Patent assertion entities’ (PAEs) activities are an area “a big priority” for the Department of Justice’s antitrust division, said Renata Hesse, the division’s acting chief, at a joint Justice-FTC workshop Monday night. The agencies held the workshop in response to dramatic growth in patent assertion activities over the past decade, along with concerns that PAEs’ activities were hampering competition, Hesse said. “We want to see an efficient market for the transfer of patent rights that appropriately rewards inventors and innovators so as to create an incentive for further research and development,” she said. “We do not want a system that harms vibrant ongoing innovation through inefficient or opportunistic licensing activities.” CEA praised Justice and the FTC Tuesday for holding the workshop. “An epidemic of frivolous litigation brought by PAEs or ‘patent trolls’ is acting as an anchor on our still-recovering economy,” the association said in a statement. “Indeed, a recent study found that patent litigation brought by PAEs -- who do not create products, but simply bring lawsuits against those who do -- cost U.S. software and hardware companies $29 billion in 2011 alone. Every dollar spent fighting litigation is a dollar not spent on research, developing new products or creating jobs.” Representatives from Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, Nokia and Research in Motion noted during the workshop that their companies had needed to defend against significant numbers of patent infringement cases brought by PAEs, as patent buyers said those transactions benefit some patent developers whose intellectual property is acquired (CD Dec 11 p11).
Correction: New America Foundation Vice President Sascha Meinrath was the one who said the issues for the FCC’s new transitions task force to deal with are well established in the research and scientific community (CD Dec 11 p5).
China-based telecom equipment maker ZTE plans to invest $30 million more in the U.S. The investment, which ZTE said Tuesday demonstrates its long-term commitment to America, will help the company work with local partners to “tap into both core and innovative technologies” in the telecom industry, it said. ZTE’s past investments in the U.S. involved buying technology products. The new investment will also create more jobs in America, where it employs 300, ZTE said. “We have already established partnerships with major carriers in the U.S. and believe that these cross-border relationships will ignite the development of new communication technologies and enlarge the application scale of our joint innovations, thus helping us continue to provide affordable, environmentally friendly products that enable consumers around the world to connect in meaningful ways,” said Lixin Cheng, CEO of ZTE’s U.S. subsidiary, in a news release (http://xrl.us/bn5waw). A House Intelligence Committee report said U.S. companies shouldn’t do business with ZTE or fellow China-based telecom equipment maker Huawei because of long-term security risks (CD Oct 10 p3). The committee plans to vote Thursday on submitting the classified version of the report into the committee record (CD Dec 10 p10).
Virgin Islands Telephone Corp. wants the FCC to waive or clarify some of its Lifeline eligibility criteria (http://xrl.us/bn5v75). The telco, doing business as Innovative Telephone, wants the FCC to clarify that certain Social Security benefit programs accepted in the U.S. Virgin Islands qualify consumers for the Lifeline program. Innovative also wants the FCC to clarify that consumers in the U.S. Virgin Islands cannot qualify for Lifeline through receipt of National School Lunch Program benefits, “because all consumers with school-age children in the USVI are eligible” for those benefits, the public notice said. Innovative wants the FCC to clarify whether the U.S. Virgin Islands should use the federal poverty guidelines for the mainland U.S., or the guidelines for Hawaii/Alaska, in determining eligibility. Comments in WC docket 11-42 are due Jan. 10, replies Jan. 25.
The FCC Media Bureau issued a reminder to TV stations about their public-inspection file obligations. The public notice released Tuesday lays out a list of material that stations are not required to upload to the FCC’s online public file system, including older political files and letters and emails from the public. Stations are still required to maintain those files at their main studio, it said (http://xrl.us/bn5v7a).
The FCC Wireline Bureau seeks comment on a request for stay of the 2012 Wholesaler-Reseller Clarification Order. U.S. TelePacific Corp. filed the request pending partial reconsideration of the order, to the extent it requires USF contributions on the transmission component of broadband Internet access. Comments in WC docket 06-122 are due Jan. 9, replies Jan. 24.
Version one of the Connect America Fund Phase II cost model is now available, the FCC Wireline Bureau said Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bn5v86). The model will determine Phase II support for price cap carriers. The draft (http://xrl.us/bn5v88) is only accessible after filing an executed acknowledgment of confidentiality with the bureau, and served on the counsel of record for CostQuest. The bureau “emphasizes that it has not adopted this version” of the model, and “inclusion of various capabilities does not represent a preliminary finding about the approach that the Bureau will ultimately adopt,” it said. The bureau expects a second version of the model to be released in the coming weeks, with an update to 2010 census geographies and updated State Broadband Initiative data, it said. The bureau expects to adopt a final version of the model in 2013, which will be used to estimate support in price cap areas.
The National Public Safety Telecommunications Council released a list of launch requirements for a Nationwide Public Safety Broadband Network (NPSBN). “The principal purpose of this document is to define, from the perspective of NPSTC, high-level broadband public safety launch requirements for consideration by the FirstNet,” it said Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bn5waj). The paper also is aimed at establishing a “baseline for an iterative process to develop successively more detailed public safety requirements as the NPSBN evolves based on FirstNet’s decisions in deploying, administering, operating, maintaining, and evolving the NPSBN.” The list was released the same day as the meeting of the FirstNet Board (See related item in this issue). “FirstNet, and other interested parties should, from the outset, be prepared to manage their expectations related to this unprecedented undertaking,” the document said. “Implementation of the NPSBN will not happen overnight. Network implementation may well mirror network deployments by commercial operators. It is important to understand that no commercial network operator has ever turned on a nationwide network all at one time.”
An FCC staff order requiring online video distributors share with outside NBCUniversal counsel some programming deals with other companies when the OVD invokes an FCC benchmark condition worries Disney. There’s “importance of maintaining the confidentiality of proprietary commercial information,” Disney reported (http://xrl.us/bn5v9a) executives told Commissioner Ajit Pai. “These competitive concerns were made more fully” in several programmers’ opposition to Comcast and NBCUniversal’s request for the agency to allow the combined companies’ in-house lawyers and executives to see such OVD benchmark deals, Disney said in a filing posted Monday in docket 10-56. A Media Bureau order last week clarified that the benchmark condition in the commissioner-approved order allowing Comcast to buy control of NBCUniversal requires OVDs share some peer deals with NBCU outside lawyers (CD Dec 5 p9).
Clear Channel is donating WDTW(AM) Detroit to the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council, which has gotten other stations from the broadcaster and has used them to train minority entrepreneurs (CD Dec 4 p15). The license and transmitter will let MMTC “offer a complete build-out opportunity of a new, major-market radio station to an entrepreneur or non-profit entering into broadcasting,” the group said in a Tuesday news release.