Google, Cisco and Netflix were among 24 companies that told Senate Judiciary Committee leaders that they want the committee to strike a provision in the Patent Transparency and Improvements Act (S-1720) that would require the Patent and Trademark Office to stop using the broadest reasonable interpretation (BRI) patent evaluation standard and instead use the federal courts’ claim construction standard. Eliminating the BRI standard “would undermine the goal of producing high quality patents” and “would reverse much of the important progress that has been made under the America Invents Act (AIA) to reduce frivolous patent litigation,” the companies said in a letter to Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and ranking member Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. AIA created PTO’s inter partes review and post-grant review processes to provide a non-litigation method of challenging the validity of patents -- processes that have become popular remedies, the companies said. Eliminating BRI will “greatly weaken” both processes and “could produce inconsistent results where a single patent is under evaluation before the PTO in multiple proceedings,” the companies said. Industry observers see S-1720 as the marquee Senate bill addressing so-called abusive patent litigation, although other bills on the issue are under consideration in the Senate Judiciary and Commerce committees.

Several key stakeholders are set to testify on the reauthorization of the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act Wednesday at 10 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn. The House Communications Subcommittee, which is preparing a draft of STELA legislation that has already upset broadcasters (CD Feb 28 p1), is holding the hearing. Witnesses scheduled are NCTA CEO Michael Powell, a former FCC chairman; Schurz Communications Senior Vice President of Broadcasting Marci Burdick, a board member of NAB, which has said it strenuously opposes current provisions of the STELA draft; TiVo General Counsel Matt Zinn, who told us at length last fall of his objections to integration ban legislation now expected to be part of the STELA draft; and DirecTV Executive Vice President Mike Palkovic. TVFreedom, a recently formed coalition representing broadcaster interests and including NAB as a member, slammed industry reports that the STELA draft will allow cable operators to remove broadcast stations from the basic tier. “We are outraged by stealth efforts of pay-TV to eliminate consumer access to broadcast TV on the basic cable tier,” TVFreedom’s spokesman said in a statement Friday. “Forcing the most popular stations off this ‘basic-lifeline-cable-tier’ could deprive customers of local news, emergency information, and severe weather warnings that are only provided by broadcasters. This bad deal being driven by pay-TV interests will most severely impact Latinos, seniors and lower-income families who are most heavily reliant on over-the-air broadcast and basic tier TV when disaster strikes.” He criticized the alleged move as “another consumer rip-off.” The subcommittee has not confirmed any provisions in the STELA draft legislation it is preparing.

Watch for privacy packages put together by House Republican leadership, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, said on an episode of C-SPAN’s The Communicators set to air Saturday. He named House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., and broadly, committee chairmen, including Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., as those interested in putting legislation together. The lawmakers sense a growing consumer demand for privacy legislation, “and they're beginning to put packages together that you'll hopefully see on the floor sometime this summer,” said Barton, founder and co-chair of the Congressional Privacy Caucus and a former House Commerce Committee chairman. He also slammed net neutrality rules that the FCC hopes to reinstate. “Obviously Netflix should pay more than someone who uses the Internet once a month,” Barton said. “I'm being very simplistic, but that’s the genesis.” Companies have spent billions to “set up their systems” and “should be allowed to charge based on volume,” he said. Barton expressed support for House Republicans’ goals of updating the Communications Act, citing recent conversation with Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., about more “oversight hearings and fact-finding hearings” to that end. He hopes there will be a bill in the next Congress. He defended his efforts backing legal online poker and touted poker as a game of skill, distinguishing it from other gambling. Of a recent vote on cellphone unlocking, Barton accused of confusion certain members who spoke in opposition to a bill, which passed the House earlier this week. Barton is “hopeful” of getting his Do Not Track Kids Act advancing in this Congress, he said, mentioning “all kinds of privacy issues that have made the front pages.” If the Fourth Amendment were ratified today, it “would include a specific right to privacy,” he predicted. He called the lobbying of tech companies “modest” but suggested lobbying forces have more power if they have a presence in a Congress member’s home district or state. He cited AT&T, based in Dallas and near his own district, as an example. He would be likelier to speak to AT&T workers if he knew they lived in his district and commuted there, he said. “That is much more effective,” he said of those home district connections. “On any big issue, the Washington side of it tends to balance out,” given so many trade associations and lobbyists around the Capitol, he said.

The Senate Commerce Committee fast-tracked consideration of the Transparency in Assertion of Patents Act (S-2049), saying Thursday that the committee plans to vote on the bill during its executive session Wednesday. S-2049 is one of eight bills on the docket for the session. The legislation, which Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., introduced Thursday, would expand the FTC’s authority to regulate patent assertion entities’ use of pre-litigation demand letters against potential lawsuit defendants. Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., is a co-sponsor of the bill (CD Feb 28 p12). The executive session begins at 2:30 p.m. in 253 Russell.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., backs Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., to be the top Democrat on the House Commerce Committee, said a letter Pelosi circulated to colleagues Thursday and given to us by a spokeswoman. Current ranking member Henry Waxman, D-Calif., announced he will retire after his current term, and both Eshoo and the more senior Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., said they intend to seek that top slot. “In that spirit, of moving with a policy for the future, I strongly endorse Anna Eshoo,” Pelosi wrote, saying she had not intended to make a public endorsement but was doing so since so many asked. “For over 20 years, Anna has represented the people of Silicon Valley and their innovative spirit in the House with great success as she conveyed the priorities of House Democrats to her constituents,” Pelosi said, citing Eshoo’s commitment to an agenda of innovation and in support of “STEM [science, technology, education and math] education, broadband capacity, and advanced technology development.”

Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., asked FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler to question Comcast’s past compliance behavior in reviewing any Comcast-Time Warner Cable deal, he said in a letter Thursday (http://1.usa.gov/1gHxA4k), citing Comcast’s previous acquisition of NBCUniversal. “To the extent that Comcast has a history of breaching its legal obligations to consumers, such history should be taken into account when evaluating Comcast’s proposal for future market expansion,” Franken wrote. Wheeler’s inquiries should include net neutrality, localism, affordable stand-alone broadband, data caps and network neighborhoods, Franken recommended. Franken has emphasized the deal in his Senate campaign, and it has also become a campaign issue for Ro Khanna, a Democrat running for a House seat in California and widely hailed by the tech industry. The deal would cause “unprecedented concentration in the cable TV industry,” Khanna wrote in a letter (http://bit.ly/MBMJuv) to Rep. Mike Honda, D-Calif., Khanna’s incumbent competitor. “I believe it is imperative for Members of Congress to speak out against this merger because the interests of consumers are being overwhelmed by Comcast’s power on Capitol Hill.” Lawmakers in the House and Senate Judiciary committees have announced intentions to hold hearings on the deal. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, expects the House Commerce Committee to hold a hearing on the deal, scrutinizing local issues where there may be market dominance problems. “We would tend to be receptive,” Barton said of how Congress will receive the deal, speaking on an episode of C-SPAN’s The Communicators that was set to be telecast Saturday. (See separate report in this issue.) Asked about Franken’s letter, Comcast defended its efforts. “Comcast is proud of our track-record on complying with the conditions from our past transactions including NBCUniversal,” a spokeswoman said in a statement. “We've gone above and beyond in compliance with most conditions, including our low-income broadband program, the amount of local news programming and investment in local stations, the amount of on-demand programming, especially children’s programming, and many more areas.” Executive Vice President David Cohen has also argued in favor of the company in blog posts on compliance conditions, such as a post a year ago (http://bit.ly/1hJyWMO).

Eight House members signed on Thursday as co-sponsors to the Local Radio Freedom Act (H. Con. Res. 16), which opposes new performance royalties, according to Congress.gov (http://1.usa.gov/1mKPXwI). Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, also added his name Thursday as a co-sponsor to the Senate’s concurrent resolution (S. Con. Res. 6), it said (http://1.usa.gov/1cfZEyO). Reps. Bruce Braley, D-Iowa; Corrine Brown, D-Fla.; Larry Bucshon, R-Ind.; Andre Carson, D-Ind.; John Carter R-Texas; Ann Kirkpatrick, D-Ariz.; Nick Rahall, D-W.Va.; and Jackie Walorski, R-Ind., are the most recent House co-sponsors of the bill, it said. A total of 201 House members and 13 senators support the bill, NAB said in a press release Friday (http://bit.ly/1cfWwTz).

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., introduced the Transparency in Assertion of Patents Act Thursday to give the FTC additional authority to regulate patent assertion entities’ use of pre-litigation demand letters against potential lawsuit defendants. The FTC currently has power under Section 5 of the FTC Act to protect small businesses, end-users and others against deceptive demand letters. McCaskill’s bill would give the FTC further authority on demand letters, allowing the agency to create and enforce demand letter rules, including requiring disclosure about the identity of the owners of the enforced patent, the patent claims in question, how a proposed settlement was calculated and information on past litigation involving the patent. The bill would also allow the FTC to regulate unfair and deceptive assertions included in a demand letter, and would require the commission to increase public awareness about “unfair and deceptive patent assertions.” The bill would exempt disclosure of existing licensing agreements and other information the FTC determines “is not necessary for the protection of consumers.” The bill would also allow state attorneys general to take action in federal courts against an entity that violates the bill’s rules (http://1.usa.gov/1mIvoNQ). McCaskill, who leads the Senate Consumer Protection Subcommittee, said in a subcommittee hearing in November that she was exploring a bill targeting demand letters that would specifically address “end users and consumer protection” (CD Nov 8 p13). Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said in a statement that he’s co-sponsoring the bill because it “cracks down on the commercial practice of mailing hundreds, if not thousands, of misleading letters that seek to extort money from small businesses. The bill isn’t about patent law or patent rights; it’s simply about protecting unsuspecting victims from bad actors and their despicable behavior."

The Senate should consider creating a select committee to focus on cybersecurity, Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Angus King, I-Maine, said Thursday during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. Congress has been considering several bills that would address cybersecurity, including a House-passed version of the controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (HR-624), but industry observers have noted few prospects for marquee legislation to pass Congress during the remainder of the 113th Congress (CD Jan 6 p2). A select committee would be useful because “one of the biggest problems we face is that this issue crosses many jurisdictional lines of different committees,” McCain said during the hearing. King said he agreed with McCain, noting that it would be a “procedural” solution to continued disagreements on the issue between the Senate committees handling cybersecurity, including Homeland Security, Intelligence and Commerce. If the U.S. experiences a cyber “Pearl Harbor” in the near future “and we haven’t done anything, we're going to look pretty dumb around here,” he said. Keith Alexander, National Security Agency director and commander of U.S. Cyber Command, told the committee he believed having a committee “that pulls all that together would make a lot of sense.” Alexander said during the hearing that Congress needs to “get on with cyber legislation,” adding that “a lack of legislation will impact our ability to defend the country in this area.”

House members want the FCC to kick off a proceeding on below-the-line fees, backing more disclosure. House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., drafted the letter to the agency, signed by members of both parties. “We believe consumers deserve greater transparency and disclosure prior to signing-up for service, as well as on their monthly bill,” it said. “CTIA’s Consumer Code for Wireless Service, which articulates a variety of principles, disclosures and practices for postpaid and prepaid wireless service, expressly provides for the disclosure of the type of fees that Congresswoman Eshoo’s letter addresses,” said Vice President-Government Affairs Jot Carpenter in a statement. “We have no reason to believe that any of our members are failing to abide by this commitment and have communicated as much to the members of Congress who signed the letter. Besides, the vigorous competition that characterizes the wireless industry encourages both disclosure and price discipline."