Tech CEOs push priorities with politicians
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(InfoWorld) - An advocacy group representing several tech vendor CEOs has been meeting with U.S. presidential candidates and getting a positive reception to the policies it's pushing, the group's executive director said. The Technology CEO Council, whose members include the chief executives of Intel, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Dell, has met with several presidential candidates in recent months, said Bruce Mehlman, executive director of the group. Mehlman declined to name the candidates the CEOs have met with, saying the group is better served at the moment by not naming names. "The meetings have been productive," Mehlman said. "There's been a lot of ... mutual recognition of the importance of innovation, the importance of remaining globally connected." The group wants to reach out early in an "intense political season," Mehlman said Thursday. The group is trying to present a "vision on how some of the big, broad, important trends should be thought about and talked about," he said. The U.S. presidential election is in November 2008. This week, the council released a report, called "A Great Nation," calling for U.S. lawmakers to focus on free trade and innovation. "A great nation does not fear overseas competition," the report says. "A great nation prepares its workers and companies to successfully compete in a global market." The report is an effort to get the council's views out about high-skilled immigration and free trade, Mehlman said. While the group has called for more H-1B skilled worker visas to be made available for U.S. companies to use, other groups, including some tech worker groups, have opposed raising the H-1B cap from the current 65,000, plus another 20,000 for students, each year. Commentators like CNN's Lou Dobbs have also opposed an immigration reform bill that would include a higher H-1B cap. "A lot of this is in the spirit of our recognition that a lot more Americans watch Lou Dobbs than read [classic free-market economist] Adam Smith," Mehlman said. "It takes real political courage to stand up for open markets these days." While Mehlman is upbeat about the group's meetings with candidates, he said he's still frustrated by the lack of action on the group's agenda. In April, the group releasedÂ its list of "seven for '07" legislative priorities, including immigration reform and a patent system overhaul, and the U.S. Congress has not passed any of the seven items. Even relatively uncontroversial measures like more funding for research at U.S. government agencies and a health IT bill have so far gone nowhere this year. "It is encouraging to see politicians from both parties ... saying so many of the right things and pushing for many of the right things," Mehlman said. "America doesn't get more competitive policies from speeches -- we get them from legislation. The proof is in the passage."
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A flurry of new technology-related bills was introduced this week in the U.S. Congress.
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Web surfers must share the burden with technology companies, industry execs say.
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As the Microsoft and Apple execs get ready to share the stage at a conference next week, we look at other times the tech titans have done a joint bill.
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It's question-and-answer time for the government's senior executives.
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Executives and lobbyists from some of America's richest and most influential companies are walking the halls of Congress, buttonholing senators to argue for strong patents to preserve U.S. innovation.
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Technology investors are on a crusade to influence energy policy because they have a big stake in the outcome.
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Technology industry executives are pushing the U.S. Congress to reform the way patents are issued in order to process them more quickly while also making sure they are legitimate.
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NORFOLK -- Gov. Mark Warner used his time in front of an audience of high-powered decision-makers at the commonwealth&#39;s annual tech conference Monday to pitch Virginia as a technology-savvy state.
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By TERENCE CHEA  MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - A coalition of technology companies and environmental groups led by Google Inc. and Intel Corp.
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Partisan panel debates presidential candidates' stand on technology issues.
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At Computerworld&#8217;s Premier 100 IT Leaders Conference, attendees said IT departments should look for ways to give their companies a business edge -- even at the risk of suffering some technology failures.
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A growing number of technology executives believe that their Christianity should be part of their work as well as their private lives.-The Washington Post
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(InfoWorld) - Technology industry executives are pushing the U.S. Congress to reform the way patents are issued in order to process them more quickly while also making sure they are legitimate. Patent reform was one of the major issues discussed at the Tech Policy Summit Monday in San Jose, California. Patent reform legislation considered, but not passed, in Congress last year is expected to be reintroduced. Among the key provisions sought is the hiring of more patent review specialists by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which one critic at the conference said has a backlog of as many as 1 million applications. Another provision would make it more difficult for so-called patent "trolls" to acquire a patent, claim another company infringed on it and then force the company to pay a settlement in order to keep its business going. Lastly, reform advocates seek an improvement in the quality of patents, pointing to cases where patents are issued for innovations that are not unique. They also propose a post-patent review process. In a speech Monday night at the summit, Deborah Platt Majoras, chairman of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, endorsed the idea of post-patent review. "Patents are not a driver of innovation, they are an impediment to innovation," said Mark Lemley, a professor of law at Stanford University Law School, speaking at the summit. "Everyone has an example of silly patents, such as the cat exerciser laser pen," Lemley said, but the problems with the patent law are more serious than that. Often, one company asserts a patent right against another company and forces that company to stop production until the patent issue is resolved. "The patent holdup forces the company to settle for more money than the patent is worth," Lemley said. There are also delays in the process of approving patents. SAP AG, the enterprise software maker, once had to wait 44 months until a patent application was approved, said Tim Crean, chief intellectual property officer and a member of the Coalition for Patent Fairness, an industry group advocating reform. An official of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office said the agency is planning to hire 1,200 patent specialists in fiscal year 2008. The patent office receives half of its patent applications electronically and wants to increase that number. Last year it approved 350,000 patents. But some at the summit want Congress toÂ move cautiously on patent reform. A group called the Innovation Alliance was recently formed to protect companies that patent technology but don't manufacture it. Taraneh Maghame, vice president and emerging technologies counsel for Tessera Technologies, said attempts to limit the rights of companies to defend patent rights could harm legitimate patent protection efforts of some companies. Tessera develops chip packaging technology and licenses it to chip manufacturers, such as Intel. "Not all of the tech industry is behind patent reform," Maghame said. Close to 300 people, including tech executives, advocacy groups and government officials, were expected to attend the Tech Policy Summit, which continues Tuesday.
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Technology policy hasn&#39;t played a major role in this year&#39;s U.S. presidential campaign, but the major candidates have staked out positions on issues such as&#160;net neutrality&#160;and&#160;skilled-worker visas.As in past presidential campaigns, candidates haven&#39;t viewed technology issues as ones that drive voters to the polls.Instead, debate over the war in Iraq, the economy, illegal immigration, and other issues will inspire voters in 24 states (plus American Samoa and Democrats living overseas) on&#160;Super Tuesday&#160;to choose which candidates they want to be nominees of the Democratic or Republican parties.Some tech groups have long complained that many politicians don&#39;t get technology. In late January, the Washington, D.C., tech PR firm 463 Communications released a poll with two-thirds of respondents saying that presidential candidates should have at least as much knowledge about the Internet as they do. However, only 45 percent said the next president will know as much about the Internet as they do.In December, Garrett M. Graff, an editor at large at Washingtonian magazine and the first blogger admitted to a White House briefing, wrote a column in The Washington Post, complaining about the lack of tech-savvy candidates. That prompted others to comment as well.Members of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, the panel that debates many tech issues, often talk about their lack of tech experience, Adam Thierer, a senior follow with the tech-centric conservative think tank, the Progress and Freedom Foundation, wrote on the PFF&#39;s blog.&quot;Without missing a beat, they make jokes about not ever using the Internet or computers but that they have staffers or young family members who do and keep them informed,&quot; he wrote. &quot;And yet, despite this stunning unfamiliarity with all things high-tech, they then move right on to pass reams of regulations governing the Internet and digital economy. Again, it&#39;s not funny anymore and we should stop allowing them to pretend it is.&quot;That said, several presidential candidates have taken positions on tech-related issues this year. In alphabetical order, these are some of their views:Senator Hillary ClintonNew York Democrat Clinton, like other candidates, hasn&#39;t made tech issues a central part of her campaign, but she has championed an &quot; innovation agenda&quot; as one of her top issues. That agenda includes several policies that many large tech companies have embraced.Clinton wants to pump up the basic research budgets at the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy&#39;s Office of Science, and the Department of Defense by 50 percent over 10 years.She also would require that federal research agencies set aside at least 8 percent of their research budgets for discretionary funding of high-risk research, and she would increase funding for research on Internet- and IT-based tools, including supercomputing and simulation software.&quot;Under the Bush administration, agencies like the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA) have reduced support for truly revolutionary research,&quot; Clinton&#39;s Web site says. &quot;This is a problem because DARPA has played a major role in maintaining America&#39;s economic and military leadership. DARPA backed such projects as the Internet, stealth technology, and the Global Positioning System.&quot;Clinton also wants tax incentives to encourage broadband providers to deploy services in underserved areas. She has called for federal support of state and local broadband programs, including municipal broadband projects. Clinton has also called for a research-and-development tax credit, extended temporarily multiple times since 1981, to be made permanent.Clinton has said she would support net neutrality regulations for U.S. broadband providers.Former Governor Mike HuckabeeHuckabee, an Arkansas Republican and ordained Baptist minister, has largely ignored tech issues during his campaign.He has, however, called for an increase in immigrant visas for highly skilled and highly educated workers, a position shared by many large tech companies. Otherwise, Huckabee would largely shut down U.S. borders to immigrants.Instead of technology, Huckabee has focused on social issues such as making abortion illegal and defining marriage as only between a man and a woman.Huckabee also wants the U.S. to achieve independence from oil-producing nations.Senator John McCainThe Arizona Republican is a long-time member of the Senate Commerce Committee. As such, he can argue that he has the most tech policy experience of any of the remaining major-party candidates.In recent years, McCain has pushed for a nationwide voice and data network for public safety agencies. He was one of the Senate&#39;s leading voices in the effort to get U.S. television stations to give up part of their analog spectrum for use by police and fire departments. The rest of that spectrum is being sold in the Federal Communications Commission&#39;s auctions now under way.McCain has been noncommittal about net neutrality laws. He&#39;s said he&#39;d be concerned if Internet users&#39; access is blocked, but he&#39;s also suggested broadband carriers need to recoup their investments.McCain last year also called for an increase in government research and development spending, and he&#39;s said he&#39;d draft &quot;the best and the brightest&quot; of American CEOs to work in his administration if he were elected, including Cisco Systems&#39; John Chambers and Microsoft&#39;s Steve Ballmer.He has also supported efforts to make an Internet tax moratorium permanent, recently calling the Internet &quot;likely the most popular invention since the light bulb.&quot; In 2004, he urged the Federal Trade Commission to focus more of its efforts on fighting spam.In 2005, McCain split from many other Republicans by authoring legislation that would prohibit states from outlawing municipal broadband projects. McCain said then he was concerned that the U.S. has fallen behind more than a dozen other countries on broadband adoption.Senator Barack ObamaThe Illinois Democrat in November released an extensive tech policy paper, earning him praise from several tech groups.Obama gets technology, said Julius Genachowski, co-founder of Rock Creek Ventures and a long-time friend. &quot;He will be a true 21st century president, using technology to improve the lives of all Americans,&quot; Genachowski said at a tech forum last week.In the tech agenda, Obama called for net neutrality regulations for broadband carriers. &quot;Users must be free to access content, to use applications, and to attach personal devices,&quot; he said in his tech policy.Parents need better tools and information to control what their children see on the Internet and television, he said.He called for greater privacy protections for all U.S. residents, including Internet users, and he said government and businesses should be held accountable for privacy violations. He wants an update of government surveillance laws that allow intelligence-gathering on U.S. citizens to be done &quot;only under the rule of law.&quot;Obama would also increase the Federal Trade Commission&#39;s enforcement budget and focus increased international cooperation to track down cybercriminals.Obama also wants to make government data more available online. He would revamp a number of existing programs, and create some new ones, to help roll out broadband in the U.S. He called for a review of wireless spectrum use in the U.S. and said he would &quot;confront the entrenched Washington interests that have kept our public airwaves from being maximized for the public&#39;s interest.&quot;He has pledged to make the research-and-development tax credit permanent. He also called for patent reform, primarily by giving the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office more resources to improve patent quality.Former Governor Mitt RomneyRomney, a Massachusetts Republican, hasn&#39;t made many tech issues a central part of his campaign, but he has focused on U.S. competitiveness, a popular issue for many IT companies.Romney&#39;s competitiveness initiative would seek to improve U.S. schools and at the same time cut individual and corporate tax rates. He wants to improve worker retraining programs by consolidating and streamlining numerous federal programs.He has taken positions on a couple of other tech-related issues as well. In interviews Romney has expressed support for a permanent Internet tax ban, and he&#39;s said he supports free trade, a position echoed by many large tech vendors.Romney has also said he would support an increase in H-1B visas for high-skilled workers.&quot;I like the idea of the best and brightest in the world coming here,&quot; he told the TechCrunch blog in November. &quot;I&#39;d rather have them come here permanently rather than come and go, but I believe our visa program is designed to help us solve gaps in our employment pool. Where there are individuals who have skills that we do not have in abundance here, I&#39;d like to bring them here and contribute to our economy.&quot;
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Schwarzenegger and Bloomberg are pushing efforts to bridge the political divide.
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A group representing technology industry executives yesterday called on the Bush administration to step up efforts to protect the nation's computer and Internet infrastructure, and it proposed that the top official in charge be given a higher profile.