The White House endorsed HR-3309 Tuesday, telling the House Rules Committee in a statement it believes the bill “builds on the important patent reforms contained in the America Invents Act ... and successfully implemented by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The bill would improve incentives for future innovation while protecting the overall integrity of the patent system” (http://1.usa.gov/1avFvNn). The House Rules Committee at our deadline was considering rules for floor activity on HR-3309, which is to come to the floor Thursday. The White House said HR-3309 includes many of the legislative recommendations it made in early June to remedy what it called abusive patent litigation (CD June 5 p12), but expressed concerns about the bill’s provisions on post-issuance review proceedings, including provisions on patent claim construction. House Intellectual Property Subcommittee ranking member Mel Watt, D-N.C., told House Rules that the White House letter was not a total endorsement of the bill.

The House Communications Subcommittee plans to start to revamp the Communications Act, Republican lawmakers said Tuesday. House Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., and Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., said they plan to hold several hearings and release several white papers in 2014, with an eye for rewriting the Communications Act in 2015. They spoke during a Google Hangout video session. Initial industry response was positive, saying change is needed.

AT&T’s proposed elimination of long-term contracts for special access services (CD Nov 26 p3) would harm competition and hurt consumers, several CLECs said in filings Monday. The competitive providers asked the FCC to reject the proposal, which they claim is effectively an attempt to raise prices. Some said they're heartened by Chairman Tom Wheeler’s remarks Monday (CD Dec 3 p1) on the importance of regulating during market failures. The special access market, they say, is a prime example of a failed market. An AT&T spokesman told us IP is a “superior” technology and will offer a “cost advantage” over current technologies. He directed us to a blog post last week by Senior Vice President-Federal Regulatory Bob Quinn (http://bit.ly/IdRQPS), which cites the benefits of moving from TDM to IP-based services.

In his first major policy address as FCC chairman, Tom Wheeler said it’s important to stay out of competitive markets where they exist, while backing exercising a strong regulatory hand where needed -- including on the Internet. “If the facts and data determine that a market is competitive, the need for FCC intervention decreases,” he said Monday at his alma mater, Ohio State University. “I have zero interest in imposing new regulations on a competitive market just because we can.” The speech (http://fcc.us/1cOJRlT) was webcast.

A panel of judges upheld the FCC ban on political ads on public radio and TV stations. The opinion, issued Monday following a rehearing, came from a panel of 11 judges in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. One judge presented a partial dissent and partial concurrence, and two judges dissented completely. The en banc court overturned a previous 9th Circuit decision that struck down the ban (CD April 13/12 p2). The decision stemmed from a case brought by the Minority Television Project, owner of KMTP-TV San Francisco, against an FCC order that found the station liable for a $10,000 fine when it ran ads for for-profit companies (CD April 13/12 p2). The Justice Department requested the rehearing (CD Nov 29/12 p17).

The federal government should farm out management of its spectrum to the private sector “if the goal of spectrum use and management is economic efficiency,” said the Phoenix Center in a policy paper released Monday. It said the FCC National Broadband Plan’s proposal to increase the amount of spectrum available for commercial use by 300 MHz by 2015 “identified some arguably low-hanging fruit.” To achieve that goal will require reallocation of some of the 1,687 MHz of “beachfront” spectrum the government owns between 225 MHz and 3.7 GHz, said the Phoenix Center report.

The lines of communication need to stay open to promote telecom policies that will benefit state, local and tribal governments, said municipal leaders on a National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors/NATOA webinar Monday. Municipalities made their voices heard at the FCC and on Capitol Hill this year, but more needs to be done for consumer protection and to protect franchise taxes, they said.

The European Parliament inquiry into U.S. mass surveillance appears headed toward a wishy-washy conclusion, said several lawmakers Monday at another in a series of webcast hearings by the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) Committee. A co-author of the final report discussed a working document on U.S. surveillance activities regarding EU data and its possible legal implications for existing trans-Atlantic agreements and cooperation. There’s no proof now that the U.S. has abused the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP) or Passenger Name Record (PNR) system, said co-rapporteur Axel Voss, of the European People’s Party and Germany, and it’s unclear what would replace them if they're revoked. The few LIBE members present slammed the document for being too deferential to the U.S. and European Commission. Friday, the Centre for European Policy Studies issued policy recommendations it said could help the Parliament fully exercise its duty to safeguard citizens’ privacy rights.

Privacy advocates and industry representatives have heard nothing about the White House’s long-promised consumer privacy bill, despite indications more than a month ago the proposed legislative language was creeping toward a release, they said in interviews last week. “We had heard it was under review, but we have no idea when to expect anything,” said Jerry Cerasale, senior vice president-government affairs at the Direct Marketing Association, which works on self-regulation for data-driven marketers. “I haven’t seen or heard anything for a while,” said Electronic Privacy Information Center Consumer Protection Counsel David Jacobs. “It’s disappointing."

Any break-up and purchase of Time Warner Cable (CD Nov 26 p11; Nov 25 p16) by some combination of Cox Communications, Charter Communications or Comcast would likely face a stronger challenge at the FCC than at the Department of Justice or FTC, said several cable attorneys and industry observers in interviews last week. Individual cable operators’ lack of market power relative to some other sources of video programming would undercut antitrust arguments against such a deal, said the attorneys. Public interest groups disagree, contending operators have significant market power even though none are nationwide like DBS companies. “The cable operators will make a strong argument that any deal like this will be pro-competitive,” said Fletcher Heald cable attorney Paul Feldman. “They'll say they need to get bigger to stay competitive with the likes of DirecTV and telephone companies."