Significant AT&T money now backs the House speakership of Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. The carrier’s political action committee has given far more, by many tens of thousands of dollars, to Ryan’s joint fundraising committee than it has to past speakers and also more than the PACs of other major telecom and media players are giving to Ryan’s effort -- or to anyone at all in the political realm, according to Federal Election Commission records. Ryan is intent on laying out a 2017 agenda including telecom policy overhaul, with the possibility of a revived Telecom Act rewrite in the works (see 1608080022).

New America’s Open Technology Institute, Color Of Change and the Center for Media Justice filed a complaint at the FCC against the Baltimore City Police Department (BPD) for its “extensive and racially-biased use” of fake cell towers. The department uses unlicensed cellsite simulators (CS simulators), or stingrays, to locate and track cellphones in what the groups argue is a violation of the Communications Act. A filing asks the FCC to bring an enforcement action against the BPD.

New America’s Open Technology Institute, Color Of Change and the Center for Media Justice filed a complaint at the FCC against the Baltimore City Police Department (BPD) for its “extensive and racially-biased use” of fake cell towers. The department uses unlicensed cellsite simulators (CS simulators), or stingrays, to locate and track cellphones in what the groups argue is a violation of the Communications Act. A filing asks the FCC to bring an enforcement action against the BPD.

Significant AT&T money now backs the House speakership of Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. The carrier’s political action committee has given far more, by many tens of thousands of dollars, to Ryan’s joint fundraising committee than it has to past speakers and also more than the PACs of other major telecom and media players are giving to Ryan’s effort -- or to anyone at all in the political realm, according to Federal Election Commission records. Ryan is intent on laying out a 2017 agenda including telecom policy overhaul, with the possibility of a revived Telecom Act rewrite in the works (see 1608080022).

Significant AT&T money now backs the House speakership of Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. The carrier’s political action committee has given far more, by many tens of thousands of dollars, to Ryan’s joint fundraising committee than it has to past speakers and also more than the PACs of other major telecom and media players are giving to Ryan’s effort -- or to anyone at all in the political realm, according to Federal Election Commission records. Ryan is intent on laying out a 2017 agenda including telecom policy overhaul, with the possibility of a revived Telecom Act rewrite in the works (see 1608080022).

NTIA “intends to allow” its current contract with ICANN to administer the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions to expire just before midnight Sept. 30 and therefore allow the IANA transition to occur Oct. 1 as planned, NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling said Tuesday. NTIA believes a Friday report from ICANN on its progress with pre-transition implementation work shows the transition can occur “barring any significant impediment,” Strickling said in a letter to ICANN CEO Göran Marby. ICANN told NTIA it believes it will be able to complete all necessary governance changes before the IANA transition, including all but three of the recommendations NTIA made in its June assessment of transition-related plans. The three remaining recommendations require ICANN’s Public Technical Identifiers (PTI) subsidiary, which will be in charge of administering the IANA functions post-transition, to be engaged in post-transition operations (see 1608150056).

Neustar plans a court challenge to a recent FCC order approving a contract that sets the terms for Telcordia to become the next local number portability administrator (see 1607210020). Neustar, the LNPA incumbent, filed a letter (in Pacer) Friday to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which is reviewing the company's previous challenge to a March 2015 order that conditionally selected Telcordia as the LNPA (Neustar v. FCC, No. 15-1080). Neustar said the FCC acknowledged in an Aug. 8 letter (in Pacer) that the July 25 order approving Telcordia's master services agreements to run the Number Portability Administration Center (NPAC) mooted the commission's jurisdictional objection to Neustar's previous challenge to the conditional order. Neustar said it didn't intend to raise any additional legal issues in its new petition for review and would move to consolidate the court proceedings on its challenges. Noting the FCC didn't ask for the court's Sept. 13 oral argument on the first challenge to be delayed, Neustar said there would be no justification for a postponement as parties could make supplemental filings to apprise the court of any relevant developments. The FCC didn't comment Monday. Neustar made another filing Monday in FCC docket 09-109 asking to include in the record 18 pages of documents released by the commission due to a Communications Daily Freedom of Information Act request (see 1607250029). "The attached documents, comprising correspondence between the Commission and Ericsson's wholly owned subsidiary, Telcordia Technologies, Inc. d/b/a iconectiv, related to the use of non-U.S. citizens in the development of the NPAC, are directly relevant" to the FCC's July 25 order, the filing said.

The DOJ and FTC jointly sought comment Friday on a proposed update of their 1995 guidelines for enforcing antitrust policy on IP licensing matters protected by relevant copyright, patent and trade secret laws. The revisions are intended to “modernize” the existing IP guidelines to reflect recent IP-related court cases, the 2016 Defend Trade Secrets Act and changes in the lengths of copyright and patent terms, the agencies said. The update also addresses issues that the government raised in the pair's 2007 report on antitrust IP issues and in the FTC's 2011 IP marketplace report, including language that reflects the agencies' view that “the antitrust laws generally do not impose liability upon a firm for a unilateral refusal to assist its competitors, in part because doing so may undermine incentives for investment and innovation.” The agencies also are updating the guidelines to reflect an analysis of markets affected by licensing arrangements that mirrors their approach for horizontal mergers. The new language retains the idea of “innovation markets” but refers to them as “research and development markets” to better reflect how the DOJ and FTC defined them in enforcement actions, the agencies said. The IP licensing guidelines “have been invaluable to the department’s investigative and enforcement efforts since they were issued in 1995,” said Antitrust Division head Renata Hesse in a news release. “They have also guided business planning, and they have been cited by courts, in numerous government briefs, business review letters, and policy documents. Although the Guidelines are sound, it is time to modernize them to reflect changes in the law since they were issued.” Comments on the guidelines revamp are due Sept. 26. FTC members voted 3-0 to issue the request for modernization.

The DOJ and FTC jointly sought comment Friday on a proposed update of their 1995 guidelines for enforcing antitrust policy on IP licensing matters protected by relevant copyright, patent and trade secret laws. The revisions are intended to “modernize” the existing IP guidelines to reflect recent IP-related court cases, the 2016 Defend Trade Secrets Act and changes in the lengths of copyright and patent terms, the agencies said. The update also addresses issues that the government raised in the pair's 2007 report on antitrust IP issues and in the FTC's 2011 IP marketplace report, including language that reflects the agencies' view that “the antitrust laws generally do not impose liability upon a firm for a unilateral refusal to assist its competitors, in part because doing so may undermine incentives for investment and innovation.” The agencies also are updating the guidelines to reflect an analysis of markets affected by licensing arrangements that mirrors their approach for horizontal mergers. The new language retains the idea of “innovation markets” but refers to them as “research and development markets” to better reflect how the DOJ and FTC defined them in enforcement actions, the agencies said. The IP licensing guidelines “have been invaluable to the department’s investigative and enforcement efforts since they were issued in 1995,” said Antitrust Division head Renata Hesse in a news release. “They have also guided business planning, and they have been cited by courts, in numerous government briefs, business review letters, and policy documents. Although the Guidelines are sound, it is time to modernize them to reflect changes in the law since they were issued.” Comments on the guidelines revamp are due Sept. 26. FTC members voted 3-0 to issue the request for modernization.

The DOJ and FTC jointly sought comment Friday on a proposed update of their 1995 guidelines for enforcing antitrust policy on IP licensing matters protected by relevant copyright, patent and trade secret laws. The revisions are intended to “modernize” the existing IP guidelines to reflect recent IP-related court cases, the 2016 Defend Trade Secrets Act and changes in the lengths of copyright and patent terms, the agencies said. The update also addresses issues that the government raised in the pair's 2007 report on antitrust IP issues and in the FTC's 2011 IP marketplace report, including language that reflects the agencies' view that “the antitrust laws generally do not impose liability upon a firm for a unilateral refusal to assist its competitors, in part because doing so may undermine incentives for investment and innovation.” The agencies also are updating the guidelines to reflect an analysis of markets affected by licensing arrangements that mirrors their approach for horizontal mergers. The new language retains the idea of “innovation markets” but refers to them as “research and development markets” to better reflect how the DOJ and FTC defined them in enforcement actions, the agencies said. The IP licensing guidelines “have been invaluable to the department’s investigative and enforcement efforts since they were issued in 1995,” said Antitrust Division head Renata Hesse in a news release. “They have also guided business planning, and they have been cited by courts, in numerous government briefs, business review letters, and policy documents. Although the Guidelines are sound, it is time to modernize them to reflect changes in the law since they were issued.” Comments on the guidelines revamp are due Sept. 26. FTC members voted 3-0 to issue the request for modernization.