Posts Tagged: "Senate"

This Week in Washington IP: America’s Innovation Leadership, Facebook’s Financial Industry Impact and Personal Data Ownership

This week in tech and innovation hearings in Washington, D.C., the House of Representatives explores issues related to emerging cyber threats, Facebook’s cryptocurrency and its impact on the financial sector, space weather research and supporting clean automobile developments. House committees will also hold two field hearings outside of D.C. on improving Internet connectivity in rural communities and community initiatives in smart mobility programs. In the Senate, committee hearings will focus on ownership of personal data, international energy efficiency efforts and the reauthorization of compulsory copyright licenses for satellite broadcasts under STELAR. Elsewhere, Cato Institute will host an event looking at advances to space technology encouraged by the private sector, while the week closes out with an event at The Heritage Foundation discussing the effect of data surveillance on Fourth Amendment protections.

This Week in D.C.: Competition in Digital Tech Markets, NIH Medical Research Funding and Clean Industrial Innovation

This week in the U.S. capital, the Senate will hold committee hearings on antitrust issues in digital platforms and real-time payment systems, a sector of fintech that will also be explored by the House Task Force on Financial Technology. Elsewhere in the House of Representatives, there will be hearings on Veterans’ Affairs scheduling technology, clean industrial innovations and medical research funding at the NIH. The week kicks off at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation with a look at small business innovation funding programs. The Brookings Institution will also host events on Army modernization efforts and issues in disaggregating health data for improved policy-making.

Bipartisan Effort to Resurrect Office of Technology Assessment Introduced

Yesterday, Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Mazie Hirono (D-HI) and Representatives Mark Takano (D-CA) and Bill Foster (D-IL) introduced the Office of Technology Assessment Improvement and Enhancement Act, which if enacted would introduce enhancements to the existing Office of Technology Assessment statute codified at 2 U.S.C. §472. According to the sponsors, this bipartisan legislation would improve and enhance the existing Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) by making it more accessible and responsive to the needs of Members of Congress. The OTA, which existed for a generation spanning three decades in the 1970s, 80s and into the mid 1990s, became defunct when Republicans took control of Congress after the 1994 midterm elections. A draft funding bill released by House Democrats this spring first showed interest in resurrecting the OTA.

This Week in D.C.: NASA Deep Space Exploration, Small Business and Innovation, and Transportation Sustainability

This week in the U.S. Capitol and Washington D.C area., technology and innovation hearings in the House of Representatives will focus on tech at the Environmental Protection Agency, small business contract programs at the Small Business Administration, NASA’s deep space exploration program and sustainability technologies for the transportation sector. Over in the Senate, committee hearings will look at the mineral supply chain for clean energy tech and the regulation of extremist content on digital platforms in response to mass violence. The week kicks off with a discussion at the Brookings Institution of the impacts of federal data privacy legislation, while the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation will host a mid-week event on data-driven innovations in drug development.

Affordable Prescriptions for Patients Act Would Allow FTC to Prosecute Pharma Patent Thickets, Product Hopping

On Thursday, May 9, the Affordable Prescriptions for Patients (APP) Act was introduced into the U.S. Senate by Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT). If passed by Congress and signed into law, the bill would modify the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Act to give the FTC additional antitrust authority to challenge the anticompetitive nature of certain actions by pharmaceutical patent owners in the service of providing more consumer access to generic and biosimilar drugs.