Internet Community Needs to Engage in Policy Discussions With Congress, Wyden Says
Internet stakeholders will need to participate in the debate over this Congress’s Internet policies if they want to win on issues like e-commerce sales taxes and cybersecurity, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said Tuesday at an Internet Association event. Grassroots opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) was a turning point in the dialogue on Capitol Hill over Internet-related issues, Wyden said. “For the first time, the technology sector had beaten the middle man,” he said. “We've got to find a way to build on that, and that’s why your work is so incredibly important today.” Regulators and other lawmakers also outlined how upcoming policy discussions would involve the Internet community.
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The Senate plans to move quickly on cybersecurity legislation, following in the footsteps of the cybersecurity executive order President Barack Obama issued last month (CD Feb 14 p1), Wyden said. “The threats are indisputably real,” he said. “The question is how can we make sure that we tackle those threats without damaging our privacy and particularly without damaging the architecture of the Internet.” The executive order made some headway on addressing cybersecurity issues, “but we've got a long, long way to go,” Wyden said. The Senate Commerce and Homeland Security committees scheduled a joint hearing on cybersecurity at 2:30 p.m. Thursday in G-50 Dirksen.
Industry also needs to make its voice heard on the Marketplace Fairness Act (HR-684, S-336), Wyden said. The bill would allow states to collect a sales tax when in-state residents make an online purchase from an out-of-state retailer. Stakeholders will also need to provide counsel on the issue of Internet-based trade, since the Internet is “the shipping lane of the 21st century,” Wyden said. He chairs the Senate Finance Subcommittee on International Trade.
Congress will be able to pass immigration legislation only if it extends beyond high-skilled workers, said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. “You will not get a bill unless there is a full immigration bill.” Schumer has advocated increasing the cap on the H-1B visa program for high-skilled workers -- a position shared by multiple technology companies. The comprehensive immigration reform legislation Schumer is helping to craft will include provisions on high-skilled workers, he said. “You won’t get everything you want, but you will get almost everything you want.” The H-1B program will need reforms to prevent companies from abusing it, he said.
The House Judiciary Committee wants to continue to address patent reform this Congress, said Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va. That’s particularly so for patent litigation abuse caused by patent assertion entities, for which the committee hasn’t decided on the best legislative fix, he said. The America Invents Act has helped make great strides in patent reform, but key provisions “got left on the cutting room floor,” he said. Decisions by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and other courts have issued good decisions that curb abuses by PAEs, but further legislative fixes must be a focus of his committee, Goodlatte said. One possible fix the committee is considering is the Saving High-Tech Innovators from Egregious Legal Disputes (SHIELD) Act (HR-845), which Reps. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., introduced last week. The SHIELD Act would force any plaintiff who the presiding court deems a “patent troll” to pay all costs and attorney fees associated with a patent infringement lawsuit if the plaintiff loses the case.
The SHIELD Act may not be the “right approach” to combating patent litigation abuse, but it’s an “honest effort” to address the problem, said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif. The House Judiciary Committee is considering other legislative alternatives as well, Goodlatte said. The Intellectual Property Subcommittee plans a hearing on patent litigation abuse at 9 a.m. Thursday in Room 2141 Rayburn. Witnesses will include Mark Chandler, general counsel for Cisco, and Dana Rao, associate general counsel for Adobe (http://1.usa.gov/Ws9xBt).
The FCC faces the challenge of ensuring there’s enough spectrum to allow for continued expansion of mobile e-commerce, said Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel. “We will be pursuing policies -- as in the past -- that involve competition, flexible use licenses and a presumption of renewal when something facilitates investments in networks, as well as secondary markets,” she said. “These things have made us the envy of the world. ... Hopefully we can keep it up through our upcoming traditional spectrum auctions, and also with our upcoming incentive auctions.” The outcome of the incentive auctions will be particularly important, since the world is watching how the U.S. uses the incentive auction structure, Rosenworcel said. Good spectrum policy will have to involve a combination of licensed and unlicensed spectrum, with both types being used efficiently to maximize opportunity, she said. “We are consuming the airwaves like never before,” Rosenworcel said. “This is a revolution, and we're going to have to become more efficient in our use of spectrum.”