This Week in Washington IP: Curbing Online Piracy, Expanding VC Funding Outside of Traditional Hubs and USPTO’s 14th Annual IP Attaché Roundtable

This week in Washington IP news, the Senate IP Subcommittee holds a hearing on emerging methods of combating online piracy, from private agreements to anti-piracy technology, while the Senate Commerce Committee explores ways to incentivize a more even distribution of venture capital funding for small businesses and tech startups across America. The American Enterprise Institute hosts an event on Tuesday to explore research that advocates for less patent protection for pharmaceutical products. Also this week, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce co-host the 14th annual roundtable event for IP attachés stationed around the world.

Monday, December 14 

Center for Strategic & International Studies 

Advancing Data Governance in the G7

At 8:30 AM on Monday, online video webinar.

At an August 2019 G7 summit in Biarritz, France, leaders of G7 countries as well as officials from India, South Africa, Australia and Chile, entered into a cooperative strategy for open, free and secure digital transformation. Among the issues addressed in the strategy are cross-border data flow concerns about balancing economic development with regional legal frameworks. This event, which will explore how the G7 can build trust among member countries on free data flows, features a panel discussion including Sherry Madera, Global Head of Industry and Government Affairs, Refinitiv; Heulwen Philpot, Deputy Director in Cabinet Office for G7/20 Policy, United Kingdom; Noriyuki Shikata, Assistant Minister, Director-General, Economic Affairs Bureau, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan; and moderated by Matthew P. Goodman, Senior Vice President for Economics, Simon Chair in Political Economy, CSIS.

Tuesday, December 15

USPTO

The 14th Annual USPTO-GIPC IP Attaché Roundtable

At 8:30 AM on Tuesday, online video webinar.

This event, co-hosted by the USPTO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Innovation Policy Center (GIPC), is the 14th annual roundtable event featuring updates on IP enforcement challenges around the world from the USPTO’s corps of IP attachés stationed in important regions around the world. This event features presentations on trends in IP enforcement around the world as well as a question-and-answer session with IP attachés. 

American Enterprise Institute 

Pricing and Financing of Pharmaceutical Research: Paying Twice, Paying Too Much, or Paying Differently?

At 9:30 AM on Tuesday, online video webinar.

This event will explore recent research on pharmaceutical development and health outcomes co-authored by David Hyman, the Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of Health Law and Policy, Georgetown University Law Center, Georgetown University; and Charles M. Silver, the Roy W. and Eugenia C. McDonald Endowed Chair in Civil Procedure, School of Law, University of Texas at Austin. Hyman and Silver’s research advocates for using prizes and not patent protections in order to incentivize the next generation of drug development. Following their presentation will be a panel discussion including Peter S. Arno, Director of Health Policy Research, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts Amherst; Christopher Holman, Professor of Law, School of Law, University of Missouri-Kansas City; Amy Kapczynski, Faculty Director, Global Health Justice Partnership, Yale Law School, Yale University; Rebecca Wolitz, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Program on Regulation, Therapeutics, and Law, Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital; and moderated by Thomas P. Miller, Resident Fellow, AEI.

USPTO 

Understanding Patenting in China

At 10:00 AM on Tuesday, online video webinar.

China’s growing middle class makes the country an important market for many of America’s innovators and this event will focus on an overview of patent prosecution and invalidation processes in China as well as administrative and judicial channels for patent enforcement in that country. Presentations on Chinese patent issues will be provided by Chenyan Wu, Partner, Chang Tsi & Partners; and Jonathan Miao, Partner, NTD IP Attorneys. The program will be moderated by Larry (Lubing) Lian, Senior Attorney, USPTO. 

Information Technology & Innovation Foundation

Building on What Works: An Analysis of U.S. Broadband Policy

At 11:00 AM on Tuesday, online video webinar.

Since the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was passed 25 years ago, reshaping a major area of law to facilitate economic growth via the Internet, the Internet has remained a major policy focus among federal lawmakers. This ITIF event will explore a recent analysis on U.S. broadband policy over the last 25 years co-authored by Howard Shelanski, Partner, Davis Polk; and Jonathan E. Nuechterlein, Partner, Sidley. A discussion on Shelanski and Nuecherterlein’s paper, as well as steps forward for U.S. telecom policy makers, will be held with a panel including Shelanski; Nuecherterlein; Blair Levin, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Metropolitan Policy Program, Brookings Institution; Chris Lewis, President and CEO, Public Knowledge; and moderated by Doug Brake, Director, Broadband and Spectrum Policy, ITIF.

Cato Institute

Digital Trade: Challenges and a Way Forward

At 12:00 PM on Tuesday, online video webinar.

Open digital environments for trade have been an important fallback solution for many national economies that have otherwise shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, while these channels have allowed trade to continue with minimal physical contact among people, the pandemic has also made clear the need for rules to facilitate fair digital trade as well as stronger security frameworks to protect against cyber attacks. This event, which will explore the possibilities of achieving multilateral agreement and compromise on digital trade issues, will feature a panel discussion including Christine Bliss, President, Coalition of Services Industries; Stephanie Honey, Consultant, Honey Consulting; Hanna Norberg, Founder, Trade Economista; and moderated by Huan Zhu, Research Associate, Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies, Cato Institute.

Senate Subcommittee on Intellectual Property

The Role of Private Agreements and Existing Technology in Curbing Online Piracy

At 2:30 PM on Tuesday in 106 Dirksen Senate Office Building.

As digital piracy of copyrighted content continues to threaten multimedia and entertainment industries, new forms of addressing piracy have begun to develop such as voluntary agreements among various stakeholders within a copyright-related supply chain. These agreements among copyright owners, advertising networks, domain name registrars and other entities in the digital economy make it possible to address supply chain factors that can be exploited through online piracy. Some online platform providers have also been developing anti-piracy technologies and in recent weeks Amazon made headlines for a U.S. patent issued this November covering methods for identifying metadata associated with a content file that indicates whether content streaming on a network has been pirated. The first panel for this hearing will include Ruth Vitale, CEO, CreativeFuture; Probir Mehta, Head of Global Intellectual Property and Trade Policy, Facebook, Inc.; Mitch Glazier, Chairman and CEO, Recording Industry Association of America; and Joshua Lamel, Executive Director, Re:Create. The second panel for this hearing will include Katherine Oyama, Global Director of Business Public Policy, YouTube; Keith Kupferschmid, CEO, Copyright Alliance; Noah Becker, President and Co-Founder, AdRev; and Dean S. Marks, Executive Director and Legal Counsel, Coalition for Online Accountability.

Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation 

Betting on the Rest: Expanding American Entrepreneurship Outside Traditional Hubs

At 2:30 PM on Tuesday in 253 Russell Senate Office Building.

Venture capital expenditures in America are highly concentrated in just a few metropolitan hubs. A 2018 article by Bloomberg reported that only five U.S. cities accounted for 80 percent of all venture capital investment funding during 2017: San Francisco, New York, Boston, San Jose and Los Angeles. This hearing will explore the impacts of COVID-19 on this regional venture capital funding gap and ways that the public sector is addressing the funding gap. The panel for this hearing will include Jan Garfinkle, Founding and Managing Partner, Arboretum Ventures; David Hall, Managing Partner, Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Funds; Ray Hespen, Co-Founder and CEO, Property Meld; and Dawn Lippert, CEO, Elemental Excelerator.

Center for Strategic & International Studies 

Do We Need to Re-Think the Internet?

At 3:00 PM on Wednesday, online video webinar.

With federal lawmakers growing increasingly concerned with anticompetitive business behaviors exhibited by major online platforms and the national security impact of cyber attacks, some policy analysts have called for a change to how governments and legislators address issues like privacy and security. These topics were of little concern during the early days of Internet commercialization but legal frameworks governing this portion of the economy have been left largely unchanged for two decades. This event on future Internet governance will feature a panel discussion including Becky Burr, Partner, Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis LLP; Steve Crocker, CEO and Co-Founder, Shinkuro, Inc.; and James Andrew Lewis, Senior Vice President and Director, Strategic Technologies Program.

Wednesday, December 16 

Information Technology & Innovation Foundation 

Lessons Learned from Global Life Sciences Ecosystems in the COVID-19 Pandemic 

At 10:00 AM on Wednesday, online video webinar.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the race toward a vaccine have thrown a new light onto the importance of research and development in the life sciences sector. Just this past Saturday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized an emergency use approval for a coronavirus vaccine produced by Pfizer and BioNTech which is hoped to be distributed nationwide over the coming weeks. This event will feature a keynote address on lessons learned about life sciences ecosystems during the COVID-19 pandemic by Simon Tripp, Principal and Senior Director, TEConomy Partners. Following that address will be a panel discussion including Stephen Ezell, Vice President, Global Innovation Policy, ITIF; David Beier, Managing Director, Bay City Capital; Patrick Holmes, Senior Director, Innovation Policy Lead, Pfizer; and moderated by Robert D. Atkinson, President, ITIF.

Center for Strategic & International Studies

Supporting the Next Billion – Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Southeast Asia

At 11:00 AM on Wednesday, online video webinar.

Many economic analysts predict that Southeast Asia will be the next region of the globe to undergo massive market growth and many entrepreneurs have been busy getting in on the ground floor level of Southeast Asia’s digital economy. This event will explore the digital economy policy environment across Southeast Asia as well as the type of companies and digital services receiving venture capital funding. A panel discussion at this event will include Jenny Lee, Managing Partner, GGV Capital; Lim Yew Heng, Regional Head of Public Affairs, Grab; and James Andrew Lewis, Senior Vice President and Director, Strategic Technologies Program.

Rights acquired by 123RF.com