The Computer & Communications Industry Association joined six dozen companies and associations in a joint letter to House and Senate Judiciary Committee leaders today to ask to move legislation to bring greater transparency to government surveillance programs. The letter praises provisions of both S. 1452, the Surveillance Transparency Act of 2013, and H.R. 3035, the Surveillance Order Reporting…
Washington – The FTC has voted to seek public comments on a study that would examine companies whose main business is extorting money from patents, known as patent assertion entities (PAEs) or patent trolls. This is the first step in a broad federal investigation into the toll of patent trolls. Until now, this empirical data had been…
Washington – Senators Richard Blumenthal, Rand Paul, Mark Udall and Ron Wyden have introduced bipartisan legislation this week to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to curtail the overbroad collection of bulk communications data that the government has claimed was legal. The legislation would not restrict the ability of the government to collect data…
Washington – The Supreme Court may take up a case that many are hoping could resolve a division within the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on patent eligibility of software. About half of the court has been following the Supreme Court’s guidance from the recent cases Bilski v. Kappos and Mayo v. Prometheus, but several…
Washington – Those who like to skip TV commercials and those making the devices that help them do it won a key court victory Wednesday. A New York southern District Judge dismissed an argument by ABC that DISH Network’s commercial hopping feature on the company’s DVR violated ABC’s copyright. This victory comes on the heels…
Washington – A U.S. District Court has ruled that a group representing songwriters and music publishers cannot limit the number of songs it licenses to the Internet’s largest radio service. The radio service, Pandora, had sought the ruling after several big publishers had tried to withdraw some new media publishing rights from the American Society…
Washington – The Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) today welcomed the release of the House Judiciary Committee’s basic principles on Internet sales taxation. Chairman Bob Goodlatte’s, R-Va., seven principles addressed issues like the need for tech neutrality and simplicity. These are issues CCIA had raised in opposing the Senate’s Marketplace Fairness Act (MFA). We hope these…
Brussels – The European Commission has proposed its long-awaited telecommunications reforms Wednesday evening, designed to bring simpler rules for telecom companies offering service throughout Europe and giving consumers more rights to reach the platforms and content of their choice on the Internet. The Computer & Communications Industry Association today praised the proposal as it creates…
As the economy shows increasing signs of recovery and growth, many Internet companies see overseas markets as the next stage of that growth. But to fully realize that growth for the technology industry, laws would need to be modernized so companies can expand trade deals rather than lawsuits. This matters because the tech industry is…
