GENEVA -- Substantive negotiations on the interplay of trademarks, new gTLDs and the Internet may ramp up next year in the World Intellectual Property Organization, participants said at a closed meeting of the Standing Committee on the Law of Trademarks, Industrial Designs and Geographical Indications. After ICANN’s announcement to expand the domain name system with new gTLDs various interests have said evaluation of trademark norms is a big challenge, a WIPO official said.

On March 29, 2011, the Food and Drug Administration held a public meeting on the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) and its resulting “new paradigm” for importers. According to FDA, even though the new law requires a fundamental reworking of the entire food safety system, the biggest and most dramatic shift will occur with imports.

NTIA has no problem with a developing bill to speed the return of unused broadband stimulus funds to the U.S. Treasury, NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling said at a conference Tuesday of the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition. Strickling and Rural Utility Service Administrator Jonathan Adelstein plan to testify at Friday’s hearing on the bill before the House Communications Subcommittee. In an earlier panel Tuesday, Democratic Hill staffers questioned the need for legislation.

This ITT update provides more details on the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act’s expansion of U.S.’ Iran petroleum sanction provisions, including their application to certain non-U.S. individuals and companies and more details on CISADA’s penalties. Also included in this update are other provisions not covered in ITT’s previous summaries of CISADA, including its requirements on the investigation of Iran petroleum violations, waivers, diversion of products, and licensing.

AT&T executives may have to accept concessions on two key issues of continuing interest to the FCC to win approval for its proposed buy of T-Mobile: Data roaming and wireless net neutrality. AT&T last week started a series of meetings at the agency to discuss likely concessions, and it placed both issues on the table. Data roaming rules, poised for a vote at the April 7 FCC meeting, are already raising concerns with some House Republicans. While details are still emerging, AT&T executives appear open to accepting a data roaming requirement for 3G and 4G services to win approval for the merger, FCC officials said last week. AT&T executives also indicated some willingness to make additional concessions on wireless net neutrality, beyond the rules approved by a split commission in December. One condition contained in the Comcast-NBC Universal transaction that proved controversial is that it locks Comcast into having to follow net neutrality rules even if they're reversed in court. AT&T’s concessions here would have a similar effect. AT&T appears to be targeting the two FCC Republicans, Robert McDowell and Meredith Baker, and Chairman Julius Genachowski as the three votes needed for approval. The data concession may be relatively meaningless, since with the deal AT&T effectively takes T-Mobile, its only national competitor using GSM technology, out of the picture, an FCC official noted. Public Knowledge Legal Director Harold Feld said no concessions on AT&T’s part would make the proposed merger more palatable. “We are in the zone of [Herfindahl-Hirschman Index readings] where we are effectively collapsing the industry back to natural monopoly levels,” he said. “The ability to exercise market power along every aspect of the industry as a consequence of market share cannot be cured by a handful of conditions. Approving this with conditions would be like throwing Sprint overboard and solving the problem by tossing them a lifeline so they can keep dragging along in the wake.” The concessions would address some of the industry’s concerns with AT&T/T-Mobile, said Media Access Project Senior Vice President Andrew Schwartzman. “However, the details would matter a great deal,” he said. “Pricing, non-discrimination, etc., would matter a great deal. However, the biggest problem, by far, is that conditions usually expire after three years. … What do they do when the conditions expire?” “Given that the FCC is poised to act on data roaming at its April 7th meeting, a concession on data roaming won’t be meaningful to small carriers unless AT&T is willing to go significantly beyond the rules the FCC implements,” said a wireless carrier executive. But Free State Foundation President Randolph May said the commission shouldn’t use the merger as an excuse for making policy. “I'm afraid that before the merger review is finished at the commission -- likely to be some time in 2012 -- this will be another prime example of why the agency’s merger review process needs to be substantially reformed,” he said. “That we're already talking about what concessions AT&T may be willing to make, before any rigorous competition analysis has gotten underway, demonstrates the point. I'll be disappointed if, at the end of the day, AT&T makes concessions on net neutrality, data roaming, or other issues, that go beyond presently applicable legal requirements that are generally applicable on an industry-wide basis.” Meanwhile, House Republicans said the FCC is trying to overstep its authority again after doing so with net neutrality in the pending data roaming order. “I remain skeptical that the FCC has the statutory authority to mandate data roaming,” House Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., said in an e-mail. “Sadly, as the FCC continues to ignore limits to its authority, it seems that the agency is determined to spend more time at the courts of appeal. I look forward to addressing this and other examples of the Commission’s recent ends-based decision making as part of a larger discussion on FCC process reform.” Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., urged the FCC to back off. A member of the House Commerce Committee, she’s “always hesitant to embrace the federal government’s aggressive intrusion into the marketplace,” her spokesman said. “The precedent that the FCC seeks to set here, that a private company should invest in a network, only to have the government intervene when they attempt to profit from that network, is not unlike net neutrality. In both cases federal intervention is a disincentive to innovation, investment, and job creation.” Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., “continues to believe that the FCC is inserting itself into an argument where it lacks legal authority, much like the issue of net neutrality,” said aide Ken Johnson. Genachowski doesn’t support “a common-carrier mandate for data roaming,” he said in a letter to Upton that was released Friday. The March 17 letter responded to a letter last month in which Upton and other committee Republicans voiced concerns that the regulator was trying to “circumvent” the Communications Act by imposing common-carrier requirements on an information service. The draft order avoided that legal authority concern, Genachowski said. “To the contrary, the draft order under consideration eschews a common carriage approach and leaves mobile service providers free to negotiate and determine, on a customer-by-customer basis, the commercially reasonable terms of data roaming agreements. This is not common carriage.” The proposed rules would “incent potential roaming partners to come to the bargaining table to negotiate private commercial deals,” Genachowski wrote House Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., and other lawmakers who support the proposed rules. “These rules also balance the need for commercial roaming agreements with the legitimate challenges posed by network congestion. Moreover, it ensures that the Commission is merely a backstop in the process, and that it is in the best interest of all parties to work out private deals without relying on the Commission.” Genachowski believes that “a data roaming rule is necessary to ensure vibrant competition in the mobile marketplace, to unleash billions of dollars of investment that is currently sidelined, to create thousands of new jobs and to meet the consumer demand for seamless nationwide coverage, be it for voice or data,” he said in letters to the Hill. Some providers have been slow or unwilling to negotiate 3G or 4G roaming agreements, and the FCC’s “basic bipartisan voice roaming rules will be in jeopardy” when the mobile world shifts to LTE, Genachowski said.

AT&T executives may have to accept concessions on two key issues of continuing interest to the FCC to win approval for its proposed buy of T-Mobile: Data roaming and wireless net neutrality. AT&T last week started a series of meetings at the agency to discuss likely concessions, and it placed both issues on the table. AT&T is also expected to have to sell off a big chunk of T-Mobile’s subscriber rolls (CD March 25 p1). Data roaming rules, poised for a vote at the April 7 FCC meeting, are already raising concerns with some House Republicans.

A former Director of Defense Trade Controls, (DDTC) has submitted comments on the State Department's two December 2010 rulemakings to make the U.S. Munitions List positive and tiered and to assign a tier system to Category VII (tanks and military vehicles), as part of the Administration's Export Control Reform initiative.

AT&T’s T-Mobile deal raises the stakes for carriers seeking the 700 MHz D-block in a commercial auction, telecom industry officials and observers said Tuesday. AT&T and Verizon Wireless are the only carriers with nationwide 700 MHz holdings. The deal may bolster arguments to increase the spectrum assets of AT&T’s remaining competitors, but it may still be politically difficult for lawmakers to side against public safety, which wants the spectrum reallocated before this year’s 10th anniversary of 9/11, officials said.

Whether the FCC should promulgate rules for TV antennas came up in several filings, posted to docket 10-235, on a rulemaking notice setting the stage for the agency to hold incentive auctions if it gets congressional authority.

Overseeing Internet domain names creates a challenge for ICANN because it must balance the views of governments and make fair and effective policy decisions, ICANN stakeholders said at a Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee event Monday. ICANN should play a role in developing stronger protections for copyright holders and ensure it doesn’t cede balanced oversight to the requests of one government, some Internet experts said.