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Former PTO Chief Lands At Law Firm
by Sarah Lai Stirland
Bruce Lehman, head of the Patent and Trademark Office during the Clinton administration, has a new job. As of the beginning of the month, he is the senior counsel to the Akin Gump Hauer Strauss and Feld law firm.
Previously, he was president and CEO of the International Intellectual Property Institute, an organization that promotes the implementation of international intellectual property treaties. He will remain as chairman of the institute.
Lehman led the U.S. delegation to a World Intellectual Property Organization diplomatic conference in 1996. The delegation concluded negotiations that resulted in the WIPO Copyright Treaty and Performances and Phonograms Treaty.
Lehman also chaired the working group on intellectual property rights that produced a white paper that ultimately became the foundation for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. In 1997, National Journal magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in Washington.
In an e-mail to friends, he wrote: "When I began practicing many years ago, intellectual property law was one of the more obscure areas of the law. Today, in a global economy based on technology and information, IP has become one of the most important categories of economic law, with dimensions involving legislation, diplomacy, trade policy, prosecution and litigation."
Julie Kearney also will be wading deeply into intellectual property issues in the digital world. The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) has hired her as senior director of regulatory affairs.
Kearney will represent CEA before the FCC and other government entities on issues like digital audio, high-definition television, the management of digital rights and satellite issues. She was an associate counsel in MCI's international affairs group. While there, she lobbied for MCI at the FCC and the Commerce and State departments.
House Panel Names Chief Commerce Counsel
David Cavicke has been promoted to chief counsel for commerce, trade and consumer protection at the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
"David's experience makes him uniquely qualified for this position," Chairman Joe Barton, R-Texas, said in a statement. "During his time on the committee, he has been a tireless advocate for consumer protection. His skilled counsel will be integral as we move through the rest of the session and beyond."
Cavicke has served as principal counsel through the creation of several consumer-protection laws, including those on e-signatures, unsolicited commercial e-mail, financial privacy, securities, and litigation reform.
TechNet Taps Director For Southern California
The lobbying group TechNet has a new regional executive director. Douglas Farry will head the group's operations in southern California.
Farry comes to the job after 10 years in Washington, D.C., half of those as a senior adviser to former House Majority Leader Dick Armey. In his new job, he will be in touch with 30 CEOs of technology companies in the Orange County area and represent their interests both in the state capital of Sacramento and in the nation's capital.
In other news, AustralianIT reports that Karen Curtis, Australia's former policy director with the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, has been named the federal privacy commissioner in that country.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce board elected John Bachmann, a senior partner with the brokerage Edward Jones in St. Louis, as its chairman for 2004-2005.
And Richard Falkenrath, a former deputy homeland security adviser to President Bush, has joined the Brookings Institution as a visiting fellow. Falkenrath will focus on security issues, intelligence policy and global counter-terrorism cooperation. He is the author and co-author of Shaping Europe's Military Order (1995), Avoiding Nuclear Anarchy (1996) and America's Achilles' Heel: Nuclear, Biological, Chemical Terrorism and Covert Attack (1998).
A Reprieve For Satellite Customers
It is too late for one-time National Football League star O.J. Simpson, but other people who own technology that can be used to pirate satellite television signals may be relieved to hear that DirecTV agreed Monday to stop suing people for their ownership of the devices.
The digital-rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Stanford University Center for Internet and Society announced the agreement. EFF and members of the center object to DirecTV's strategy of blindly targeting people who own the devices -- known as "bootloaders," "unloopers" and "emulators" -- without first proving that the devices were used to commit piracy.
The tools can help people access satellite signals without paying for the service, and DirecTV in recent years has pursued people over such "signal theft." But some of the devices also can be used for legal purposes, according to supporters.
DirecTV's litigation strategy has involved raiding distributors of the devices, obtaining customer lists, sending letters to the device owners and suing for possession of the devices. Individuals were allowed to settle for various amounts.
EFF estimates that DirecTV sent some 170,000 demand letters and filed more than 24,000 federal lawsuits. Some defendants claimed that they did not use the devices to pirate satellite signals and took their cases to court rather than settle; others paid the settlement fees but still claimed that they did nothing wrong. Simpson is one of the accused defendants, and because he did not respond to the complaint, a default judgment was entered against him in late April in a federal district court in Florida.
EFF said DirecTV agreed to drop the strategy and investigate "all substantive claims of innocence." But the company also will continue to investigate people who buy devices primarily designed to intercept satellite signals.
Jennifer Granick, clinical director at the Stanford center, said DirecTV contacted EFF and Stanford after the center launched a Web site in August last year documenting and logging DirecTV's behavior. The negotiations over how to improve the process to catch legitimate hackers took months, Granick said.
EFF and the center are still cautiously watching to see what kind of burden of proof DirecTV will impose on users who have to prove that they are not using the devices for piracy. "We want to set up a system like the undersea traps that let the turtles go but catch the fish," she said.
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