In case you thought there was already too many privacy and data security bills in the U.S. Congress, several more were introduced last week. Notably, Senators Al Franken (D-MN) and Dick Blumenthal (D-CT) introduced the “Location Privacy Protection Act,” Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) introduced their “Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance (GPS) Act,” and on the data security front, Commerce Chairman Rockefeller (D-WV) and Mark Pryor (D-AR) introduced the “Data Security Breach Notification Act.”

At the same time, one of the bills receiving the most attention hasn’t yet been formally introduced.  That is, Mary Bono Mack’s draft “SAFE Data Act” was the subject of a Subcommittee legislative hearing last week, and the Chairwoman has made clear her intentions to move forward to markup the legislation in the near future.

SIIA is currently assessing the long list of proposals, and the outlook in Congress for the remainder of 2011.  Even more now, there is considerable jurisdictional wrangling among the key Committees of jurisdiction on these issues, which could lead to more smoke than fire for the remainder of 2011.  Regardless of how this plays out, SIIA will continue to work with members and policymakers as they explore the need for new laws and regulations regarding the collection and protection of personal information.

On the patent reform front, as reported last week, it’s still expected that the legislation will be voted on by the House this week.  As of Tuesday a.m., House leadership was reportedly hammering-out some of the remaining key details regarding the controversial issue of PTO fee retention and future funding.  That vote is expected to occur later this week. Stay tuned.

As expected, yesterday the Board of Directors of ICANN approved a proposal to add hundreds and possibly thousands of new generic top level domains (gTLDs) to the Internet. The proposal has been years in the making, and the 400-page Draft Applicant Guidebook that describes it has undergone seven major revisions. SIIA believes that the decision to approve the Guidebook represents a significant threat to copyright owners. Intellectual property owners will need to familiarize themselves quickly with the Rights Protection Mechanisms in the gTLD Applicant Guidebook, and expend even more resources and time in enforcing their rights against cybersquatters and infringers.