Congress Leaves Tech Legislation Unfinished
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Congress fails to pass electronic-surveillance and phone-records-privacy legislation before recessing.
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A controversial new law that could signal trouble ahead for independent programmers is delayed again.
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In some cases, fights in Congress have slowed progress, or the U.S. government has focused on other priorities. In other cases, the cost of IT projects has been an issue.
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The Senate yesterday left the fate of a new electronic surveillance law backed by the Bush administration up in the air, as a Republican-led effort to cut off a Democrat-led debate and proceed to a vote on the bill failed, mostly along party lines.
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Congress can move with amazing speed when it wants to. Trouble is, Congress doesn&#39;t always want to -- as with the highway bill that&#39;s been delayed for two years and the 12 spending bills it is supposed to pass by Oct. 1, but won&#39;t.
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Members of the U.S. Congress introduced a flurry of new technology-related bills this week, including two bills that would require companies with data breaches to notify affected customers.
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WASHINGTON - Congress neared final passage today of far-reaching legislation overhauling the nation&#39;s intelligence network and instituting new border and aviation security safeguards.
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Figuring it's had enough of fighting over options, the chip giant is waiting to see what Congress comes up with.
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Congress was pushing on Friday to finish legislation that would boost security at U.S. ports, but at the last minute lawmakers added provisions to prohibit Internet gambling.
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Congress still has a laundry list of things to accomplish. For Democrats, that includes proving they are capable and productive. For Republicans, it includes proving that the Democrats are not.
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As Democrats and Republicans disagreed on the accomplishments of the 108th Congress, one thing is certain: Hundreds of programs &#151; from highway building to welfare reform &#151; are being kept on life support through temporary measures because lawmakers failed to meet deadline after deadline for renewing them.
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Patent overhaul legislation thatÂ passed the U.S. House of Representatives FridayÂ still faces significant opposition as it heads to the Senate, opponents said.
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Congress moved closer to the passage of legislation on the handling of terrorism suspects while all but giving up hope on a final bill to authorize the administrationÂs eavesdropping program.
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(InfoWorld) - Legislation that would overhaul the U.S. patent system would hurt innovation and decrease the value of patents, representatives of two tech companies said Wednesday. Though the legislation is supported by many large IT vendors, two bills now being considered by the U.S. Congress, both called the Patent Reform Act, go too far in watering down the patent system, said representatives of Texas Instruments (TI) and AmberWave Systems, a New Hampshire semiconductor manufacturer. While both companies support large chunks of the bills, one in the House of Representatives and one in the Senate, provisions that would change the way courts apportion damages in patent lawsuits and allow new ways to challenge existing patents would hurt their businesses, said Christopher Gallagher, a lawyer representing AmberWave. "For more than 200 years, the [U.S. patent] system has worked well," Gallagher said during a debate sponsored by the Congressional Internet Caucus. The patent reform debate is often portrayed as high-tech vs. large pharmaceutical companies, but TI and AmberWave are among the tech companies asking Congress to scale back its efforts to change the patent system. Representatives of CiscoÂ and the Business Software Alliance (BSA), a trade group representing Microsoft, Dell, and IBM, called for Congress to pass the patent reform bills. Cisco spends $45 million a year defending itself against patent lawsuits, said Matt Tanielian, director of government relations for the company. The company currently is defending against a dozen patent lawsuits, "most of them by companies that have never built or sold anything," he said. Patent reform is the company's top priority in Congress this year, Tanielian said. "There's a lot of bad patents out there," he said. "When you get sued, you ought to get a fair shake." Among the most controversial issues: The bills would change the way courts apportion damages when a company is found to infringe a patent. Currently, courts generally consider the value of the entire product when a small piece of the product infringes a patent, but Cisco and other supporters of the bills want Congress to base damages only on the value of the infringing piece. The current system encourages lawsuits by patent holders hoping to win a legal "lottery," said Emery Simon, a lawyer for the BSA. The awards are unfair because the small piece patent holders often add to a larger product "is less than what they're trying to claim," he said. But Amy Burke, TI's director of government relations, said the apportionment changes would take away from the value of patents. "This language would trivialize damages and actually encourage infringement," she said. Another major issue in the bills is a new way of challenging patents after they're issued, called post-grant review. The bills would allow companies sued for patent infringement to file challenges with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) The post-grant review would create a continuing question about whether a patent was valid, making it difficult for small companies like AmberWave to get funding, Gallagher said. "If we can't get venture capital, we can't function," he said. Instead of a new way to challenge patents after they're granted, Congress should focus on giving the USPTO more money, he said. "The way to ensure patent quality is to get it right the first time," he said. BSA's Simon said worries about a new post-grant review watering down the value of patents are overblown, because there are several ways to challenge patents now. But the USPTO's current patent-challenging mechanisms don't work well, and the most common way of challenging a patent, in a lawsuit, can cost millions of dollars, he said. "We think administrative challenges are good things," he said. "It saves time, it saves money."
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Republican senators are trying to delay a bill that would overhaul the U.S. patent system.
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(InfoWorld) - The U.S. Congress adjourned Friday without passing a much-debated broadband bill or strengthening network neutrality rules. The wide-ranging broadband bill would have streamlined the franchising process that telecom companies such as AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. need to go through to offer Internet Protocol-based television service in competition with cable TV. But advocates of net neutrality rules pressed Congress to hold on to the broadband bill unless it included a provision prohibiting broadband providers from blocking or slowing competing Internet content. Congress' failure to pass the broadband bill "shows the power of the issue with net neutrality," said Jim McGann, spokesman for the It's Our Net Coalition, a group calling for a net neutrality law. "Some lawmakers ignored net neutrality at their peril." Democrats take control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives when Congress reconvenes in January, and the prospects for a wide-ranging broadband bill may be diminished. Republicans have generally pushed for the bill, while many Democrats raised objections based on concerns about the lack of net neutrality rules and about provisions that they said would allow the telecom providers to skip poor areas with their new television services. The House version of the broadband bill would have required VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) providers to offer customers enhanced 911 emergency dialing service, and it would have allowed municipal governments to offer broadband data and video services. The Senate version would have permanently extended a tax moratorium on Internet-only taxes such as access taxes. Net neutrality advocates will continue to press Congress to pass a law protecting open access on the Internet, McGann said, although he declined to speculate on its chances in the new Congress. "We're going to, as much as we can, educate members about the issue," he said. The broadband bill will also lose a major champion in Congress next year. Verizon, one of the large broadband providers pushing for streamlined video franchising rules, will refocus its efforts on state legislation next year, a company spokesman said. Verizon is also watching the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which may also act on broadband regulations, said David Fish, a Verizon spokesman. "The federal campaign raised the issue to a higher visibility," Fish said. "We've made big strides toward video choice this year, and expect continued progress in 2007." Beyond the broadband bill, some tech groups said Congress' post-election lame-duck session produced mixed results. In its final days, Congress approved an extension of a R&D (research and development) tax credit, which allows U.S. companies to get a tax break of up to 10 percent of R&D spending. The credit expired in 2005, and many tech groups called on Congress to reinstate it so that the U.S. could stay competitive with other countries offering R&D tax breaks. Congress approved an extension through the end of 2007, even though some tech groups want the tax credit to be made permanent. Congress also approved an expansion that could add US$1 billion to $2 billion to the program, which has cost about $7 billion a year. Tech groups applauded the extension of the R&D tax credit, as well as Congress' decision to extend permanent normal trade relations to Vietnam. The R&D tax credit action was "long overdue," said William Archey, president and chief executive officer of AeA, a tech trade group. But groups representing large tech vendors complained that Congress failed to increase the 65,000-person limit for H-1B visas, the program used to hire highly skilled foreign workers. Congress also failed to make changes to the U.S. patent system, although many large tech companies want improvements in the quality of patents and a weaker patent enforcement system. By failing to act on H-1Bs, patents and a fiscal year 2007 budget, Congress "ultimately failed to make the grade,â Phil Bond, president and chief executive officer of the Information Technology Association of America, said in a statement. Tech worker groups have opposed expansion of the H-1B cap above the current 65,000 visas a year, saying many U.S. tech workers remain out of work. Small inventors have opposed many changes to the patent system, including a tech-backed proposal to make it tougher for investors to get court injunctions against accused patent infringers.
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Congress weighs a bill to restrict cooperation between U.S. companies and digital dictatorships.