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SIIA Applauds Congressional Commitment to Fight Patent Trolls; Calls for Congressional Action to End Abusive Litigation

March 14, 2013 By

SIIA today applauded the House Judiciary Committee for addressing the pressing problem of abusive patent litigation. SIIA member companies Adobe Systems, Inc. and SAS Institute Inc. will testify at today’s hearing, held by the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet.

Without federal action, patent trolls will continue to damage the economy, hurt America’s tech industry and threaten innovation. Today’s hearing is important for drawing attention to the harmful effects of patent trolls.  We are hopeful that policymakers will work together to enact sensible changes – such as the SHIELD Act – that will help curb to abusive patent troll litigation.  Through this and other proposals, such as efforts to shift the burden of costs when one party is seeking discovery that goes well beyond what is necessary, SIIA is committed to working with Congress and the Administration to find effective solutions to the problem.

The one thing that is clear is that patent trolls are doing real and significant damage to American businesses.   Abusive lawsuits brought by patent trolls have cost the U.S. economy $500 billion over the last 20 years, and the annual costs of these patent assertions have increased 500 percent since 2005 to more than $29 billion each year.  That’s money that would be far better spent on efforts to hire more tech workers, advance American research and development efforts or invest in new technologies.

View Adobe and SAS’s testimony.

Ken WaschKen Wasch is President of SIIA. Follow the SIIA Policy team on Twitter at @SIIAPolicy.

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Filed Under: Policy, Policy - Intellectual Property Tagged With: ,

SIIA Submits Testimony to Congressional Forum on Information Technology

May 15, 2012 By

Last Friday, Representatives Elijah Cummings (MD) and Gerry Connelly (VA) hosted a Congressional Forum on Information Technology at the Fairfax County, Virginia Government Center to review government’s efforts to leverage innovative technology to reduce cost and improve citizen services. The forum featured testimony from Federal CIO Steven Van Roekel, as well as industry representatives including SIIA Public Sector Innovation Group Board Member, David Mihalchik of Google. SIIA was pleased to have been asked by the Members to provide testimony for the record.

SIIA’s testimony focused on the important transformative benefits of cloud computing – economic growth, choice and lower cost — and encouraged Congress to consider these when looking at cloud computing. We also highlighted the key security benefits that can be realized by implementing cloud computing, discussed the importance of the 25 Point Plan to Reform Federal IT, and explored the inter-relationship between Cloud First, FedRAMP, the Shared Services Strategy and the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative.
Overall, the interaction between Reps. Cummings and Connelly and the forum witnesses was thoughtful and successfully highlighted the issues of importance to government and industry alike as the federal government moves ahead with cloud computing. It was particularly encouraging to see these key members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee engage on an issue of such great importance to SIIA members and the federal IT industry as a whole and we applaud them for their effort.

Read the full text of SIIA’s statement.

Michael Hettinger is VP for the Public Sector Innovation Group (PSIG) at SIIA. Follow his PSIG tweets at @SIIAPSIG.

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

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: ,

Congress: Let’s Battle Cyber Crime Together

December 1, 2011 By

Cyber threats are more sophisticated and targeted than ever and are growing at an unprecedented rate–and it makes sense that Congress is paying more attention to such a significant issue.

Today, the House Small Business Committee held a cyber hearing on protecting small businesses, where Phyllis Schneck, Vice President for McAfee, Inc., testified on behalf of SIIA. And yesterday, Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) and Ranking Member Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD) unveiled new bipartisan cyber security legislation to provide the government “the authority to share classified cyber threat information on potential attacks with approved American companies.”

There’s no doubt that American companies need help dealing with cyber crime. McAfee Labs finds, for example, that both malicious URLs and malware have grown almost six-fold in the last two years, and that 2010 saw more new malware than all previous years combined. Likewise, cyber crime perpetrators have evolved from simple, low-budget, hackers into well-financed criminal operations that contribute to a multi-million dollar cyber crime industry.

But Congress must be careful to allow companies to attack cyber crime head-on, without limiting their ability to innovate and grow.

There are two schools of thought on government’s role in achieving a desired outcome:  one that posits that regulatory mandates are the best way to incent good behavior (in this case, strong cyber security measures); and, alternatively, one that asserts that positive outcomes are best achieved via positive incentives.  

The heavily regulatory approach would not necessarily make organizations more secure – just more compliant. And it would dampen innovation too. On the other hand, positive incentives have a higher probability of success in two ways: a higher chance of better actual outcomes, and a higher probability of producing legislative success.  The private sector responds to incentives, and aligning the interests of the private sector with the outcomes that are in the national interest makes sense. Doing so could also provide rare proof that the phrase “win-win” is not always a cliché. 

Postive incentives are clearly the most effective way to drive higher levels of trust and actual cooperation between the private sector and government – vital things needed to produce real success.

Learn more about today’s testimony on McAfee’s blog.

Laura Greenback is Communications Director at SIIA.

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