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ITI Expands International Team
by Ted Leventhal
The Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) has named two senior executives responsible for international affairs, one of them to ITI and the other to an ITI-sponsored committee.
Colleen Morton has returned to Washington, D.C., from California to become ITI's vice president of technology and trade. She will direct international outreach activities, including standards development, and help spearhead trade efforts.
Previously, Morton was vice president and director of research with the Institute of the Americas. Before that, she was executive director of the U.S. Council of the Mexico-U.S. Business Committee, where she pushed for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
Morton said she is looking forward to coordinating a broader coalition of IT groups to lobby for upcoming trade agreements, especially the potentially contentious Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and any deal to come from the latest World Trade Organization talks.
"I was active in the NAFTA coalition 10 years ago," she said. "Coalitions will be important in increasing IT's leverage. I'm looking forward to getting to know the other groups around town, as well as members of my own coalition."
Several outstanding issues remain on trade, Morton said, including creating a telecommunications chapter in CAFTA and on competition. "Questions remain on the degree to which competition is welcomed in these countries," she said. "People are gradually coming down on side that more competition is better, but some countries in the region are less comfortable with this than others."
Morton said that the companies within ITI are "coming from a number of different areas" on the issue of trade deals and labor standards in those deals. "It's important that our companies hash it out internally before making statements," she added.
Meanwhile, Patrick Morris will become executive director of the InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards, a standards body overseen by ITI. Morris most recently directed standards and technology issues for the Produce Marketing Association and was the association's director of industry technology. Before that, he was an industry adviser to the U.S. delegation to the U.N. Economic Commission for Europe in Geneva.
News At The Commerce Department
At the Commerce Department, Secretary Donald Evans on Thursday announced three appointments to both the public advisory committees on patents and trademarks.
Rick Nydegger, president-elect of the American Intellectual Property Law Association, will chair the patent committee. He will serve with: Andrew Dillion, a partner in the Austin, Texas, law firm of Bracewell and Patterson; and Howard Klein, of Irvine, Calif., a past president of the Orange County Patent Law Association.
Professor Jeffrey Samuels of the University of Akron law school will chair the trademark committee. Maury Tepper of the Raleigh, N.C., law firm Womble, Carlyle, Sandridge and Rice will serve on the panel, as will Joseph Welch of Chicago's Pattishall, McAulifee, Newbury, Hillar and Geraldson.
Phil Bond, Commerce's undersecretary for technology, is on the road in Texas this week. He and Assistant Secretary for Economic Development David Samson on Tuesday will tour the University of Texas' Health Sciences Center and examine ongoing nanotechnology and telehealth projects. The department will issue a report on high-tech healthcare systems later this month, according to a spokeswoman.
Tomorrow, the two officials will meet with high-tech CEOs in Houston and Dallas.
Finally, Tech Law Journal reports that Commerce filed notice in the Federal Register that it is recruiting members for its six technical advisory committees, including those on electronics and semiconductors, computers, and telecommunications and information security. Resumes should be sent to Lee Ann Carpenter at lcarpent@bis.doc.gov. The deadline is July 29, 2004.
Bush's Nominees Win Senate Confirmation
The Senate held key confirmation votes last week as its summer legislative session ended.
Joel David Kaplan was unanimously confirmed Thursday to become deputy director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. He was previously special assistant to the president in the chief of staff's office.
On Friday, the Senate confirmed Josette Shiner as deputy U.S. trade representative and Jim Jochum as assistant Commerce secretary for import administration. Shiner most recently was associate U.S. trade representative, while Jochum was Commerce's assistant secretary with the Bureau of Industry and Security.
The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday approved the nominations of Joe Whitley to be the Homeland Security Department's general counsel and Penrose Albright to be assistant secretary for plans, programs and budget.
Sun Microsystems Names Privacy Chief
Sun Microsystems has named Michelle Finneran Dennedy, a patent lawyer with its marketing and brands legal team, as its first chief privacy officer.
Dennedy founded Sun's internal privacy council and helped create its privacy policy. In her new role, Dennedy will continue to expand the company's privacy policies and help shepherd privacy-related products and services with product development teams. Before joining Sun in 2000, she was a litigator in the New York and Palo Alto, Calif., offices of the Fish & Neave law firm.
The Internet In Campaign 2004
Internet-related political action committees are making a strong showing in the 2004 election cycle, with the Democratic activist site MoveOn.org raising $565,862 during the first half of 2003, Politicalmoneyline.com reports.
Contributors to MoveOn have included author and radio personality Garrison Keillor, and actress and activist Jeneane Garofalo. Harold Demarest of Astro Data Services, a Web-based voter-file vendor, also contributed.
The AOL Time Warner PAC raised $119,354 and spent $112,602. It gave $128,000 in contributions, including $5,000 to House Financial Services Committee Chairman Michael Oxley, R-Ohio, and Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz.
Meanwhile, Vermont Gov. Howard Dean continues to be the most popular presidential candidate on MeetUp.com. The Web site reports that the Democratic candidate will set a new record on Wednesday, with 419 "Dean in 2004" meetings to occur in 338 locations, including 11 events in nine foreign countries. Dean is such a hot commodity in Portland, Ore., that six different venues will host meetings the same night.
On The Road (And Web) With Daschle
Every August, Senate Minority Leader Thomas Daschle, D-S.D., gets in his car without staffers or a schedule and tries to visit as many of South Dakota's 66 counties as possible. This year, he will chronicle his journey in "Travels with Tom," a Web log on his Senate home page.
"After a day of driving, I will post on this site some thoughts, stories and anything else that may come to mind," Daschle wrote July 31 in his first entry. "This is the first time I've done anything like this, so it is a bit of an experiment, but I'm looking forward to sharing some of my experiences with you."
Prompted by "the growing crisis in health care in South Dakota and throughout the country," health care will be the dominant discussion topic this year, he wrote.
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