenges associated with trans-border data flows and urged caution regarding the development of harmful approaches like cloud-specific policies and localization requirements.
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