Digital Discourse / Software / Government

SIIA Applauds Progress of Senate Cybersecurity Legislation

February 14, 2012 By

With cyber threats more sophisticated and targeted than ever, and growing at an unprecedented rate, now is the time to act on critical cybersecurity legislative priorities. We are pleased to see that Sens. Lieberman, Collins, Rockefeller and Feinstein have made significant progress in striking a balance between preserving innovation and identifying and regulating critical infrastructure.

SIIA continues to believe that cybersecurity legislation could potentially do more harm than good if not done carefully. A regulatory approach would not necessarily make organizations more secure, just more compliant. It is imperative that Congress preserves the ability of technology companies to quickly develop and deploy technology that can detect, prevent and mitigate cybersecurity threats.

We urge swift, bipartisan support for legislation that advances critical cybersecurity priorities and immediately enhances our preparedness. As we identified in a recent letter to Sen. Reid, there are multiple cybersecurity objectives that enjoy strong bipartisan support in the House and Senate, such as enhancing information-sharing between the public and private sectors, reforming FISMA, encouraging increased cybersecurity research and ensuring that law enforcement has the adequate tools and criminal penalties for to protect against cyber crimes.

SIIA is committed to the goal of enacting legislation that will establish a meaningful national framework for data security and for breach notification, and we look forward to continuing to work with Congressional leaders to reach consensus.

Katie CarlsonKen Wasch is President of SIIA.

 

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Filed Under: Government, Policy, Policy - Cybersecurity, Software Tagged With: ,

Leaders from NIST & GSA will Discuss Efforts to Move Apps & Services to the Cloud at Cloud/GOV Conference

January 11, 2012 By

As the cloud continues to revolutionize the way government operates, Cloud/GOV is assembling some of the nation’s top tech leaders to discuss how cloud adoption is moving forward—and to identify the services and requirements that are shaping the future of cloud computing in the public sector.

Cloud/GOV, the nation’s leading annual forum on cloud computing in the public sector, will take place February 16 at the Westin Washington, D.C. City Center Hotel.

Keynote speakers include:
• Dawn Leaf, Senior Executive for Cloud Computing, NIST
• David L. McClure, Associate Administrator, U.S. General Services Administration’s Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies

Cloud/GOV is a key resource for government executives, integrators, and independent software vendors involved in shifting applications and services to the cloud in compliance with FedRAMP. As the leading association actively focused on cloud development and implementation, SIIA has worked with Deltek—the authority on government business—to bring together a diverse group of federal, state and local government IT leaders, as well as software vendors who provide cloud-based services.

Learn more about the conference or check out SIIA’s recent policy work on cloud computing.

Laura Greenback is Communications Director at SIIA.

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Filed Under: Cloud/Gov, Government, Policy, Policy - Cloud Computing, PSIG, Software Tagged With: ,

Clock Winds Down on 2011, Cyber and Privacy Gear Up for Action in 2012

November 22, 2011 By

With Congress in recess for the Holiday, and the “Super Committee” officially resigned to stalemate, it’s unclear how the last month of 2011 will play out in Washington. However, last week saw significant developments for the advancement of cybersecurity legislation. Notably, in a letter to Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) indicated that the Senate will consider the issue in early 2012. At about the same time, the Ranking Members of six key senate committees of jurisdiction on Cybersecurity sent a joint letter to the President expressing their desire to move forward on several key cybersecurity issues, and highlighting those that are not quite ready. The one thing that’s for sure is that early 2012 will see a flurry of cyber discussions.

Similarly, indications last week are that privacy issues will also heat up in early 2012. While a firm date has still not been given for the official release of the Commerce Department report on privacy, it’s expected the Report will be released the week of Nov. 28th. Importantly, while the Report will continue to support a legislative Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights, officials have expressed the goal to begin moving forward with a multi-stakeholder process to craft privacy codes of conduct as early as January.

On Monday, the U.S. Department of Commerce released the results of the 22nd US-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT) meeting between U.S. and Chinese government officials, where a number of commitments were made by Chinese officials during the meeting to address issues between the two countries. Most significantly to SIIA members, the summary indicates that China will take steps to address the use of unauthorized copies of software by government agencies and state-owned enterprises. China pledged to complete this software legalization process by 2012 for Chinese provincial entities and by 2013 for municipal and county-level governments.

And in other IP news, the House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) has announced his plan to mark-up the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), H.R. 3261 on Dec. 15th. However, following the lengthy and sometimes contentious hearing that took place last Wednesday, it is quite possible the date will slip while Committee members deliberate several key provisions of the bill.

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.

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Filed Under: Digital Policy Roundup, Government, Policy, Software Tagged With: , ,

Senate passes Smith-Leahy America Invents Act without amendment

September 9, 2011 By

Last night, by an 89-9 vote the Senate passed H.R. 1249, the Smith-Leahy America Invents Act, setting the stage for President Obama to sign the bill into law and implement the first comprehensive reform to the Patent Act in more than 50 years. SIIA and its member companies have worked diligently toward this goal for more than 6 years, and passage of the bill represents a significant victory for our industries. We believe that this legislation will improve patent quality and reduce (though certainly not eliminate) wasteful litigation over bad patents.

The bill can be found here. SIIA issued a press release last night applauding passage of the bill.

In passing the House version of the bill as is, the Senate rejected amendments by (1) Sen. Sessions, which would have removed a special interest provision restoring Medco’s patent on the Angiomax drug, which had lapsed due to alleged malpractice by its law firm; (2) Sen. Cantwell, which would have eliminated the business method patent “transitional program,” and (3) Sen. Coburn, which would have restored the Senate’s language prohibiting fee diversion, in lieu of the House’s version which creates a special fund for the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) which is still subject to the Congressional budget approval process.

While a detailed summary is beyond the scope of this communication, some of the key provisions of the Act include:

* Harmonization of the U.S. system with most of the rest of the world, by granting priority to the “first inventor to file” rather than “first to invent,” which often triggered complicated and expensive interference proceedings, and sometimes permitted patent owners to overcome would-be prior art in litigation. The new provision will, for example, make it more difficult in some cases for inventors to overcome the novelty and nonobviousness requirements, because there will be no more “swearing back” to establish an earlier date of invention (i.e., to get around prior art dated before the patent application filing date).

* Along with “first inventor to file,” establishing a prior user defense (with some exceptions for universities).

* As mentioned above, ending of the diversion of USPTO fees by Congress for other purposes. The USPTO still must submit an annual budget to be approved by Congress, but this provision seemingly grants the USPTO latitude to establish a larger budget based on the fees it collects. The eventual outcome hopefully will be shorter patent pendency times, and higher quality patents (e.g., due to better trained and perhaps better paid examiners, better resources, and more attention to questionable applications).

* Permitting third party submission of prior art during patent examination.

* Deeming “tax strategies” within the prior art and thus unpatentable. This provision has a key exception, however, covering a wide range of computer programs on tax and financial management inventions.

* Establishing a post-grant review process of any patent by the USPTO that can be triggered by third parties.

* Establishing a supplemental examination process for the benefit of patent owners, to “correct” possible inequitable conduct.

* Heightening the requirements for joinder of patent infringement defendants.

* Amending the false marking provision to require a showing of “competitive injury,” which is intended curtail the flood of false marking claims being filed by private parties that are not competitors of the patent owner (and often not in any related business) simply seeking a profit from the false marking statute.

* Eliminating the best mode defense in litigation.

* Establishing an eight-year “transitional program” for post-grant review of certain business method patents (including a provision that increases likelihood of a stay of litigation involving such patents).

The effective dates of these provisions vary. Some will be effective on the date of enactment. Others will be effective one year later, and still others (namely, some of the USPTO procedures) will be phased in.

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Filed Under: Anti-Piracy, Government, Patent, Policy Tagged With: ,

Cloud Computing Promotes Economic Growth and Job Creation

August 15, 2011 By

Can cloud computing spur economic growth and job creation? In SIIA’s recent report, Guide to Cloud Computing for Policymakers, we say that the biggest benefit of cloud is “the boost it can give to other economic activity through the provision of more effective and less expensive computing capabilities.” It’s worth emphasizing this point and reviewing some recent economic studies that back it up.

A recent study by Federico Etro finds that cloud computing tends to increase business formation in European economies. Cloud computing reduces the costs of entry into a market by shifting fixed capital expenditures on information technology into operating expenses that depend on the size of a company’s output, spurring the formation of new firms. It’s easier for companies to get started when they can buy the computing services they need rather than invest in expensive large-scale computer hardware and software.

Etro considers the effects of two possible routes for cloud computing’s diffusion in Europe: a slow dispersal that reduces the fixed costs of entry by 1% and a rapid one that reduces these costs by 5%. In either case, the contribution to economic growth is significant. After one year, even a slow diffusion of cloud computing increases annual economic growth by five basis points (0.05%). After five years of rapid diffusion, annual economic growth is four-tenths of one percent (0.4%) higher than it otherwise would be.

A rapid diffusion of cloud computing would create almost 400,000 additional small and medium sized business in Europe after five years, Etro estimates. The bulk of these new firms are concentrated in wholesale and retail trade and real estate and other business activities. It would create a short-term increase of one million jobs in Europe, and reduce the European unemployment rate by one-half of one percent (0.5%). Though it’s true that the efficiencies of cloud computing could reduce the number of people performing IT-related tasks, the overall effect would increase jobs. He estimates that 8 jobs would be created for every job lost.

These are impressive results. But they derive from examining only one benefit of cloud computing – the reduction in capital costs that allow new firms to enter the market. Another European study by the Centre for Economic and Business Research takes into account the economy-wide costs savings and new revenue opportunities made possible by cloud computing in five European countries.

Cloud computing reduces costs for existing firms by reducing their capital expenditures, their labor costs, and their power costs (since they no longer need to service large in-house computers). Cloud computing also allows existing companies to scale to bring products and services to new markets and meet unpredictable short‐term demand peaks. Companies can leverage cloud computing to earn extra revenue that they might otherwise have missed if they had to invest in new computing equipment or software in order to expand output. CEBR takes these effects into account, along with the new business formation effect, and estimates that adoption of cloud computing will generate a cumulative increase in output of 763 billion euro in these countries, and an increase in employment of 2.3 million between 2010 and 2015. By 2015, annual economic benefits are predicted to be in excess of 177 billion euro and the annual increase in jobs expected to be 446,000.

Which sectors stand to gain most from the cloud? A follow-up study by CEBR breaks it down. Distribution, retail & hotels accounts for 233 billion euro of the cumulative economic gain through 2015, and government, education and health will gain the largest number of jobs – 801,000 – over this period. Banking has the second highest economic gain with 183 million euro and manufacturing is the second biggest beneficiary of job gains at 501,000 jobs. So the economic benefits are wide-spread.

These results are no doubt promising, but all studies of the impact of a new technology should be subject to some degree of uncertainty. We can never make perfect predictions of what lies ahead. But these reports suggest that cloud computing can have substantial benefits for economies struggling with issues of growth and unemployment.

The policy implications of these studies need to be made explicit. The message to policy makers is to be alert for policies that can inhibit the growth of cloud computing. As our earlier study noted, dissipating the economic advantages of cloud computing by imposing inefficient localization requirements or limits on cross-border data flows will hurt those who depend on enhanced computer services to flourish and provide jobs. Policy makers seeking to maximize economic gains in hard times should avoid these counterproductive requirements.

For SIIA policy updates including upcoming events, news and analysis, subscribe to SIIA’s weekly policy email newsletter, Digital Policy Roundup.

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Filed Under: Government, Policy, Policy - Cloud Computing, PSIG, Software Tagged With: , ,

SIIA submits comments on Cybersecurity, Innovation and the Internet Economy

August 3, 2011 By

In our continuing effort to maintain and expand the partnership between the private sector and the government to address our nation’s cybersecurity challenges, SIIA submitted comments to the Department of Commerce on Monday in response to their recent Green Paper on Cybersecurity, Innovation and the Internet Economy.

At the heart of the Green Paper is an effort to help define the roles of the Government and the private sector in combating cybersecurity threats and protecting the systems and networks that support the infrastructure that drives the nation’s economy. In our comments, SIIA offered strong support for the Department’s approach of looking toward voluntary codes of conduct for an innovative sector such as the Internet and Information Innovation Sector (I3S). We noted that the most critical element of achieving these goals is to resist an approach that is overly-prescriptive, where mandates would have the adverse effect of slowing the development of standards in the private sector, or the unintended effect of putting U.S. companies at a disadvantage to their counterparts around the world. Given the broad, rapidly-evolving cross-section of industry that comprises the I3S, a flexible industry-led approach is the correct best path forward to achieve an ideal security framework, rather than a regulatory model.

SIIA also noted that while the primary purpose of the Green Paper is to discuss an area that is outside of the critical infrastructure segment, and to bolster security in this area, this exercise can also help to appropriately define the critical framework of what is “covered critical infrastructure,” and it can help to avoid confusion and appropriately allocate resources where they are most needed.

For SIIA policy updates including upcoming events, news and analysis, subscribe to SIIA’s weekly policy email newsletter, Digital Policy Roundup.

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Filed Under: Government, Legislation, Policy, Policy - Cybersecurity, Security, SIIA News

Patent Reform makes tracks, Cybersecurity and Privacy

June 28, 2011 By

The patent reform train continued moving down the tracks last week, as the House passed the America Invents Act (H.R. 1249) by a vote of 304-117. As passed, the bill differs in several respects from the Senate version that passed several months ago, including how it deals with fee diversion, tax strategy patents, prior user rights, prior art, and some other issues. Despite the differences and a heavy debate about the fee diversion issue, discussions are ongoing about a strategy to reconcile the two versions or perhaps seek Senate passage of the House bill. Regardless, the strong bipartisan support for the legislation in both chambers make for good odds on enactment of patent reform.

On the cybersecurity front, last week House Speaker John Boehner appointed a 12-member Republican task force to assess the state of cybersecurity, including the Administration’s proposal, and provide recommendations by October. Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX), who was appointed to lead on this issue earlier this year, will lead the task force, joined by Reps. Aderholt (R-AL), Chaffetz (R-UT), Coffman (R-CO), Goodlatte (R-VA), Hurt (R-VA), Latta (R-OH), Lungren (R-CA), McCaul (R-TX), Murphy (R-PA), Stivers (R-OH) and Terry (R-NE).

Also last week, the Supreme Court decided a case that looks to be a major victory for data publishers. In the case Sorrell vs. IMS Health the Court confirmed an appeals court decision that a Vermont law prohibiting the use of physician prescribing data for marketing purposes. While Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion expressed concerns about the “serious and unresolved” issues with respect to personal privacy, the ruling confirmed that the law unfairly imposed a first Amendment burden “based on the content of speech and the identity” of pharmaceutical manufacturing companies. In short, the ruling holds that such commercial speech is equally entitled to the protections of the First Amendment.

For SIIA policy updates including upcoming events, news and analysis, subscribe to SIIA’s weekly policy email newsletter, Digital Policy Roundup.

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Filed Under: Copyright, Court Cases, Digital Policy Roundup, Government, Patent, Policy Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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