The FCC’s upcoming incentive auctions will continue to be one of the Office of Engineering and Technology’s top priorities during the agency’s leadership transition, said OET Chief Julius Knapp Wednesday during a National Spectrum Management Association (NSMA) conference. The FCC would work on the incentive auctions “no matter who the chairman is” because the auction preparatory process involves statutory requirements, he said. The FCC and OET will remain as dedicated as ever to making more spectrum available for use, and there is “every reason to expect” that will continue under new leadership, Knapp said. The Obama administration is also hoping to make additional spectrum available by freeing up a total of 500 MHz of federal spectrum by 2020.
The U.S. patent system is not entirely broken, but reforms beyond the America Invents Act (AIA) are needed to fix issues the system continues to face, a group of current and former federal judges said Tuesday at an event sponsored by the Federalist Society and George Mason University School of Law’s Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property. The judges credited AIA, which Congress passed in 2011, with helping improve conditions at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO).
The U.S. patent system is not entirely broken, but reforms beyond the America Invents Act (AIA) are needed to fix issues the system continues to face, a group of current and former federal judges said Tuesday at an event sponsored by the Federalist Society and George Mason University School of Law’s Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property. The judges credited AIA, which Congress passed in 2011, with helping improve conditions at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO).
The U.S. patent system is not entirely broken, but reforms beyond the America Invents Act (AIA) are needed to fix issues the system continues to face, a group of current and former federal judges said Tuesday at an event sponsored by the Federalist Society and George Mason University School of Law’s Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property. The judges credited AIA, which Congress passed in 2011, with helping improve conditions at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO).
The U.S. and ITU hope to return to a more consensus-based approach to international telecom and Internet policy Tuesday when the ITU convenes the World Telecommunication/ICT Policy Forum (WTPF), industry and government officials told us. WTPF is the ITU’s first major telecom summit since the controversial World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT), which met in Dubai in December. The WCIT, convened to update the treaty-level International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs), resulted in a series of fractious votes and a revised treaty that only 89 ITU member nations signed. The U.S. was among the 55 nations that did not sign the ITRs, citing the existence of Internet governance-related language within the ITRs and in an attached non-binding resolution. The U.S. remains a signatory of the original ITRs adopted in 1988 (CD Dec 17 p1). WTPF will also tackle Internet-related topics, but industry insiders told us it will be a far different conference than WCIT.
The U.S. and ITU hope to return to a more consensus-based approach to international telecom and Internet policy Tuesday when the ITU convenes the World Telecommunication/ICT Policy Forum (WTPF), industry and government officials told us. WTPF is the ITU’s first major telecom summit since the controversial World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT), which met in Dubai in December. The WCIT, convened to update the treaty-level International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs), resulted in a series of fractious votes and a revised treaty that only 89 ITU member nations signed. The U.S. was among the 55 nations that did not sign the ITRs, citing the existence of Internet governance-related language within the ITRs and in an attached non-binding resolution. The U.S. remains a signatory of the original ITRs adopted in 1988 (WID Dec 17 p1). WTPF will also tackle Internet-related topics, but industry insiders told us it will be a far different conference than WCIT.
Rapid growth in the Chinese telecom equipment manufacturing sector is a threat to U.S. national security because it’s a possible source of cyberattacks on U.S. communications infrastructure, said retired U.S. Army Brig. Gen. John Adams in a report released Wednesday, commissioned by the lobbying and policy group Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM). The report said U.S. national security and the nation’s defense-industrial base are threatened by an over-reliance on foreign suppliers for “critical defense materials,” including telecom equipment (http://bit.ly/144fqnC). The AAM report follows the release earlier this week of a Defense Department report to Congress that said at least some cyberattacks on U.S. government and civilian computer networks “appear to be attributable directly to the Chinese government and military.” China is waging these attacks to gather information on U.S. defense, diplomatic and economic interests “that support U.S. national defense programs,” the Defense Department said in its report (http://1.usa.gov/13ecTZb). The Defense Department report makes it “all the more urgent” that the U.S. restore domestic production of telecom equipment and other equipment needed for military use, Adams said at a news conference Wednesday.
Rapid growth in the Chinese telecom equipment manufacturing sector is a threat to U.S. national security because it’s a possible source of cyberattacks on U.S. communications infrastructure, said retired U.S. Army Brig. Gen. John Adams in a report released Wednesday, commissioned by the lobbying and policy group Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM). The report said U.S. national security and the nation’s defense-industrial base are threatened by an over-reliance on foreign suppliers for “critical defense materials,” including telecom equipment (http://bit.ly/144fqnC). The AAM report follows the release earlier this week of a Defense Department report to Congress that said at least some cyberattacks on U.S. government and civilian computer networks “appear to be attributable directly to the Chinese government and military.” China is waging these attacks to gather information on U.S. defense, diplomatic and economic interests “that support U.S. national defense programs,” the Defense Department said in its report (http://1.usa.gov/13ecTZb). The Defense Department report makes it “all the more urgent” that the U.S. restore domestic production of telecom equipment and other equipment needed for military use, Adams said at a news conference Wednesday.
The FTC and the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division will continue to devote significant resources to examining competition issues in the technology sector, officials from both agencies said Tuesday during a Practising Law Institute seminar. FTC Chairman Edith Ramirez has been “very explicit” about her expectation that her agency will continue to focus on the high-tech sector, as well as the healthcare and energy markets, said Richard Feinstein, director of the FTC Competition Bureau. Those are areas where the agency has devoted most of its resources over the last decade, and no one should “expect that to change in the near term,” he said.
The FTC and the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division will continue to devote significant resources to examining competition issues in the technology sector, officials from both agencies said Tuesday during a Practising Law Institute seminar. FTC Chairman Edith Ramirez has been “very explicit” about her expectation that her agency will continue to focus on the high-tech sector, as well as the healthcare and energy markets, said Richard Feinstein, director of the FTC Competition Bureau. Those are areas where the agency has devoted most of its resources over the last decade, and no one should “expect that to change in the near term,” he said.