Posts Tagged: "Federal Trade Commission"

The number of these potentially anticompetitive deals has fallen significantly following the Supreme Court’s landmark antitrust decision in FTC v. Actavis in 2013. The total number of such deals filed with the FTC has dropped to 21 in FY 2014 from 29 in FY 2013, and 40 in FY 2012 prior to the Actavis ruling. The FTC staff report for FY 2014 represents the first annual snapshot of such deals following the Actavis decision.

Yet another tech developer known for consumer electronics is getting into the autonomous vehicle market, a sign that we can continue to expect disruption for the conventional automaker model in that sector. A recent data breach settlement underscores the growing cybersecurity threat the world faces. The latest theory about alien life on other planets starts to fizzle and fade. Also, we hear some stories featuring notable names in the tech business world, including Michael Bloomberg and Elon Musk.

Yesterday the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that Oracle has agreed to settle charges that it deceived consumers about the security provided by updates to its Java Platform, Standard Edition software (Java SE), which is installed on more than 850 million personal computers. The FTC will now publish a description of the consent agreement in the Federal Register. The agreement will be subject to public comment for 30 days, beginning yesterday and continuing through Jan. 20, 2016. Thereafter the Commission will decide whether to make the proposed consent order final, which is typically the outcome.

The federal regulatory agency in charge of assessing health claims for goods and services sold to American consumers is the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the U.S. government’s main consumer protection agency. In the past few months alone, the FTC has taken action against a number of bogus health products which may seem obviously suspicious at first blush but have been successful in defrauding well-meaning consumers out of their money.

”An anecdote is a snapshot, a one-dimensional shard of the big picture. It is lacking in scale, perspective, and data,” authors Steven Levitt and Stephan Dubner write. I was struck by how well the dynamic of anecdote vs. story captures the heated Washington debate over patent legislation we have witnessed in the past few years. The ”patent troll” narrative — fueled by anecdotal tales of mom-and-pop operations snared by fraudulent patent suits and the image of ugly green trolls paraded from the House floor to the White House – became the conventional wisdom on patents almost overnight. The only ”data” offered to support the narrative were compiled from surveys with unscientific methodologies, nonrandomized survey bases and ill-defined notions of a ”troll” that swept in universities, small inventors and anyone who owned a patent but didn’t manufacture, market and distribute the related product.

At the end of October, the FTC again made a push on Capitol Hill for stronger data privacy standards, this time dealing specifically with the idea of connected cars. In prepared testimony for the hearing, entitled Examining Ways to Improve Vehicle and Roadway Safety, the commission brought up concerns it had with certain provisions of rules currently being drafted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which will require auto manufacturers to outfit their cars with vehicle-to-vehicle communications units in an effort to improve safety on America’s roads. The testimony was presented by Maneesha Mithal, an associate director of the FTC’s Division of Privacy and Identity Protection, during an October 21st hearing of the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade.

Territoriality has been a difficult aspect of public international law to apply to the Internet and information technology sectors. It’s a central aspect of the current flap between Google and CNIL, which wants Google to remove listings purged under the right to be forgotten from its main Google.com domain, which Google sees as its American property. Another issue discussed at the conference include the need to finalize safe harbor privacy principles which would establish rules for U.S. or European Union businesses which store customer data, bridging the gap between differences in data privacy standards in the two jurisdictions.

The nature of broadband has been changing in a way that Wheeler believes will spur even more robust data services in the near future. The FCC is taking a number of steps to try and promote competition among broadband service providers, one of the most highly anticipated of which is the incentive auction of broadcast television airwave spectrum which is currently scheduled for the first quarter of 2016. The auction is an attempt to purchase spectrum from TV broadcasters so that it can be resold in a later auction to wireless service providers.

Mr. Oliver strongly misses the mark. It is not trial lawyers who are blocking the Innovation Act, as Mr. Oliver claims. Rather, it is a large swath of the technology community — from universities, to technology companies, to small businesses, to professors, and even venture capitalists — who understand that many innovators are now at a breaking point when it comes to patent rights and that the potential for further unintended consequences via additional reform is just too great. So, in the end, no matter what side of the patent debate you are on, let’s remember that our patent system is a vastly complex, finely tuned equilibrium. While market realities require adjustments from time to time, going too far in either direction will cause devastating consequences for large swaths of businesses.

The order bars the company, MPHJ Technology Investments, LLC, and its law firm from making deceptive representations when asserting patent rights. The settlement with MPHJ, announced in November 2014, is the first time the FTC has taken action using its consumer protection authority against a patent assertion entity.

”[L]itigation abuse is driving so many of the issues and so much of the negative sentiment around patents generally. Certainly it’s important to ensure that quality patents are issued, with quality examinations, and quality patents are filed from a disclosure standpoint. The problem is largely addressed with the patent owners and how they’re asserting and using and abusing their rights versus how those rights may or may not come out of the Patent Office.”

An effort to address bad actors may unnecessarily create significant hurdles for innovators seeking to enforce or license the rights to their own innovations. The fear of unintended consequences requires targeted reform that will specifically address only the abusive behaviors relied upon by the bad actors, namely misleading and fraudulent demand letters. The trick will be to tackle these abusive behaviors that serve no legitimate purpose while not making legitimate business communications impossible. Luckily, it is not difficult to spot fraudulent demand letters and distinguish them from legitimate business inquiries. But will Congress be able to strike the appropriate legislative solution?

Notice letters play an important role in the patent system. Indeed, as the Supreme Court has explained, ”[p]atents would be of little value if infringers of them could not be notified of the consequences of infringement.” Virtue v. Creamery Package Mfg., Co., 227 U.S. 8, 37-38 (1913). Patent law encourages patent holders to take reasonable steps to notify others of existing or pending patent rights and their possible infringement. In some instances, federal patent law requires patent holders to send notice letters to accused infringers to preserve their patent enforcement rights and ability to collect damages. Notice letters and licensing communications can also serve the interests of accused infringers. Once a patent holder has made its rights known, the accused infringer can determine whether to cease the allegedly infringing activities, negotiate a license, or decide to continue its activities based on an assessment of non-infringement or invalidity.

The Federal Trade Commission is hoping to take a lead role in shaping best practices for privacy and security in the growing Internet of Things. Near the end of January, the FTC issued a staff report entitled Internet of Things: Privacy & Security in a Connected World. In it, the agency spells out a need for companies designing IoT products to establish appropriate data privacy and cybersecurity practices and tools to protect consumers.