SIIA Urges U.S. Trade Representative to Promote Digital Trade & Protect IP
SIIA filed comments today with the United States Trade Representative (USTR) urging the agency to use the negotiations for a new International Services Agreement (ISA) to lower barriers to trade in digital services and to maintain a high degree of intellectual property protection and enforcement. In our comments, SIIA pointed out that sustainable growth in the 21st century economy relies upon the unrestricted flow of information and data, as our domestic IT businesses reach across the globe. Therefore, removing barriers to the establishment and delivery of digital IT services will enhance economic performance.
Specifically, SIIA’s comments urged USTR to maintain the following two objectives in the services agreement: (1) governments should not prevent businesses that supply services in other countries, or customers of those suppliers, from electronically transferring information domestically or across borders, accessing publicly available information, or accessing their own information stored in other countries, and (2) Strong IP protections for software and digital content have been an essential element in fostering explosive technology growth and a wider variety of educational materials and information products that increase productivity, effectiveness and knowledge. Read more on SIIA’s Digital Discourse blog.
Legislation Introduced to Prevent Abusive Patent Suits
Today, bipartisan legislation was introduced in the U.S. House to take on the persistent issue of patent trolls, one of the major challenges to the U.S. patent system that was not addressed in the recently enacted America Invents Act. The Saving High-Tech Innovators from Egregious Legal Disputes Act (SHIELD Act), sponsored by Reps. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) and Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) seeks to limit cases brought by trolls by shifting the legal fees to the losing party when patent trolls lose their patent infringement cases. SIIA welcomed the legislation with a strong statement of support. Read more on SIIA’s Digital Discourse Blog.
House Panel Considers Federal IT Reform
As promised by chairman Darrel Issa (R-CA), the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is moving forward on this issue, holding a hearing today. The legislation, the Federal IT Acquisition Reform act (known as FITARA), still in draft format, seeks to reform the Federal IT acquisition process and would be the first major Federal IT update since the E-Government Act was enacted more than ten years ago. SIIA supports reforms that would enable the government to more efficiently acquire innovative IT products and services, and we are working closely with Chairman Issa as he seeks to introduce this legislation in the next couple of weeks. Read more on SIIA’s Digital Discourse blog.
David LeDuc is Senior Director, Public Policy at SIIA. He focuses on e-commerce, privacy, cyber security, cloud computing, open standards, e-government and information policy. Follow the SIIA public policy team on Twitter at @SIIAPubPolicy.