Last night, the Senate voted 67-27 for cloture on a border
security compromise amendment to the Border Security, Economic Opportunity and
Immigration Modernization Act bill.
The vote signified potential for significant Republican support for the
Senate comprehensive immigration bill, and represents increased momentum for
its passage. Last week, CCIA
joined more than 100 technology executives in a letter calling for Senate
support of the bill. We are
encouraged to see the Senate making progress in addressing the thorny and
polarizing issue of immigration in the way it has traditionally done:
broadening support by crafting a compromise that is workable for as many
senators as possible.
Yesterday, CCIA and The American Antitrust Institute (AAI) hosted an event titled “Competition
Law & Patent Assertion Entities: What Antitrust Enforcers can do.”
The keynote speaker was FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez, who began the event
by highlighting problems with PAEs, and suggesting that the FTC might soon
engage in a 6(b) study to determine the effects of PAEs on the economy.
After closing a public consultation in September 2012, the Commission’s services responsible for the internal market have just sent the first drafts for a Directive on notice-and-action (N&A) procedures and a non-binding Communication on best practises into inter-service consultation. During the inter-service consultation other Commission services have the opportunity to comment on the draft proposals before they will be formally adopted by the college of Commissioners. The final adoption by the college is scheduled for the 10 July.
CCIA Filed Amicus Brief in Federal Circuit Case Oracle v. Google in Support of Interoperability
Last week, CCIA filed an amicus brief [PDF]
with the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Oracle v. Google.
Oracle’s initial complaint included both copyright and patent claims, and
the court decided to split it up into separate cases. (For more
information on the rather complicated procedural history, ArsTechnica has a series of posts
following each development.) CCIA’s brief was filed in an appeal of the
case involving the copyrightability of APIs. CCIA urged the Federal
Circuit to affirm the district court’s finding that Oracle’s APIs at issue were
not copyrightable.
