The Senate Judiciary Committee delayed its markup of the Patent Transparency and Improvements Act (S-1720) again Thursday, as industry stakeholders expected (CD May 1 p13). The committee had hoped to have a compromise manager’s amendment ready for markup earlier this week, but negotiations continued Thursday. Still, Senate Judiciary has “settled the vast majority of the issues in there, and I think by next week we can actually start marking up” the manager’s amendment, said committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., during a committee executive session. Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said he too believed they were continuing to make progress in negotiations and that he hoped they would be “bringing a bill to fruition shortly.” Industry stakeholders are continuing to push Senate Judiciary to mark up S-1720. More than 400 companies and groups, including many major communications and technology players signed a joint letter to Leahy and Grassley Wednesday urging their continued support for patent revamp legislation (http://bit.ly/1fC9HQ9).
Center for Boundless Innovation in Technology Executive Director Fred Campbell attacked multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD) attempts to turn the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act reauthorization process into a vehicle for a video market overhaul. He released a white paper on the issue Thursday (http://bit.ly/1i2tym9). It posited that the “ultimate goal of retransmission consent ‘reform’ is to kill free over-the-air television so that MVPDs can appropriate TV station advertising revenue for themselves.” Such overhaul should be debated as part of the Communications Act overhaul process, not “rushed” through the STELA process, he said. STELA expires at the end of the year unless Congress reauthorizes it. Campbell’s paper attacked several proposed pay-industry tweaks that have been brought up during the STELA debates. The “must carry” provisions don’t impact retrans negotiations, nor do TV stations have unfair bargaining power, Campbell contended. Retrans consent prices are not excessive, he said.
The American TV Alliance pushed back against TVFreedom’s claims that public safety is a key part of why cable operators must carry broadcast stations, as has been lobbied for before Congress. TVFreedom, a coalition of broadcaster interests, had written a blog post for The Hill Tuesday (CD April 19 p19), and an ATVA spokesman, speaking for pay-TV industry interests, wrote one for the same outlet Wednesday. “Enough with the hyperbole,” the ATVA spokesman said (http://bit.ly/1kpHRnE). “Everyone supports public safety first and foremost. ... Cable and satellite TV providers are working with broadcasters to update the Emergency Alert System, which notifies the public of safety threats 24/7.” He attacked broadcasters on retransmission consent rules, which broadcasters have long defended. The fights have become wrapped up in the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act reauthorization process.
Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., wants the Computer and Communications Industry Association to weigh in on Comcast’s proposed buy of Time Warner Cable. “Do you believe that Comcast’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable would harm the public interest?” Franken asked CCIA President Ed Black in a letter Wednesday (http://1.usa.gov/1kurRSY). “What impact will the deal have on competition in relevant markets, and, ultimately, on consumers? Finally, please provide any other relevant views, including any thoughts you have about arguments made in the Public Interest Statement that Comcast recently filed with the FCC or in the testimony that Comcast and Time Warner Cable recently provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee.” Franken opposes the deal, which Comcast has strongly defended as good for consumers. CCIA’s members “depend on broadband networks to operate,” Franken added.
A House appropriations bill would slate $36.7 million for NTIA in FY2015, well below the $51 million the executive branch requested. The bill would allocate $8.35 billion for the Commerce Department, $95 million less than the White House requested but $71 million more than was enacted for FY2014. The House Appropriations Commerce, Justice and Science Subcommittee released the draft appropriations bill this week (http://1.usa.gov/R0JwHJ) and cleared the proposed budget unanimously Wednesday by voice vote. “For the administration of prior-year grants, recoveries and unobligated balances of funds previously appropriated are available for the administration of all open grants until their expiration,” the draft bill said in a section titled “Public Telecommunications Facilities, Planning and Construction.” Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker testified before Senate and House lawmakers early in April on these budget items. “To continue expanding broadband capacity and promoting policies to ensure a free and open Internet, the budget requests a total of $51 million” for NTIA to “support increasing wireless broadband access and critical telecommunications policy coordination,” Pritzker had said (CD April 11 p5). House lawmakers emphasized the bill preserves core priority spending, and “bolstering cybersecurity” is one such priority, subcommittee Chairman Frank Wolf, R-Va., said in a statement. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office would receive $46 billion, equivalent to what’s estimated to come in from fees and $434 million above FY2014. The National Institute of Standards and Technology would receive $856 million, $5.8 million above FY2014 and $44.2 million less than what the White House proposed.
Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., is worried about the FCC’s net neutrality proposal. “I write today to express my concerns that you may be stepping back from an earlier commitment to policies that ensure an open and free Internet for all Americans,” Nelson, a senior member of the Commerce Committee, told FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in a letter Wednesday. “I am very concerned about reports that the NPRM will presumptively allow ‘paid prioritization arrangements’ as long as they are ‘commercially reasonable.'” Allowing these deals “could upset the basic concept of an open Internet and would be very difficult to remedy at a later time,” Nelson said. The agency needs to “draw a brighter line” in this regard, Nelson insisted, despite acknowledging that Wheeler is trying to operate in parameters of a court ruling that struck down previous net neutrality rules. “As part of that analysis, I also urge the Commission to carefully consider whether section 706 provides the best pathway for these rules or whether Title II, with appropriate forbearance, provides a more sound approach.” Several public interest advocates have recommended the FCC reclassify broadband as a Communications Act Title II service, subject to more regulation. Several other Senate Democrats have voiced fears that these proposed rules are too weak, despite the FCC’s ardent defense of what they're doing and an insistence that this is a first step (CD April 30 p11). Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., bashed the FCC proposal Wednesday. “Reports that the FCC may gut net neutrality are disturbing, and would be just one more way the playing field is tilted for the rich and powerful who have already made it,” Warren said in a Facebook post (http://on.fb.me/1kiMEGc). “Our regulators already have all the tools they need to protect a free and open Internet -- where a handful of companies cannot block or filter or charge access fees for what we do online. They should stand up and use them.”
The Senate Judiciary Committee appears unlikely to have final language ready on a compromise manager’s amendment to the Patent Transparency and Improvements Act (S-1720) in time to mark up the bill Thursday, several industry observers told us Wednesday. Negotiations on the compromise language continued Wednesday, a Senate Judiciary aide told us. A markup of S-1720 remained on the agenda for the committee’s executive business meeting Thursday, which is to begin at 10 a.m. in 226 Dirksen. Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., had hoped to release the text of the manager’s amendment as soon as the Senate returned from recess Monday (CD April 29 p6). Work on the manager’s amendment has been complicated in part by the Supreme Court’s rulings Tuesday in two patent cases on the application of fee-shifting rules, two industry lobbyists told us. The two cases -- Highmark v. Allcare Health Management System and Octane Fitness v. ICON Fitness & Health -- collectively loosened fee-shifting rules, which patent revamp advocates said the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit was applying too stringently. The rulings drew praise from several patent revamp advocates, including the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) and the Internet Association. The rulings are a “bump in the road” because “they're in the same sandbox as the legislation,” said Cathy Sloan, CCIA vice president-government relations, in an interview. “As drafters of the legislation, you have to adjust for that. They're not big changes, but you can’t just pretend the new precedent isn’t there. You have to draft around it a little bit.”
The Senate Intelligence Committee confirmed it has been circulating a discussion draft of its long-awaited cybersecurity information sharing bill. Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and ranking member Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., said in joint statement Wednesday that they sent the draft “to relevant parties in the executive branch, private industry and the privacy community for comment. Once those comments are returned, which we hope will happen quickly, we will consider the final legislation.” The draft bill, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, is seen to closely resemble the House-passed Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (HR-624), but includes numerous additional privacy protections (CD April 30 p19).
The House Homeland Security Committee scheduled a markup of several bills including the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System Modernization Act for Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. in 311 Cannon. HR-3283 aims to “modernize and implement the national integrated public alert and warning system to disseminate homeland security information” according to its text.
The House passed by unanimous voice vote a bill Monday that would kill a broadband report put together by the Agriculture Department. House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., introduced the Government Reports Elimination Act (HR-4194) on March 11. It would kill 79 executive agency reports to Congress that the bill authors deem unnecessary or duplicative. At the Agriculture Department, it would eliminate the Rural Broadband Access Program Report. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., also introduced a version of the bill on March 11, which was referred to the Homeland Security Committee. “By eliminating the 79 reports deemed unnecessary by both the Office of Management and Budget and House Committees, we can save taxpayers an estimated $1 million a year for the next five years,” Issa said in a statement Monday (http://1.usa.gov/1ivr5k9).