CBP outlined a new list of documents the agency may request in order to validate a “first sale” in a recent draft revision to CBP's informed compliance publication (ICP) on bona fide sales. The draft ICP was provided to a number of customs industry members as part of the agency's effort to gather feedback on the potential changes, said Sandler Travis, a law firm that opposes the changes. While Acting Assistant Commissioner for International Trade Rich DiNucci has said on multiple occasions that the proposed changes don't constitute a policy change (see 14061317 and 14041117), the possibility of the changes has created somewhat of a "fire storm," he said recently.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has sidestepped likely partisan Capitol Hill battles surrounding E-rate for now due to the nature of his overhaul, apparently focusing on Wi-Fi and not immediately touching the fund’s contribution rate and size, lobbyists and observers told us. They predict political rancor will come in later phases of the E-rate revamp when those parts will be inevitably addressed. The prime Hill critics now are Democratic architects of the original 1996 Telecom Act E-rate provisions, who question the proposal in more granular ways and urge the agency to listen as E-rate beneficiaries express fears, sending a critical letter Tuesday. The FCC will vote on Wheeler’s item Friday, and it’s been controversial among FCC Republicans. (See separate report in this issue.)

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has sidestepped likely partisan Capitol Hill battles surrounding E-rate for now due to the nature of his overhaul, apparently focusing on Wi-Fi and not immediately touching the fund’s contribution rate and size, lobbyists and observers told us. They predict political rancor will come in later phases of the E-rate revamp when those parts will be inevitably addressed. The prime Hill critics now are Democratic architects of the original 1996 Telecom Act E-rate provisions, who question the proposal in more granular ways and urge the agency to listen as E-rate beneficiaries express fears, sending a critical letter Tuesday. The FCC will vote on Wheeler’s item Friday, and it’s been controversial among FCC Republicans. (See separate report in this issue.)

Proposed changes to how FCC regulatory fees are assessed impose a “disproportionate” burden on wireless, CTIA said in comments filed at the FCC. The FCC’s overall budget for FY 2014 is $449.8 million and Congress directed the agency to recover about $339.8 million through regulatory fees, and $98.7 million through revenue retained from spectrum auctions. Comments in docket 12-201 were due Monday on a June 12 NPRM (http://bit.ly/U1K1m0).

The International Trade Commission seeks comment by July 15 on public interest factors raised by Macronix’s latest Section 337 Tariff Act patent complaint on imports of non-volatile memory from Spansion, said an ITC notice in Monday’s Federal Register (http://1.usa.gov/1oel92j). Macronix’s June 27 complaint alleged Spansion makes flash memory and microcontrollers that infringe Macronix’s patents, which are then included in automotive components, infotainment systems and network equipment imported by Aerohive, Allied Telesis, Ciena, Delphi, Polycom, Ruckus, ShoreTel, Tellabs and Tivo. Macronix sought a general exclusion order banning imports of all flash memory that infringes its patents. The ITC has been doing three other investigations related to the Macronix-Spansion patent dispute, with the latest one beginning in early June based on a Spansion request. Spansion isn’t “concerned with this latest attempt by Macronix to bring another meritless allegation against” it, emailed a Spansion spokeswoman. “All four patents asserted in this case were previously asserted in the Eastern District of Virginia” case, which Spansion successfully transferred to the Northern District of California, she said. “We remain confident Macronix will not prevail. Spansion has strong invalidity and non-infringement arguments against these patents. Most importantly, Spansion believes Macronix will not meet its legal burden of proving domestic industry, a pre-requisite for bringing a case before the ITC. Macronix has an insufficient presence in the United States to prove domestic industry."

The Obama Administration on July 1 raised the threshold for notification requirements for high-performance computer exports to 8.0 weighted tera floating-point operations per second (TeraFLOPS) from the current 3.0 weighted TeraFLOPS. Under Section 1211 of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 1998, exporters of computers with performance specifications above the threshold must notify the Commerce Department before exportation to Computer Tier 3 countries listed in 15 CFR 740.7(d).

"I'm not going to endorse any effort to do otherwise,” Leahy said at the field hearing. “The open Internet principles are the bill of rights for the online world."

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., upped his pressure Tuesday on the FCC to ban paid prioritization deals when creating new net neutrality rules. Leahy held a field hearing in Burlington, Vermont, released an op-ed calling for a “a bill of rights for the online world” and quizzed an array of witnesses who all voiced thanks and support for Leahy’s recently introduced legislation, which would ban such prioritization deals.

France’s call for more international control over ICANN at the organization’s conference in London last week is precisely why political considerations should be divorced from the Internet’s technical questions, said Internet governance experts Monday. House Commerce Committee member and Domain Openness Through Continued Oversight Matters (DOTCOM) Act sponsor John Shimkus, R-Ill., said the French proposal reaffirmed the need for HR-4342. ICANN 50 was dominated by discussions on the transition of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) and Internet governance (WID June 30 p1; June 27 p3; June 24 p1).

France’s call for more international control over ICANN at the organization’s conference in London last week is precisely why political considerations should be divorced from the Internet’s technical questions, said Internet governance experts Monday. House Commerce Committee member and Domain Openness Through Continued Oversight Matters (DOTCOM) Act sponsor John Shimkus, R-Ill., said the French proposal reaffirmed the need for HR-4342. ICANN 50 was dominated by discussions on the transition of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) and Internet governance (CD June 30 p10; June 27 p7; June 24 p7).