The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and its Our Fair Deal coalition (http://bit.ly/1ok0x97) partners released two letters to Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiators highlighting how the TPP could strengthen the position of copyright holders, said Jeremy Malcolm, senior global policy analyst, and Maira Sutton, global policy analyst, in an EFF blog post (http://bit.ly/1qkJWnZ) Wednesday. The letters address TPP’s “copyright term extension proposals” (http://bit.ly/1rTXmLR) and its “intermediary liability proposals” (http://bit.ly/1qKR4MK), they said. On liability proposals, “countries around the Pacific rim are being pressured to agree to proposed text for the TPP that would require them to adopt a facsimile” of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, said the blog post. “Industry lobbyists are pushing for an even stricter regime, dubbed ‘notice and staydown,’ that would make it harder than ever before for users and innovators to safely publish creative, transformational content online,” it said. Concerning copyright term extensions, the TPP would extend the “rash 20 year extension of the term of copyright protection” to “all other TPP negotiating countries,” it said. “This would be a senseless assault on the public domain and on those libraries, authors, educators, users and others who depend upon it,” it said.

Demand for Wi-Fi routers and Wi-Fi-enabled mobile devices will continue to grow at a double digit percentage clip, reaching 3 billion systems shipped in 2018, said a Tuesday news release from consultant Strategy Analytics (http://bit.ly/1r6ATZ6). “External CMOS PAs have started to compete with GaAs-based PAs in WiFi just as in cellular, but GaAs will maintain its position for the foreseeable future, especially in higher-performance applications such as 802.11ac WiFi infrastructure,” said Eric Higham, director of the Strategy Analytics Advanced Semiconductor Applications service.

Global revenue from wholesale telecom services will reach $142 billion annually by 2019 due to accelerating traffic and “intensified retail competition,” research firm Ovum said Monday in a report. The Asia-Pacific region will have the “steepest” growth in wholesale revenue because of retail competition and “escalating international traffic,” it said, noting China, Malaysia and South Korea as major contributors to that growth. Asia-Pacific’s share of wholesale revenue will grow to 26 percent by 2019, up from 17 percent in 2012, Ovum said. Wholesale revenues will still be concentrated among the largest telcos in 2019, with most of the top 20 wholesale telcos that year still based in North America and Europe, Ovum said. “New types of service provider are emerging, but their need for connectivity will stimulate greater demand for traditional wholesale services, while those telcos that do innovate at a retail service level will create demand from those that don’t,” said David James, Ovum’s practice leader-wholesale research, in a news release (http://bit.ly/1zkChfF).

CEA expressed its opposition to Philip Johnson as the White House’s likely nominee to head the Patent and Trademark Office. “We are concerned, and frankly puzzled” by Johnson’s “potential nomination” to PTO chief, said Michael Petricone, CEA senior vice president-government and legal affairs, in a statement Wednesday. Johnson, chief intellectual property counsel for Johnson & Johnson, “took a leading role in stalling patent reform efforts earlier this year in the U.S. Senate, and worked diligently to weaken or kill a variety of White House initiatives to stop patent trolls,” Petricone said. “It seems absurd that a strong opponent of attempts to reduce frivolous litigation should be asked to implement the Obama Administration’s initiatives to fix our broken patent system.” The White House needs to go “back to the drawing board and find a qualified candidate who shares the President’s stated goal of improving our patent system by reducing litigation abuse,” Petricone said.

Some trade groups coalesced in opposition to Philip Johnson, the presumptive nominee to head the Patent and Trademark Office, in statements Monday. Computer and Communications Industry Association President Ed Black called Johnson, chief intellectual property counsel for pharmaceutical and medical device company Johnson & Johnson, “a candidate who is not clearly committed to advancing the administration’s long held position that the patent system needs reform.” In the recent push -- now on hiatus -- to get patent legislation through Congress, technology and pharmaceutical groups often clashed (CD May 22 p11). “Such a move could undermine the public’s perception of the Administration’s commitment to addressing the anti-innovation aspects of our patent system, especially as it relates to the tech industry,” Black said. The Main Street Patent Coalition (MSPC) -- which includes trade groups from the retail, advertising and financial industries -- also expressed concern (http://bit.ly/TzZ4mu), saying Johnson isn’t committed to passing legislation to curb “patent trolls” -- entities that enforce at-times broad patents and often don’t produce any products. “American business owners remain vulnerable to patent troll lawsuits, and now one of the most prominent opponents of reform has been appointed to be the umpire, calling balls and strikes for [PTO],” said Michael Meehan, MSPC manager. “Mr. Johnson spent years trying to keep patent trolls in business by blocking legislative efforts so we cannot expect him to make fair calls.” Some patent lawyers have supported Johnson’s potential nomination to the post (CD July 1 p8). PTO didn’t comment.

AT&T believes the Internet interconnection “ecosystem developed without any regulation to handle all of the traffic exchanged on the global Internet,” executives including Senior Vice President-Federal Regulatory Bob Quinn told FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai and aides during a Thursday meeting. There are “many options available to edge providers to reach consumers and businesses,” and regulatory “intervention” has “potential ramifications,” said the telco. A handout from the meeting, posted with an ex parte filing Tuesday in docket 10-90 (http://bit.ly/1qgTW3q), discussed different types of Internet interconnection including peering. The commission has been gathering details on peering deals (CD June 16 p1). Traffic carriage “is Not Without Cost,” and there are “Cost Implications of Carrying Additional Traffic,” said AT&T’s handout. “The Internet interconnection ecosystem is competitive."

The AT&T board declared a quarterly dividend of $0.46 a share on the company’s common stock. The dividend is payable Aug. 1 to stockholders of record at the close of business on July 10 (http://soc.att.com/1qBKAie).

Utilities like one in Chanute, Kansas, and the Northeast Oklahoma Electric Cooperative are uniquely qualified and committed to promote broadband access in unserved rural areas, the Utilities Telecom Council told Rebekah Goodheart, aide to FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, June 19, said an ex parte filing posted to dockets including 10-90 Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1wt5fYo). The utilities’ business model is predicated on serving the community, which has meant extended returns on investment and the deployment of ultra high-speed fiber, the filing said. Officials for the utilities described their plans to provide broadband to customers in rural parts of the states.

The National Security Agency’s telephony metadata collection program was reauthorized for 90 days until Sept. 12, said a joint statement Friday from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Justice (http://1.usa.gov/1nyqrp8). The program’s extension, granted by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, was requested because “legislation has not yet been enacted, and given the importance of maintaining the capabilities of the [Patriot Act] Section 215 telephony metadata program,” said the statement. Privacy advocates and lawmakers had urged the Obama administration last week to cancel the program before congressional action (CD June 23 p14; June 18 p17). In a January speech, President Barack Obama asked Congress to alter the Section 215 program by placing more restrictions on how data is collected, searched and stored (CD Jan 21 p1). The House passed the USA Freedom Act (HR-3361) in May (CD May 23 p9) -- which would implement some of Obama’s suggested changes to Section 215 -- but it has not passed the Senate. “We urge the Senate to swiftly consider it, and remain ready to work with Congress to clarify that the bill prohibits bulk collection as noted above, as necessary,” the statement said.

The FCC has been speeding approval of broadband expansion projects sought by schools and libraries, said Acting Managing Director Jon Wilkins in a blog post (http://fcc.us/1soeVF0). E-rate funding has reached $1 billion this week for funding year 2014, “twice as fast as any previous year in E-Rate history,” Wilkins wrote. The agency has made a “particular effort to speed larger applications this year,” including state and regional consortia, he said.