May 2011

The US Trade Representative released its annual "Special 301" report naming and shaming countries with IP policies the US doesn't like. The report contains a "Watch List" and a smaller "Priority Watch List" -- and Canada is once again on the Priority Watch List along with China, Russia, and India. Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Egypt, Bolivia, Brunei, Romania, Spain, even Mexico -- Canada is worse then all of them. Why? Canada hasn't yet passed a major copyright overhaul. USTR announced a new program this year under which it "invites any trading partner appearing on the Special 301 Priority Watch List or Watch List to negotiate a mutually agreed action plan designed to lead to that trading partner’s removal from the relevant list." The US wants a worldwide crackdown on things like "unauthorized retransmission of live sports telecasts over the Internet," "linking sites," and "piracy using mobile telephones, tablets, flash drives, and other mobile technologies."

Rashmi Rangnath, Public Knowledge staff attorney and director of PK’s Global Knowledge Initiative, said:
“We are disappointed with the latest Section 301 report. The U.S. Trade Representative declined generally to adopt our recommendations that the policy prescriptions be more specific and that countries not be required through the Special 301 process to implement agreements and treaties with which they disagree, such as World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) copyright treaty and the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). We are also skeptical about the proposal for the ‘mutually agreed upon solution’ for intellectual property enforcement with other countries to be taken off of the watch list. The question is how much pressure would be brought to bear on countries to agree to such a solution. We don't know what the process was before nor much about how it would work under this new procedure.”

Low-cost online courses could help higher education from becoming the next economic bubble that bursts and inflicts fiscal pain on institutions, investors, and students, said educational technology experts who want more inexpensive options for those seeking a college degree.

Economists and financial analysts first warned about the growing higher-education bubble in 2009. The bubble, they said, is fed by rising tuition, increasing enrollments, and crushing school debt that often can't be paid by recent graduates who can't find a good-paying job in a down economy.

And just as Americans were urged to invest in tech companies before the dot-com crash of 2000, or to buy property while housing prices skyrocketed in the mid-2000s, Americans are encouraged today – by everyone from family members to lawmakers – to sign up for college classes, even if it requires massive loans.

The Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Communications Commission are working together and separately to bring forward innovative wireless technologies and devices for health care faster. Both agencies aim to engage with innovators earlier and more often to streamline the process of licensing a product or bringing it to market.

One of the goals for both agencies is making sure that the proliferation of wireless devices that will be integrated in hospital work can operate together and with other equipment, such as an infusion pump next to the patient, and not interfere with each other’s activities and data transmissions. FCC is close to finalizing rules it proposed last year to expand its radio spectrum service to promote cutting-edge research for the development of wireless devices, said Kerry McDermott, FCC director of health care. FCC is focusing on wireless test beds, in which qualified organizations may conduct a range of research without having to ask permission every time they want to do something different. A test case for that are medical body area networks, which include wearable or implantable sensors that read key patient information like temperature, pulse or blood pressure, and rely on short range signals like Bluetooth technology, she said. The sensors will wirelessly transmit the data back to a hub where it is processed or displayed.

A current law that gives federal agencies 30 years to turn over all the records that must be permanently retained by the National Archives is a recipe for lost documents and a spotty historical record, the government's chief archivist told lawmakers. That 30-year window may have been appropriate in a paper era when the only danger to documents came from floods and fires. But in an electronic age, any method of record storage is likely to be obsolete by the time the National Archives gets hold of the records stored on it, Archivist David Ferriero told members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Ferreiro said only about half a dozen agencies now voluntarily turn over their records early. He recommended a president's time in office, either a single or a double term, as a reasonable lag time for records to be turned over.

Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) stressed that he remains concerned that White House officials’ personal emails, text messages, Facebook posts and tweets are not being archived in the spirit of federal law. Chairman Issa stressed that the law does not sufficiently address official correspondence sent through private digital channels — including employees’ personal email, Facebook and Twitter accounts. Chairman Issa grilled Brook Colangelo, chief information officer at the White House Office of Administration, on the fact the White House necessarily "wouldn't be able to catch" a staffer who was "communicating freely" using his or her private email account over the AT&T or Verizon network. Messages sent over those two services, for example, are not automatically logged by the administration.