A report commissioned by the left-leaning Progressive Policy Institute argues that “progressives” should wholeheartedly back efforts to solve the problems caused by abusive patent litigation filed by patent assertion entities (http://bit.ly/151Jx1M). PAE lawsuits are “sucking the lifeblood of innovation out of the American economy,” said Shook, Hardy partner Phil Goldberg, the report’s author, during a conference call on the release the report Tuesday. PAE-initiated litigation has “mushroomed” over the past decade amid the “perfect storm” caused by the rising number of patents that resulted from the increasing economic strength of software and consumer electronics companies, Goldberg said in the report. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has seen a rapid rise in the number of patent applications over the past 20 years, and many consumer electronics include technology covered by hundreds of thousands of patents -- an average smartphone may hold technology covered by 250,000 patents, the report said. This convergence of technologies “has created seemingly endless opportunities for patent holders to allege that others’ products are infringing on their patents,” the report said.
With the shutdown of numerous government websites, public access to government information will be affected in a way it wasn’t during the last government shutdown that lasted several weeks in 1995 to ‘96, several experts told us Tuesday. Some significant government resources such as Thomas, the online legislative database of the Library of Congress, pulled about faces Tuesday to stay running, but other major informational sites such as the FTC aren’t accessible. “Times have changed in terms of how agencies communicate with the public, so it is a different ball of wax if a website goes dark than if it had in the ‘90s,” said Lisa Gilbert, director of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division. “It will have ramifications for consumers and for small businesses."
A report commissioned by the left-leaning Progressive Policy Institute argues that “progressives” should wholeheartedly back efforts to solve the problems caused by abusive patent litigation filed by patent assertion entities (http://bit.ly/151Jx1M). PAE lawsuits are “sucking the lifeblood of innovation out of the American economy,” said Shook, Hardy partner Phil Goldberg, the report’s author, during a conference call on the release the report Tuesday. PAE-initiated litigation has “mushroomed” over the past decade amid the “perfect storm” caused by the rising number of patents that resulted from the increasing economic strength of software and consumer electronics companies, Goldberg said in the report. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has seen a rapid rise in the number of patent applications over the past 20 years, and many consumer electronics include technology covered by hundreds of thousands of patents -- an average smartphone may hold technology covered by 250,000 patents, the report said. This convergence of technologies “has created seemingly endless opportunities for patent holders to allege that others’ products are infringing on their patents,” the report said.
AT&T said it closed on its deal to buy former Alltel spectrum licenses and other assets from Atlantic Tele-Network, shortly after the FCC’s Wireless Bureau cleared the deal Friday (http://soc.att.com/16CjtaH). The $780 million purchase, announced in January, gives AT&T access to spectrum, mainly on the 850 MHz band, which covers 4.5 million potential customers in rural portions of Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Ohio, North Carolina and South Carolina. The FCC’s Friday order authorizing the deal indicates it still has concerns about the transfer, which “will likely cause some competitive and other public interest harms in several local markets” (http://bit.ly/18Swiha). The agency paused its review of the deal in August because it needed additional details on AT&T’s plans to migrate ATN’s prepaid customers onto its network (CD Aug 28 p11). AT&T has since committed to “undertake an aggressive build-out schedule” to upgrade the ATN service areas to its 4G HSPA+ service within 15 months of the deal’s closing and LTE within 18 months, as well as committed to operate Alltel’s 3G Evolution Data Optimized network through June 2015 to “ensure a reasonable transition for providers who have been relying on CDMA and Evolution Data Optimized roaming through the Allied networks,” the FCC said in the order. Allied is a wholly owned subsidiary of ATN. AT&T also agreed to “certain commitments with respect to customer transition and migration,” notably providing ATN subscribers with a comparable phone for free that does not require an extended contract. AT&T also said it’s “exploring opportunities to monetize some or all of its remaining wireless tower assets. The carrier said it will post its Q3 results Oct. 23.
The FCC approved AT&T’s proposed buy of 39 Verizon Wireless lower 700 MHz B-block licenses and related spectrum agreements the two carriers are pursuing through Grain Management, said the Wireless Bureau Tuesday night (http://bit.ly/14rrnmG), as was expected (CD Sept 4 p9). The deal, announced in late January, gives AT&T licenses that cover 42 million people in 18 states, including the Chicago, Cincinnati, Los Angeles and Oklahoma City markets. Verizon will receive AWS licenses in western markets, including Los Angeles, Phoenix, Fresno, Calif., and Portland, Ore. (CD Jan 28 p9). The deal won’t result in AT&T exceeding the spectrum screen in markets affected by the deal, said the bureau, saying it did a deeper study of AT&T’s spectrum below 1 GHz in four markets because of public interest groups’ concerns. Although that study found that AT&T’s spectrum in the Lake Charles, La., and Texas 18-Edwards markets raised some potential competition issues, the bureau decided the deal’s benefits outweighed those concerns. The order required Verizon Wireless to meet the AWS buildout conditions it agreed to in a previous spectrum transaction last year: providing coverage to at least 30 percent of the total population covered by its new licenses within three years, and to 70 percent of each license’s area within seven years. The licenses AT&T is buying in the deal already included similar rules. Public interest and small-carrier groups had asked the FCC to impose conditions on the deal for roaming, interoperability, handset exclusivity, early termination fees and special access rules. The suggested conditions weren’t narrow enough to fix harms the groups claimed the deal could cause, said the bureau. Commission scrutiny of AT&T’s spectrum holdings below 1 GHz is “a sign that FCC staff at least could be receptive to the calls by Bell rivals/critics for imposing further limits on carrier spectrum holdings below 1 GHz, including in the planned broadcast/wireless two-sided ‘incentive’ auction,” said Stifel Nicolaus analyst Christopher King Wednesday in an email to investors. The FCC’s review of AT&T’s proposed purchase of former Alltel spectrum licenses from Atlantic Tele-Network remains paused after agency officials asked for more information on AT&T’s plan to migrate prepaid customers affected by the deal onto its network (CD Aug 28 p11). Although AT&T has since provided a response to the agency’s concerns, “we suspect the FCC will need a little longer to finalize that review,” King said.
The FCC Wireless Bureau’s decision to temporarily halt its unofficial 180-day clock for review of AT&T’s bid to buy former Alltel spectrum licenses from Atlantic Tele-Network was criticized by AT&T, but is consistent with past practices, other industry observers said. The delay was criticized by pro-free market interest groups. The FCC paused its review in order to seek further information from AT&T on its plans to migrate ATN’s prepaid customers onto its network (CD Aug 28 p11).
Link Hoewing is stepping down from Verizon, where he spent the last 29 years, most recently as assistant vice president-Internet and technology policy, he said in a blog post Wednesday (http://vz.to/1dQJt8z). “Making good policy is not easy,” he said, and requires a careful balancing of different interests and ideas. Reacting quickly is less important than thinking deeply, he said, citing the storied habit of Abraham Lincoln to write out letters in the heat of the moment, but put them in his desk for later reflection. “We don’t live in a paper and pen world anymore, but it would not hurt us to pause and reflect more often than we do in thinking about policy or reacting to the ideas of others,” Hoewing said. “Constructive criticism often helps move the ball forward. Quick, reactive commentary can sometimes do just the opposite.” Good policy also depends on defining the problem correctly, he said. “In far too many cases, we debate issues that are not really important to solving a real public policy problem because we are not asking the right questions and hence not really defining the issue that needs to be addressed.” It’s also crucial to respect the people involved in policy making, he said. “The vast majority of those participating in policy debates have good motives and have principles that are at the heart of what they support and say,” Hoewing said. Although there may be an “occasional bad apple,” it’s important to focus on opponents’ ideas, rather than attack their motives, he said. Hoewing told us his biggest accomplishments at Verizon were helping lead the effort among then-RBOCs to push through the Telecom Act; managing a real-life transition to a non-regulated environment in Telecom New Zealand; and helping work through rule changes at the FCC that helped spur investment in fiber.
Link Hoewing is stepping down from Verizon, where he spent the last 29 years, most recently as assistant vice president-Internet and technology policy, he said in a blog post Wednesday (http://vz.to/1dQJt8z). “Making good policy is not easy,” he said, and requires a careful balancing of different interests and ideas. Reacting quickly is less important than thinking deeply, he said, citing the storied habit of Abraham Lincoln to write out letters in the heat of the moment, but put them in his desk for later reflection. “We don’t live in a paper and pen world anymore, but it would not hurt us to pause and reflect more often than we do in thinking about policy or reacting to the ideas of others,” Hoewing said. “Constructive criticism often helps move the ball forward. Quick, reactive commentary can sometimes do just the opposite.” Good policy also depends on defining the problem correctly, he said. “In far too many cases, we debate issues that are not really important to solving a real public policy problem because we are not asking the right questions and hence not really defining the issue that needs to be addressed.” It’s also crucial to respect the people involved in policy making, he said. “The vast majority of those participating in policy debates have good motives and have principles that are at the heart of what they support and say,” Hoewing said. Although there may be an “occasional bad apple,” it’s important to focus on opponents’ ideas, rather than attack their motives, he said. Hoewing told us his biggest accomplishments at Verizon were helping lead the effort among then-RBOCs to push through the Telecom Act; managing a real-life transition to a non-regulated environment in Telecom New Zealand; and helping work through rule changes at the FCC that helped spur investment in fiber.
Version 3.0 of the MHL (Mobile High-Definition Link) specification, available for download early next month, is expected to ship in products beginning next year, Judy Chen, president of Silicon Image subsidiary MHL, told Consumer Electronics Daily. The next-gen spec, announced Monday, will double the bandwidth of the current interface, making it suitable for 4K resolution content with a wider color gamut, MHL said. A new feature is a high-speed data channel that will support file transfers between a laptop or external drive and a phone, Chen said. Current products with MHL connectivity are not upgradeable to MHL 3.0, she said. Other features include an improved Remote Control Protocol supporting touch screens, keyboards and mice; power charging up to 10 watts; backward compatibility with MHL 1 and 2 devices; compatibility with HDCP 2.2; and support of Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD, multiple displays and multiple connector types, MHL said. Users will be able to watch 4K content from a smartphone on a TV while using the TV’s remote control to control stop, rewind, fast forward and pause functions; enabling game play on a 4K display with no lag; turn a mobile device into a portable PC by adding peripherals including a mouse and keyboard; and interact with a car’s infotainment system through a smartphone while it’s charging, MHL said. MHL has an installed base of more than 330 million MHL 1- and 2-enabled products from more than 200 adopters, it said. The group plans to expand beyond the mobile-to-TV interface this fall to become “a relevant connectivity standard for audio/video receivers, Blu-ray Disc players, game consoles, and set-top boxes,” it said. Further details will be available later this year, it said.
Pushing content from a mobile device to a TV screen -- a content-sharing feature that Samsung debuted in its AllShare technology at the Galaxy 4 launch last spring -- pushed further into the technology mainstream this week. Verizon and Motorola bowed a new family of Droid phones, including the Mini, Ultra and Maxx, with Wi-Fi Direct-based Miracast under the hood. And Google’s new Asus-built 7-inch Nexus 7 tablet -- announced Wednesday -- can be paired with a $35 device called Chromecast, which plugs into the USB port on an HDTV, enabling viewers to “cast” online content to the TV screen. Microsoft, meanwhile, announced embedded support for Miracast last spring in Windows 8.1. It could be a steep climb for all of the technologies, said John Buffone, analyst with NPD Group. According to NPD data, 94 percent of smartphone and tablet users aren’t aware of Miracast since the certification of the technology last September. The primary challenges for all of the sharing technologies are “more or less the same,” Buffone said, including delivering features consumers want in an easy-to-use manner and generating awareness. Google’s Chromecast works with Netflix, YouTube, Google Play Movies & TV, and Google Play Music, Google said. More apps, “like Pandora,” are coming soon, said Google’s Sundar Pichai, senior vice president-Android, Chrome & Apps, in a blog post, calling Chromecast an “easy solution” for viewing content from mobile devices on USB-equipped TVs throughout the house. Google is including a three-month free subscription to Netflix with the device, which could be a “small, but important positive” for Netflix subscriber growth in the second half, “depending on consumer excitement for Chromecast,” said BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield. After connecting Chromecast, viewers can use a smartphone, tablet or laptop to browse and cast content to the TV, eliminating the need for a remote control for functions including play and pause and volume up or down. Users can multitask while casting programs -- send emails or surf the Web -- while watching TV, Pichai said. The device works across platforms including Android tablets and smartphones, iPhones and iPads and Chrome for Mac and Windows, with more to come, he said. A new feature in the Chrome browser, currently in beta, allows viewers to project any browser tab to the TV, including images from a photo-sharing site or a video clip. “We're excited for people to try it out and give us their feedback,” Pichai said. Google has developed Google Cast, a technology that enables developers to build “consistent, intuitive” multiscreen experiences across mobile devices and TVs, Pichai said. Google launched a preview version of Google Cast for developers to incorporate into their apps, Pichai said. More supported apps are “coming soon,” and Google expects the technology to be embedded in hardware products in the future, he said.