The House Homeland Security Committee unanimously approved the National Cybersecurity and Critical Infrastructure Protection Act (HR-3696) Wednesday, advancing the bill to the full House. The bill, supported by both parties’ committee leadership, would codify the Department of Homeland Security’s existing public-private collaboration on cybersecurity issues without extending the agency’s powers. The bill would also allow critical infrastructure companies to seek liability protections under the Support Anti-terrorism by Fostering Effective Technologies Act (SAFETY) Act for cybersecurity efforts.
The House Homeland Security Committee unanimously approved the National Cybersecurity and Critical Infrastructure Protection Act (HR-3696) Wednesday, advancing the bill to the full House. The bill, supported by both parties’ committee leadership, would codify the Department of Homeland Security’s existing public-private collaboration on cybersecurity issues without extending the agency’s powers. The bill would also allow critical infrastructure companies to seek liability protections under the Support Anti-terrorism by Fostering Effective Technologies Act (SAFETY) Act for cybersecurity efforts.
Federal agencies remain underprepared to defend their own information systems against most cyberthreats, said Republicans on the Senate Homeland Security Committee Tuesday. Committee Republicans, led by ranking member Tom Coburn, R-Okla., released a report outlining “real lapses by the federal government” on internal cybersecurity, even as the government has taken on a larger role in protecting the cybersecurity of critical infrastructure components. Cybersecurity experts told us that federal agencies need to improve their own cybersecurity, but said the report doesn’t give a complete picture of the situation, and risks politicizing the cybersecurity issue.
Four industry stakeholders briefed staffers from the Senate Judiciary Committee Friday on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s covered business method (CBM) patent review program, which the committee is considering expanding as part of legislation aimed at curbing abusive patent litigation. CBM expansion is not included in the principal Senate bill on patent litigation, the Patent Transparency and Improvements Act (S-1720), but is the focus in the Patent Quality Improvement Act (S-866), which some industry observers believe could become part of an omnibus Senate patent bill. The Application Developers Alliance, a supporter of CBM program expansion, said it told the committee staffers the program is a less expensive and faster alternative to patent litigation, but noted the program currently focuses only on patents in the financial services sector. “Patent trolls use poor-quality business method patents to extort licensing fees from America’s innovators with the threat of costly, frivolous lawsuits. Entrepreneurs and job creators deserve better,” said Tim Sparapani, ADA’s vice president-law, policy and government relations, in a statement. “The CBM program gives innovators a viable way to challenge patents that never should have been approved in the first place.” Jonathan Zuck, president of the Association for Competitive Technology, urged the committee not to expand the program. Expanding the program “is just not going to help small business innovators,” he said, according to his prepared remarks. “Telling a company facing a $20,000 settlement that they should spend $250,000 to pursue CBM litigation is not a viable alternative. It’s even less attractive for that company knowing it might lose bringing the case to PTO.” CBM expansion would also create more uncertainty in the U.S. patent system and would distract from better PTO efforts to improve patent quality, Zuck said (http://bit.ly/1beP08t). The Internet Association, a CBM expansion supporter, and IBM, an opponent of CBM expansion, also briefed committee staff, a committee aide told us.
Frontier Communications’ $2 billion purchase of AT&T’s Connecticut wireline business is unlikely to mean major telcos are prepared to sell off similar statewide assets en masse, said industry experts in interviews. But they said telcos could consider similar deals in the future if it makes sense from a business perspective. Frontier said in December it’s buying AT&T’s wireline residential and business services in Connecticut, including that state’s portion of AT&T’s fiber network, as well as its U-verse video customers and some satellite-TV customers. The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2014 (CD Dec 18 p9).
The FCC circulated Wednesday night a draft program comment it plans to submit to the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) that seeks to streamline the FCC’s review process for wayside poles that railroads are building for the positive train control (PTC) safety system. The draft would also exempt some PTC infrastructure from review (http://bit.ly/1ffJpho). The FCC began developing the program comment last year amid railroads’ concerns they wouldn’t be able to meet Congress’s mandate to complete work on PTC infrastructure by Dec. 31, 2015. The railroads were concerned the existing preview process under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act would not be able to expeditiously clear each of the more than 20,000 poles in time to meet the deadline (CD Dec 19 p2). An FCC official told us the railroads have “essentially agreed” that the rules in the program comment would create a timeline that “works for them to get everything into our system, reviewed by the tribes and the states and still allow them to get everything constructed by the statutory deadline."
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) plans to “begin a multistakeholder dialogue” in early March on how to improve the notice-and-takedown system instituted as part of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), said PTO Chief Policy Officer and Director of International Affairs Shira Perlmutter during a speech Wednesday. The multistakeholder consultation on notice and takedown was one of several recommendations PTO included in a green paper on Internet-related copyright policy issues it released in July (http://1.usa.gov/1bySZcG).
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) plans to “begin a multistakeholder dialogue” in early March on how to improve the notice-and-takedown system instituted as part of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), said PTO Chief Policy Officer and Director of International Affairs Shira Perlmutter during a speech Wednesday. The multistakeholder consultation on notice and takedown was one of several recommendations PTO included in a green paper on Internet-related copyright policy issues it released in July (http://1.usa.gov/1bySZcG).
The year 2014 “may well be a watershed year for the multistakeholder model of Internet policy making,” and the U.S. plans to continue to continue defending the model while encouraging it to evolve, said NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling during a speech Tuesday. Strickling and U.S. Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy Daniel Sepulveda said at the State of the Net conference that multistakeholder bodies that have governed Internet processes need to evolve to become more inclusive of stakeholders in the developing world.
Dropbox CEO Drew Houston praised Congress for working on legislation that would curb abusive patent litigation. Houston said during a Tuesday session at the State of the Net conference that bills like the Innovation Act (HR-3309), which passed the House in December, are a good step toward removing what he called a “tax” on innovation. Dropbox has been sued by nonpracticing entities -- something that Houston said is now essentially a “rite of passage” for tech companies. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., who authored HR-3309, praised the House for passing the bill, saying the White House had supported its passage. The Senate is still considering legislation on patent litigation abuse, including the Patent Transparency and Improvements Act (S-1720). Houston also urged Congress to enact legislation to create a single national standard for addressing data breaches, which he said would be an improvement over what he called a “patchwork of standards” at the state level.