The Privacy Symposium has up a video of a speech I gave there last year. It’s a pretty good run-down of my thinking on identity systems, and it’s a wonderful exhibition of my willingness to tell bad jokes and just let them hang out there (shudder).
If you’re not already sick of what I have to say, you might enjoy watching it.
A great comment by Lewis Baumstark:
The current software patents landscape is more akin to Bayer creating a cancer curing-drug and instead of getting a patent on their specific formula, they get a patent covering the general ability to cure cancer. Meaning anyone else who creates a different drug to do the same thing would be infringing.
Quite so. To unpack this analogy a little bit, the analog of the “specific formula” is software’s source code. If we wanted to create a sensible software patent system, the way to do it would be to require software companies to disclose their source code in their patent applications, and then grant patents that prohibit other companies from duplicating that source code, just as drug patents prohibit companies from exactly duplicating drugs. Except that, obviously, source code is already protected by copyright law, so such a patent system would be totally superfluous.
Instead, we have a system where a company with no employees and no products can claim a de facto monopoly on the ability to transmit email wirelessly and use it to extort hundreds of millions of dollars out of companies that are producing useful products. Nobody claims that RIM literally stole the technological designs NTP claimed in its patents. Rather, all NTP claimed was that RIM’s technology fell under the broad category of functionality claimed in NTP’s patents. “Curing cancer” might be a bit broader than “transmitting email wirelessly,” but not much.
Likewise, I have yet to see any evidence that the banks being sued by DataTreasury literally copied DataTreasury’s designs. Rather, DataTreasury’s patents are so broad that it’s simply impossible to develop a digital check-clearing system without running afoul of the patents. I don’t think there’s any serious policy argument for allowing companies to claim such broad patent monopolies.
The white space debate has been the subject of much attention lately, with Microsoft, Dell, and Google pitted against the CTIA on the question of how to allocate white spaces between UHF channels. The two competing proposals are 1) auction off white spaces, similar to the 700mhz auction, or 2) leave them unlicensed and managed (like 2.4Ghz) but allow devices which don’t cause interference. 
This controversy again raises the issue of the desirability of unlicensed spectrum. I’ve been reading about the merits of unlicensed spectrum, inspired by a 2006 exchange between Jerry Brito and Mike Masnick on TLF and TechDirt. Jerry makes a compelling argument that command-and-control commons rules might hinder the emergence of superior networks operating with devices emitting greater than 4w EIRP.
The public interest is to allocate the spectrum in the most economically efficient manner, so if unlicensed spectrum uses do not make the best use of scarce airwaves, unlicensed bands should be auctioned off. Tim envisions privately managed commons that would provide for much the same openness now offered by unlicensed spectrum, but without a monolithic regulator imposing centralized rules.
If you are an tech uber-geek with a particular affinity for spectrum policy, then you need to be reading the Spectrum Talk blog written by Michael Marcus. Anyone who has closely followed spectrum policy and FCC wireless regulation over the past quarter century will recognize Mike’s name because that’s how long he spent at the FCC covering this stuff. He’s covered spectrum policy from just every angle imaginable, and luckily he can now tell it like it is since he retired from the Commission a few years ago to engage in private consulting and writing. So make sure to check out his blog.
Note: Mike is also speaking this Friday at what looks to be a terrific conference on “The Genesis of Unlicensed Wireless Policy” organized by Tom Hazlett of George Mason University Law School. You can contact our own Drew Clark if you are interested in reserving a seat at: iep.gmu@gmail.com
Although I’m not sure their deal with BitTorrent Inc. means much (since BT Inc. is a company, not the protocol), I’m glad to see Comcast finally embracing a network management scheme that is reasonable, transparent, and easy to understand:
“In the event of congestion, the half percent of people who are overutilizing an excessive amount of capacity will be slowed down subtly until capacity is restored,” the chief technology officer for Comcast, Tony G. Werner, said. “For the other 99.5 percent, their performance will be maintained exactly as they expect it.
How can anyone argue with that? It sounds vaguely familiar, almost as if I’d made the suggestion five months ago. What took them so long?
That all said, the FCC continues its investigation of the Comcast kerfuffle, having opened an official probe in January. What I’ve been asking myself is, what law or rule exactly does the FCC think they would enforce against Comcast? I certainly can’t think of any.
Well, if a recent letter from Comcast to the FCC (PDF) is any indication, it seems like the Commission might be considering enforcing the Internet Policy Statement. That statement outlines a set of nondiscrimination principles, and was adopt along with (and apart from) the order that classified DSL broadband as an information service in 2005. The Comcast letter makes is clear that the policy statement does not have the force of law and can’t be enforced against the company. Money quote:
[I]t is settled law that policy statements do not create binding legal obligations. It was universally understood, as the contemporaneous statements of [Chairman Martin], Commissioner Copps, and then-Wirelince Bureau Chief Navin all explicitly recognized, that the Internet Policy Statement did not create enforceable rules. Indeed, the Internet Policy Statement expressly disclaimed any such intent.
Boy, so familiar again. Almost as if I’d written the exact same thing in a comment to the FCC’s broadband industry practices proceeding 10 months ago (PDF). Check it out for a detailed explanation of why the Statement is not binding, but it boils down to this: It was not adopted after a notice-and-comment rulemaking; the FCC can’t just issue rules out of thin air.
Just when you think Google’s thought of everything, they come out with something new. The latest, announced today, is “Google Custom TIme.” The new g-mail feature, according to Google, will allow users to send pre-dated e-mails. Even better, the e-mails will show up in recipient”s inboxes as having been received — and even read — on the earlier date.
The service promises to be endlessly useful for the deadline-challenged among us. No more being late for deadlines, no more late birthday greetings. And the possibilities for reduced tension at tax time are intriguing.
According to one user who’s tried the system: “I used to be an honest person; but now I don’t have to be. It’s just so much easier this way. I’ve gained a lot of productivity by not having to think about doing the ‘right’ thing.”
The engineering challenges were daunting for even Google’s engineers, but using what they call an “e-flux capacitor,” they managed to resolve even grandfather paradox problems.
The announcement was crucially made on the first day of April, although it could have been dated virtually anytime.
The Newspaper Association of America reported on Friday that print ad revenue for the industry fell by 9.4 percent last year, the biggest decline since it started keeping records in 1950. Within this total, classified ad revenue was hit even harder, down by some 17 percent. The figures show an accelerating decline in newspapers fortunes.
The figures were widely reported newspapers across the country, from the Wall Street Journal to the New York Times to the Chicago Tribune. And I didn’t read it in any of them. Like an increasing number of Americans I read the stories only in electronic form, learning about the development initially through an e-mail.
Better late than never, here are my thoughts on the FCC’s auction for the D Block public safety band. There was only one bid for the block, Frontline Wireless to shut down, and some are even suggesting improprieties. Sadly, we’ve got a long way to go before we have an operating public safety network. Why did the D Block auction fail? I think at root the problem is that the FCC simply placed too many restrictions on the would-be licensee, and that’s something the FCC should keep in mind as it considers what to do next.
Under the D Block’s service rules the commercial licensee must come to an agreement with the Public Safety Spectrum Trust (which is the licensee for the adjacent public safety spectrum) about the details of the network to be built. If it doesn’t come to an agreement, the FCC can impose whatever requirements it sees fit on the licensee, and if the licensee surrenders its license or has it taken away, they must pay a forfeiture penalty that can run into the millions. Because there are no similar penalties for the non-profit PSST to come to agreement, this allows the PSST to basically dictate the terms of the network. Why would anyone bid for the privilege to be a part of that deal?
Sadly, Chairman Martin doesn’t seem to get this. He recently lamented the fate of the D Block:
“Did we get everything perfect in it? Obviously not because no one was willing to end up taking on that burden,” Martin conceded. “So, do I wish that someone was willing to take on that burden? Yes. And do we need to restructure it in such a way that someone is willing to take on that burden? Absolutely. But absent somebody else coming up with some idea to solve this, this is the only way to solve what’s really a public-safety crisis.”
Instead of expecting some selfless corporation to “take on the burden” of such a thankless deal, why not try instead to create a license aligned with the interests of both the private sector (profit) and public safety (cheap and interoperable communications solutions)? Here’s my recipe:
There are no doubt more than a few hurdles for such a plan to overcome, but I think it makes sense to allow market forces develop public safety networks. I’d love to hear any critiques of this idea. No doubt I’ll be submitting a comment to the inevitable rulemaking on this issue and it would help me to figure out the weaknesses of this scheme.
Here is one of the two patents that the nation’s major banks have been “stealing” from DataTreasury. The first claim is as follows:
A system for central management, storage and report generation of remotely captured paper transactions from documents and receipts comprising: one or more remote data access subsystems for capturing and sending paper transaction data and subsystem identification information comprising at least one imaging subsystem for capturing the documents and receipts and at least one data access controller for managing the capturing and sending of the transaction data; at least one central data processing subsystem for processing, sending, verifying and storing the paper transaction data and the subsystem identification information comprising a management subsystem for managing the processing, sending and storing of the of the transaction data; and at least one communication network for the transmission of the transaction data within and between said one or more data access subsystems and said at least one data processing subsystem, with the data access subsystem providing encrypted subsystem identification information and encrypted paper transaction data to the data processing subsystem.
As near as I can tell, this patent covers the concept of scanning and security transmitting paper documents. If you build a system for scanning and securely transmitting images of paper documents, you’re probably infringing on this patent. Or to put it a different way, this patent would, if strictly enforced give DataTreasury a 20-year monopoly on the concept of electronic check clearing.
It’s absurd that our legal system allows companies to engage in this kind of rent-seeking. It’s even more absurd that people invoke the concept of property rights to justify it. Property rights do not and should not give companies monopolies over entire industries.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
