SIIA Hosts Government Innovation Policy Discussion

The federal government is evolving rapidly, and information technology is the primary enabler of this change. SIIA is hosting a discussion on Capitol Hill next Monday to explore the key policy issues associated with this change. The discussion will be kicked-off by remarks from House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA), and will include perspective from leading SIIA member companies, including Adobe, IBM and VMware. For more information or to register, click here.

FTC Workshop to Explore Internet of Things

Next Tuesday, the FTC will host a public workshop on the “Internet of Things” — the growing supply of data inputs, sensors and interfaces that are embedded in our vehicles, household appliances, and beyond. In comments to the FTC earlier this year, SIIA agreed with the FTC that privacy and security are critical to unleashing the full potential of data inputs from the new sensors and interfaces that are becoming part of our everyday lives. However, in our comments we urged the FTC to proceed cautiously if formulating any new policies because an overarching set of policies or regulation is not a practical approach for this broad concept. A recent Politico story highlights that SIIA is in good company urging the Commission to proceed cautiously in this area.

House Still Mulling Patent Litigation, SIIA Welcomes New Senate Legislation

Last week, several members of the House Judiciary Committee urged Chairman Goodlatte (R-VA) to hold off on considering his patent legislation, the Innovation Act (H.R. 3309), until they have more opportunity to review the bill, including during another hearing that highlights additional viewpoints. Goodlatte had previously hoped to markup the legislation this week. Meanwhile the House Energy and Commerce Committee will take up the issue in a hearingon Thursday exploring the Impact of patent assertion entities on innovation and the economy.
And last week, SIIA praised Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) for introducing the Patent Litigation Integrity Act, S. 1612, to help address the problem of abusive patent litigation. The legislation takes on a big part of the patent litigation problem, providing judges more leeway to shift the costs and expenses of litigation by requiring courts to award reasonable attorney fees and other expenses to a prevailing party in patent litigation cases. Read more on SIIAs Digital Discourse Blog.

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David LeDuc is Senior Director, Public Policy at SIIA. He focuses on e-commerce, privacy, cyber security, cloud computing, open standards, e-government and information policy. Follow the SIIA public policy team on Twitter at @SIIAPolicy.