CEA hailed the Obama administration’s decision to “bypass” Philip Johnson, who has been chief intellectual property counsel for Johnson & Johnson, as nominee for next head of the Patent and Trademark Office. Johnson is “an opponent of patent reform” who would have thwarted “stopping frivolous patent litigation,” which “has long been a key priority for the administration,” said Michael Petricone, CEA senior vice president-government affairs, in a news release Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1xYzYNK). “We urge the president to find a highly qualified candidate who will advance the president’s reform agenda and curb the patent troll racket that is targeting our most innovative businesses, harming our economy and killing U.S. jobs.” Last week, CEA and other groups lambasted Johnson as a possible PTO nominee on grounds that he took a leading role in stalling patent reform in the Senate (CD July 3 p12) . Some opponents cited his testimony in December before the Senate Judiciary Committee (http://bit.ly/1nbk8qO) in which he said that “while troll abuse is a problem that should be addressed, it is critical that Congress not do so at the expense of the vast majority of innovation stakeholders for whom the patent system is working.” Other major patent revamp groups, like the Innovation Alliance and Coalition for 21st Century Patent Reform (21C), declined to comment Thursday because the nomination and withdrawal were never made official. Johnson has often represented 21C in the patent debate over the past several months. The White House and PTO did not comment. In the end, Johnson’s critics praised the White House for bowing to their pressure and realizing he might not be the best choice to head the PTO. Said one: “To its credit, the White House realized it was in the process of making a mistake. Why on earth would you want a PTO head who aggressively opposes administration policies?” Characterizing the Coalition for 21st Century Patent Reform as being “'opposed to patent reform'” is “as inaccurate as it is disingenuous,” said the coalition in a statement Thursday. The coalition opposes “legislative proposals that go beyond what is necessary or desirable to combat abusive patent litigation or assertion, and risk unintended consequences that would seriously undermine legitimate patent enforcement or the innovation incentives of the patent system,” it said. “Drafting legislation based on the premise that every patent holder who wishes to enforce its rights is a patent troll, or based on the rhetoric that the patent system is somehow ‘broken,’ weakens all patents, favors business models that do not rely on innovation, and tilts the balance in favor of patent infringers.” The coalition supports “patent reform that is sufficiently fair, balanced and effective for diverse industries and stakeholders,” it said.

Correction: NARUC’s FCC reply filing on HD voice is at http://bit.ly/VLFXaJ (CD July 10 p5).

Lost in the net neutrality debate “is the lack of a demonstrable need" for open Internet rules “as validated by a rigorous and factually sound cost-benefit analysis,” wrote FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly and House Commerce Committee Vice Chairwoman Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., in an op-ed in the National Review Online Thursday (http://bit.ly/1mCyGUp). “Consumers can already access whatever Internet content, applications, and services they desire. When traffic is treated differently, such as prioritizing a voice call or video stream over an e-mail, it is part of sensible network management. And if you talk to broadband providers, they'll tell you that this isn’t going to change. The Internet has flourished because of the government’s hands-off approach."

Closing outdated FCC proceedings “makes a lot of sense,” said Commissioner Mike O'Rielly in a blog post (http://fcc.us/1mwnjgG), praising a Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau public notice (http://fcc.us/1qHRzH9) seeking comment on whether to terminate nearly 650 dormant proceedings. Closing the proceedings “could help the agency become more organized and focused on decisions that need to be made,” wrote O'Rielly Tuesday. “It could also make it easier for both Congress and the public to track what the agency is working on or still considering. And it could help prevent the Commission from using antiquated information as a basis for regulating."

The Digital Policy Institute urged the FCC in a filing in docket 14-28 to exercise caution as it moves forward on net neutrality rules. The agency posted the filing Wednesday. The group said the rules are likely to face judicial review. “It is essential that the agency take steps that are based on sound economic theory and analysis,” DPI said (http://bit.ly/1mJunrX). FCC action also “must be limited to that for which it plausibly has the authority to take, as well as the policy basis to pursue,” the group said.

Dish Network plans to participate in the upcoming AWS-3 and TV incentive auctions, Chairman Charlie Ergen told FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and other agency officials in meetings Monday, said an ex parte filing made Wednesday in docket 14-57 (http://bit.ly/1zq0EbE). Dish officials encouraged the FCC to impose separate bidding eligibility, activity waivers, and auction stopping rules for the different spectrum bands to be sold in the AWS-3 auction -- the 1695-1710 MHz and 1755-1780/2155-2180 MHz bands. “Given that the licenses for the two bands are not substitutes, there is no legitimate, pro-competitive reason for the Commission to combine bidding eligibility, activity waivers, and auction stopping rules,” Dish said. Ergen also asked the FCC to reject Comcast’s proposed buy of Time Warner Cable. The deal “presents serious competitive concerns for the broadband and video marketplaces and therefore should be denied,” Dish said. “There do not appear to be any conditions that would remedy the harms that would result from the merger.” Comcast/TWC would be able to “choke” competitor OTT services at several points in the broadband pipe, Dish said. It would be able to “exercise its enormous size to leverage programming content in anti-competitive ways,” Dish said. That could include extracting lower prices from programmers, which could lead to those programmers charging higher rates to companies like Dish to make up lost revenue, the filing said. Comcast/TWC would also have incentive to restrict programmers’ ability to grant digital rights to competing pay-TV and OTT services, Dish said. Dish also raised concerns about the proposed AT&T/DirecTV deal. “Among other things, AT&T and DIRECTV will also be able to combine their market power to leverage programming content, to the potential detriment of consumers,” the filing said. Ergen also met with the four other commissioners Monday, the filing said.

Verizon received 148,903 law enforcement requests for customer data in the first half of 2014, the company said in a transparency report (http://vz.to/1qfvDkC). Roughly half of those requests were subpoenas from law enforcement, which sought info on 132,499 “information points,” like a phone number, which are used to identify a customer. Verizon in January became the first telco to issue such a transparency report (CD Jan 23 p5). The numbers released Tuesday show the company has received requests at roughly the same rate it did in 2013, when it received 321,545 total law enforcement requests and 164,184 subpoenas over the full year. Similarly, the telco received national security letters at roughly the same rate over the first half of 2014: Between 0 and 999 letters requesting information on between 2,000 and 2,999 “selectors” to identify Verizon customers. The company was not able to release the number of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) orders for the first half of 2014, because the government imposes a six-month delay on reporting that data, Verizon said. In the second half of 2013, the company received between 0 and 999 FISA orders for content -- recordings of phone calls or stored content, Verizon said. It also received between 0 and 999 FISA orders for non-content -- call records, but not the calls themselves -- Verizon said. It said the content requests targeted between 3,000 and 3,999 customers and the non-content requests targeted between 0 and 999 customers.

The Senate Intelligence Committee cleared the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) Tuesday on a 12-3 vote after a closed markup. The bill is widely seen as an analogue to the House-passed Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (HR-624) that includes more stringent privacy protections. Privacy groups have criticized CISA, despite those additional privacy protections (CD June 26 p8). Sens. Mark Udall, D-Colo., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said in a joint statement that they were two of the votes against CISA. The bill “lacks adequate protections for the privacy rights of law-abiding Americans, and that it will not materially improve cybersecurity,” they said. A revised version of the bill in the form of a manager’s amendment included what the committee said were strengthened privacy protections and clarifications to authorization language. Senate Intelligence approved an amendment from Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., that would require the attorney general to determine a “specific limitation” on how long federal agencies can retain cyber threat information shared under CISA. The committee adopted three amendments from Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. One amendment would allow cyberthreat information sharing for the “protection of minors,” while another would require the actions performed under the bill to conform with the Fair Information Practice Principles included in President Barack Obama’s cybersecurity strategy. The third Collins amendment would allow the Department of Defense to share cyberthreat information it receives from defense contractors. Senate Intelligence approved an amendment from Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, that would include national laboratories among the federal agencies the director of national intelligence must consult during development of procedures for government information sharing with the private sector. The committee also approved an amendment from Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., requiring the director of national intelligence to submit a report to Congress on cyberintelligence cooperation. Senate Intelligence said it will release the full text of the marked up version of CISA later this week.

Citizens Against Government Waste said FCC members should back off from imposing any new net neutrality rules, in a Monday CAGW filing saying it speaks for more than 1 million members (http://bit.ly/1jhBXK6). The proposed rules are “another attempt to solve a problem that doesn’t exist,” CAGW said. “Proponents of net neutrality want the online world to be forced ‘open’ at the expense of successful Internet providers, but fail to recognize the many tradeoffs to ‘openness,’ such as increased spam, fewer privacy controls, slower service, and, perhaps most importantly, decreased incentives for investment and innovation.” The FCC has logged more than 201,000 comments in net neutrality docket 14-28 since it was created in February. The vast majority urge the agency to impose rules, based on a review of some of the comments.

The FCC should grant Time Warner Cable a waiver allowing it to operate new unlicensed national information infrastructure (U-NII) devices designed for one part of the 5 GHz band in another, TWC said in a supplemental request filing (http://bit.ly/1qC0prF). It wants a waiver allowing operation of up to 10,000 new U-NII-3 devices in the U-NII-1 band, said the filing posted Wednesday in docket 13-49. A limited waiver “would serve the public interest and is warranted by the negligible risk of harmful interference from a relatively small number of devices operating at lower power levels,” the filing said. It would “increase the opportunities for TWC to provide expanded Wi-Fi offerings to its customers on an expedited basis,” said Time Warner Cable.