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Digital Policy Roundup: Sen. Cyber Bill Introduced, IT and IP implications of FY13 Budget, and Patent Reform Rules Proposed

February 14, 2012 By

Cyber

The long-awaited Senate comprehensive cybersecurity legislation, the Cybersecurity Act of 2012, was officially introduced this afternoon by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Susan Collins (R-ME), Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA).  And Sen. Lieberman’s Homeland Security Cmte. will hold a legislative hearing on Thursday.

SIIA issued a statement in response to the legislation expressing support for the significant progress in striking a balance between preserving innovation and identifying and regulating critical infrastructure, and urging swift, bipartisan support for legislation that would advance critical cybersecurity priorities to immediately enhance our cybersecurity preparedness.

IT Implications of President’s FY13 Budget

The President’s FY13 budget proposal introduced this week includes a couple key items that reflect the continued support for IP protection.  First, the proposal includes a $5 million increase in funding to combat piracy and counterfeiting, raising the total spent to combat IP crimes by the USG to $40 million. Also, the budget provides support for the PTO’s new fee-setting authority and termination of fee diversion, estimating that the PTO will collect $2.9 billion in 2013, but any amount received in excess of $2.9 billion and deposited in shall remain available to the PTO until expended.

On the Fed. IT funding front, U.S. government spending on information technology would decline 1.2 percent next fiscal year, as part of the efforts to “do more with less,”  increasing efficiency through the use of cloud computing, shared services and mobile technology.

Regardless of the budget politics in an election year, these are both very significant elements, as they serve as markers for where the Obama Administration sees funding priorities that affect software and digital content companies.

Patent Reform

The US Patent & Trademark Office released notices of proposed rulemakings last week regarding a number of key provisions of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, including review of the new inter partes and post grant rules.  Comments must be submitted by early April.  Proposed fees for these procedures, as well as higher fees for applications, also were introduced, with the goal of reducing the patent backlog.  The PTO will hold a public hearing on fee proposals on February 15 at the PTO, and February 23 in Sunnyvale, CA, and the deadline for comment on the proposals is February 29th.

ACTA

With the European Parliament is scheduled to consider ACTA in June, the past few weeks have seen several EU member states, including Poland, Latvia and the Czech Republic, withdraw their intent to ratify ACTA or delayed the decision in their national parliaments in response to domestic protests.  On February 10th, in anticipation of these protests the European Commission released a “Factsheet on the Transparency of ACTA Negotiations.”

Ed-Tech Interoperability Standards

On Monday, SIIA released a Primer on K-20 Education Interoperability Standards that provides a framework for understanding interoperability standards that impact educational data, digital content, and software applications. The primer is a component of SIIA’s ongoing efforts to help inform on technical issues that are important to the success of educational technologies.

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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Digital Policy Roundup: Administration releases latest cloud guidance, Cyber 2012 continues in Senate

February 7, 2012 By

Today, GSA released its latest policy memo, a guidance document for agencies and cloud service providers, describing the general Concept of Operations (CONOPS) for the FedRAMP, the government-wide program that provides a standardized approach to security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring for cloud-based services. The release of this guidance is timely, with GSA’s Dave McClure joining us at our Cloud/GOV Conference next Thursday.

In the Senate, indications this week are that the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will hold a hearing next week on cybersecurity legislation. The legislation is still expected to be introduced later this week or early next, and drafts continue to circulate. While Majority Leader Reid signaled in late 2011 his intention for the Senate to consider legislation in this first legislative work period, it’s now clear that this will be pushed back slightly, at least until after the President’s day recess.

And the pressure will begin mounting on House and Senate negotiators to reach a deal to extend the payroll tax cut currently set to expire at the end of the month. Again, extension of the key technology industry R&D tax credit, as well as broader corporate tax reform, will be linked to these discussions, along with other critical “extenders.” The R&D tax cut has been expired since late 2011, on of 14 times it has been allowed to expire in its 30-year history.

Last week, SIIA submitted comments to the FTC in response to their request for input on facial recognition technology. In offering to work with the Commission as they map out an approach for making sure that the public is able to benefit from the further development and deployment of these innovative techniques while still preserving privacy, SIIA urged the to recognize that it has at hand a workable general framework for evaluating and considering the privacy implications of facial recognition technology.

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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House and Senate Committee leaders give positive signals on key tech policy issues

January 24, 2011 By

Last week, House Judiciary Sbcmte. Chair for IP, Competition and the Internet Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) made his priorities public. No real surprises, but it served as official confirmation that patent reform, copyright enforcement and net neutrality are at the top of the list. Not wasting any time, the Subcommittee will hold its first hearing on Patent Reform this Wednesday. Indeed, the new Committee structure instituted by new Chair Lamar Smith (R-TX) was intended to grant a substantially greater focus on IP protection and Internet issues. As a founding leader of the Congressional Internet Caucus, Chairman Goodlatte is just the guy to champion many of these key issues to the benefit of innovation, e-commerce and job growth.

Meanwhile, the Senate Judiciary Cmte. priority list looks similar, with Chairman Leahy (D-VT) recently highlighting his priorities to include an even broader slate, adding revision of the electronic communications privacy (ECPA) law and wiretapping (CALEA) to patent reform and combating online copyright infringement and counterfeiting (COICA). In fact, the Senate Cmte. is moving even faster than its House counterpart by moving to consider draft patent reform legislation this Thursday.

Of course, we already knew that privacy would be on the front burner in the House and Senate Commerce Committees. That’s continuing to take shape as well. Recent reports continue to indicate that Sen. Kerry (D-MA) will lead on this, with hearings likely in mid-February and his draft legislation on the issue likely to be introduced in the near future. Importantly, Mary Bono Mack (R-CA), Chair of the House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade, on Thursday sent a letter to her colleagues confirming her commitment to “work diligently” on the issue of privacy “both online and offline,” while also reiterating the complexity of the issue and her commitment to provide for “careful consideration and not ‘knee-jerk’ solutions.” Amen!

In all, while there are many issues Republicans and Democrats radically disagree on, some of these technology issues, like Patent reform and IP protection could possibly be in the right place, at the right time. Stay tuned.

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