Jimm Phillips

Congress should “proceed with caution” as it considers a second round of changes to the U.S. patent system, former Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) Director David Kappos is expected to tell the House Judiciary Committee Tuesday. Kappos, now a partner at Cravath Swaine, is to testify at a 10 a.m. hearing to get industry input on the Innovation Act (HR-3309). The bill, introduced last week by committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., attempts to curb abusive patent litigation by making changes to court rules governing patent cases, as well as through changes to PTO programs (CD Oct 24 p12).

Patent litigation revamp legislation that Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., is set to introduce within the next few weeks is likely to reflect the spirit of the Innovation Act (HR-3309), which House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., introduced Wednesday -- but it’s unlikely to be a direct analog, patent debate participants told us in interviews last week. Goodlatte and Leahy have been closely coordinating the development of their separate bills, with Leahy saying soon after the Innovation Act’s introduction that he and Goodlatte “share a common goal” to curb abusive patent litigation and would continue to work on it going forward (CD Oct 24 p12).

Industry stakeholders must remain engaged in development and implementation of the Cybersecurity Framework as the National Institute of Standards and Technology moves into the process of creating a final version of the framework for release in February, said NIST Director Patrick Gallagher. NIST released a preliminary version of the framework Tuesday to collect public input (CD Oct 23 p1). That input will include a fifth framework development workshop Nov. 14-15 at North Carolina State University’s Centennial campus in Raleigh. In addition to seeking input on specific parts of the framework, NIST will discuss possible structures for an independent, industry-led body to take charge of further revisions to the framework, Gallagher said during a USTelecom event Friday.

Patent industry stakeholders should “stay tuned” for a pending U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rulemaking on the filing and disclosure of real-party-in-interest (RPI) patent ownership information, acting PTO Director Teresa Stanek Rea said Thursday. PTO is conducting the rulemaking process as part of its implementation of President Barack Obama’s set of executive actions to combat abusive patent litigation. The set of actions tasks PTO with creating rules that will require patent applicants and owners to regularly update ownership on file at PTO when they are involved in proceedings with the agency (CD June 5 p6).

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., formally introduced the Innovation Act (HR-3309) Wednesday, culminating what he called months of “collaborative” discussion about the best way to curb patent litigation abuse. The bill, which closely resembles a discussion draft Goodlatte released last month (CD Sept 24 p15), balances the need for “robust legal reform measures while protecting property rights,” he said during a news conference. The bill seeks to punish bad behavior rather than target specific types of companies, he said, noting that he and others use “patent troll” as an “adjective describing behavior rather than a noun."

The National Institute of Standards and Technology released the preliminary version of the Cybersecurity Framework Tuesday, meeting skepticism from some cybersecurity experts. Early reaction from industry groups praised NIST’s inclusion of industry in the framework’s development, but the groups said they needed to review the framework more thoroughly. NIST had said it wanted to release the new version for public comment as soon as possible since it missed its original Oct. 10 deadline because of the government shutdown. NIST said it believes it will be able to meet the February deadline to release a final version of the framework.

AT&T agreed to sell Crown Castle International ownership or leasing rights to about 9,700 of its approximately 10,000 cell tower sites for $4.85 billion. The deal, announced Saturday, gives Crown Castle full ownership of 600 AT&T tower sites and full leasing control of 9,100 sites for an average of 28 years. Crown Castle has the option to buy the leased towers for $4.2 billion at the end of the lease period. AT&T said it will lease back space on the towers for at least the next 10 years at a starting price of $1,900 a month per site; leasing prices will rise by 2 percent a year. AT&T has the option to re-up its leases for a total of 50 years (http://soc.att.com/17Zl624). The deal is one of the latest in a string of sales of wireless carriers’ tower sites to tower companies -- and it may be one of the last major ones for the foreseeable future, industry experts told us Monday.

President Barack Obama nominated former Department of Defense General Counsel Jeh Johnson Friday as secretary of Homeland Security, to replace Janet Napolitano, who resigned in September. As DOD’s top lawyer, Johnson was a party to the development of DOD’s cybersecurity efforts -- an asset given DHS’s prominent role in U.S. cybersecurity matters like the implementation of Obama’s cybersecurity executive order, said former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense-Cyber Policy Bob Butler. Johnson has been a partner at the Paul, Weiss law firm since resigning from DOD in December.

The Verizon Wireless, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks joint venture to integrate cable and wireless technologies “has been terminated,” Verizon Communications Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo said Thursday during a call with investors. The partnership formed as part of the larger Verizon/SpectrumCo spectrum deal (CD Dec 5/11 p5). A Verizon spokeswoman said the partnership dissolved in late August, just before Verizon announced it was buying Vodafone’s 45 percent of Verizon Wireless for $130 billion (CD Sept 2 p1). Although the companies are “moving in our separate ways” on the partnership, Verizon will continue its bundling and other joint-marketing deals with the cable companies, Shammo said. The Verizon Wireless buyout was at least part of the reason the partnership ended, he said, saying the telco can now concentrate on “bringing to the customer the best products available between wireline and wireless.” Verizon filed a proxy statement with the SEC last week related to the deal, Shammo said (http://bit.ly/19UJ98O). Verizon Wireless added a net 927,000 postpaid subscribers during Q3, in line with analysts’ expectations. Verizon had a net $2.2 billion profit for the quarter, up from a $1.6 billion net profit during the same period last year. The telco had total quarterly revenue of $30.3 billion. Verizon Wireless activated 10.2 million mobile devices during the quarter, including 7.6 million smartphones; about 3.9 million of the smartphones were iPhones. Verizon added a net 173,000 FiOS Internet subscriptions and 135,000 net FiOS television connections during the quarter.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s planned release of a preliminary version of the Cybersecurity Framework was put on hold by the government shutdown. Industry observers told us they anticipate the agency will be able to release the new version soon after it reopens after the shutdown ends. Although the shutdown furloughed all but 8 percent of NIST’s staff, the framework is seen to be one of the components of President Barack Obama’s cybersecurity executive order least affected by the shutdown (CD Oct 9 p7). The order had mandated NIST release the preliminary framework for public comment by Oct. 10. The Department of Commerce, which oversees the agency, said in a statement it will “reevaluate the release date when government operations are fully restored.” Industry observers said they anticipate the preliminary framework will not be fundamentally different from a draft NIST released prior to a framework development workshop in September.