Tech Groups Want Induce Hearings
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Over 40 technology companies and organizations send a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee asking it to hold public hearings on the controversial Induce Act before moving forward. By Katie Dean.
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Current and former CEOs of three major U.S. financial institutions deeply involved in the widening subprime mortgage crisis were asked on Monday by a Congressional committee to testify at a hearing next month on their massive pay and severance packages.
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Health industry, tech firms, government agencies might collaborate to \
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A group representing the cybersecurity industry has called for the White House to show &quot;greater leadership&quot; in guarding the nation&#39;s computer infrastructure from attacks by hackers and viruses
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Industry groups are looking for a way around controversial copyright proposal.
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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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By Jim Hopkins  Raising pressure on Hewlett-Packard, a congressional panel investigating HP's boardroom spying scandal is seeking testimony from two more company executives at a high-profile hearing next week.
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The initiative is evidence that U.S. companies and universities are searching for ways to be less hampered by legal wrangling about who holds the patents to research.
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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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newsmakerSenior Energy Department official starts a dialogue with tech leaders to learn how his agency can help.
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Technology companies and public-interest groups want to narrow the scope of the controversial Induce Act to focus on those who engage in 'mass, indiscriminate infringing conduct.' By Katie Dean.
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By byron kho. A consortium of movie and record companies joined forces on Friday to request that the US Supreme Court take another look at peer-to-peer file-sharing programs.
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The file-sharing legal battle has moved to the Supreme Court, with a group composed of labor unions, sports leagues and state attorneys general asking for a hearing on a claim brought
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Watch out when litigation trumps innovation.
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Homeland Security will hold a hearing to discuss the agency's own problems battling electronic attacks.
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A music-activism group is staging a massive call-in to congressional members Tuesday to protest the Induce Act and urge protection of consumers' rights to music and movies they own. By Katie Dean.
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Two privacy groups are stepping up the pressure on the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), saying the agency has an obligation to consider privacy concerns as it prepares to rule on the antitrust implications of&#160;Google&#39;s proposed acquisition of DoubleClick.