Former U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director Todd Dickinson, executive director of the American Intellectual Property Law Association, is one of several patent stakeholders set to testify Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee (http://1.usa.gov/1bMsZOb). The hearing is set to focus on the Patent Transparency and Improvements Act (S-1720), which committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, introduced in November (CD Nov 20 p20). Other witnesses from the communications industry are Dana Rao, Adobe associate general counsel, Harry Wolin, Advanced Micro Devices general counsel, and Philip Johnson, Johnson & Johnson’s chief intellectual property counsel, speaking on behalf of the Coalition for 21st Century Patent Reform. The hearing is set for 10 a.m. in 226 Dirksen.

A key Senate Democrat said the FCC should take on process changes internally before Congress intervenes and mandates changes. The House Commerce Committee cleared the FCC Process Reform Act in a unanimous committee vote Wednesday (CD Dec 12 p2). “Any measures to improve how the FCC carries out its statutory duties must help the agency protect consumers and competition,” Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said in a statement. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler “has formed an internal working group to look at process reform issues, and I think Congress should get the guidance of the expert agency before undertaking significant reforms to the FCC’s operations,” he said. Rockefeller did not name the House bill in his statement.

Dish Network continued to urge the FCC to grant its request to choose uplink or downlink operations for its AWS-4 spectrum. If the commission grants Dish’s waiver request, and Dish elects to use 2000-2020 MHz band for downlink, “Dish further commits to comply with any requirements imposed on Dish as an AWS licensee,” the DBS company said in an ex parte filing in docket 13-225 (http://bit.ly/19HiK9M). The FCC hasn’t made a decision on the request, which also asks for a one-year extension to build out a terrestrial network (CD Dec 5 p17). The filing recounts a phone call last week with staffers of the Wireless Bureau.

The New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute is “reserving judgment” on the White House’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies report on the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs, said OTI Policy Director Kevin Bankston. The report is due this weekend, but The Wall Street Journal (http://on.wsj.com/JesFgv) and The New York Times (http://nyti.ms/1fblhgr) published advance looks at the report Friday. OTI Policy Director Kevin Bankston said in an email statement that the report “recommends some important, common sense reforms, like separating the NSA’s code-making and code-breaking missions to avoid a dangerous conflict of interest, introducing a public advocate into the processes of the secret surveillance court, and establishing some level of privacy rights for people outside the United States.” But the review group “as we feared would be the case ... has urged that the NSA continue with its bulk collection and analysis of American phone records, just with the companies rather than the NSA holding the data,” Bankston said.

British-based AeroMobile, which supplies technology and services to nine global airlines that enable passengers to use their mobile phones in-flight for voice, texting and data, hailed the FCC’s approval of an NPRM seeking comment on modernizing rules to allow mobile wireless calls on commercial flights (CD Dec 13 p1) . “I'm pleased to see that common sense prevailed” at the FCC, AeroMobile CEO Kevin Rogers said in a statement Friday. “There is no reason to maintain a ruling that is no longer relevant -- the technology used to provide inflight GSM services is proven, and has been operational across Europe, Asia and the Middle East for more than five years.” AeroMobile supplies “hundreds of connected flights flying to and from the U.S. every day, but at the moment the service has to be switched off when we reach U.S. airspace,” he said. As proof there’s demand for in-flight calls from U.S. travelers, Rogers said that in November alone, about 25 percent of the passengers using the AeroMobile service on trans-Atlantic flights “connected from U.S. mobile networks.” AeroMobile wants to work with the FCC to demonstrate “the value of the service to both customers and airlines, based on our experience,” Rogers said. “I'm hopeful that sensible discussions can now take place about the practicalities of operating this service in the U.S. Ultimately, it will be up to individual airlines to decide on the right in-flight mobile connectivity package for their passengers, whether this is SMS only or the full service, including voice and data."

More than 30 countries, including the U.K., have enacted resale royalty provisions since 1992, said a Copyright Office report released Friday (http://1.usa.gov/1bCreia). “We believe that Congress may want to consider a resale royalty, as well as a number of possible alternative or complementary options for supporting visual artists, within the broader context of industry norms, market practices, and other pertinent data."

The Council of Governments applauded the FCC order to ensure reliable 911 service in a statement Friday (http://bit.ly/1bCrCNK). COG is a nonprofit association that deals with regional issues affecting the Washington, D.C., area. The FCC voted to approve an order Thursday that requires carriers to file annual audits on how they are following best practices for 911 connections (CD Dec 13 p7). The order was influenced by regional studies documenting “significant loss” of 911 service in northern Virginia during the June 2012 derecho storm, COG said. All phone companies that provide 911 service must now certify annually that they have implemented best practices including audits of their circuits, maintenance of central office backup power and reliable network monitoring systems, it said. The FCC proves the “power of regional collaboration,” said COG Executive Director Chuck Bean. “With this new rule, we are securing our infrastructure in metropolitan Washington,” he said. “The success with the FCC was built on solid analytics but the change happened because we spoke with a regional voice."

Aereo’s decision not to oppose broadcasters’ attempt to seek review by the U.S. Supreme Court of their case against the streaming TV service increases the possibility that the court will review the case, said Stifel Nicolaus analysts. Broadcasters filed a cert petition asking the high court to overturn a 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that rejected a preliminary injunction against Aereo (CD Oct 15 p15). “We believe the justices are generally reluctant to review appeals of preliminary injunction decisions and so far there is no circuit split, which can invite high court review,” Stifel said in a research note (http://bit.ly/1jY0Hnl). This may change if the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals soon upholds a district court decision to grant broadcasters a preliminary injunction against FilmOn X, an Aereo-like service, said the analysts. These actions could spur retransmission consent changes next year, they said. If the broadcasters don’t shoot down Aereo’s service in court, “they could start to push hard for Congress to write new legislation to ensure they receive Internet video provider payments for their programming,” they said. The “largely-unaddressed ‘copying’ element of broadcasters’ lawsuit makes this case too early-stage for Supreme Court review,” said Guggenheim Partners analyst Paul Gallant. The courts have barely begun addressing broadcasters’ argument that Aereo’s system makes unlawful copies of broadcasters’ shows, he said in a research note. If the Supreme Court is going to rule on Aereo next year, “it probably needs to announce by January that it will hear the case,” he said. If broadcasters win, the Aereo threat is extinguished, he said. “If broadcasters lose, they can seek legislative change by Congress, where they would likely have the upper hand.” FilmOn X asked the 9th Circuit to overturn a preliminary injunction against it (CD Aug 29 p5). A similar appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit also is pending (CD Sept 13 p22). Public Knowledge, Electronic Frontier Foundation and Engine Advocacy urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to overturn a decision by the U.S. District Court in Washington. The law doesn’t grant copyright holders complete control over the distribution and quality of their works, they said in a friend-of-the-court brief (http://bit.ly/1dxK5hx). “Fair use allows the public to make copies of varying quality in many circumstances, including home recordings of TV programs.” The existence of a service like FilmOn X “does not appreciably increase the risk of a broadcast program being redistributed illegally on the Internet by third parties,” it said. In a separate brief, the Computer & Communications Industry Association, Center for Democracy and Technology and other groups asked the court to approach the case in a way that preserves the holding and principles of the Cablevision case, during which an appeals court found that Cablevision doesn’t infringe copyright by launching a DVR service. The court should avoid any legal theories “that would cast a pall over wide swaths of the modern technological landscape, including the burgeoning cloud computing industry,” they said. CTIA, USTelecom and the Internet Infrastructure Coalition filed along with CCIA and CDT. The groups aren’t taking a stance on either party, they said.

NBCUniversal needs “reasonable access to peer deals” to “avoid forcing parties into costly and burdensome arbitration,” said the unit of Comcast about the benchmark condition in the 2011 FCC order letting the companies combine. It noted in an ex parte filing that the commission is reviewing a clarification order. The companies have said they can’t share content with online video distributors without access to OVDs’ deals with industry peers to NBCUniversal (CD Sept 3 p11). The filing posted Thursday to docket 10-56 (http://bit.ly/1cs6tGZ) said participants at the lobbying meeting with Commissioner Mike O'Rielly included NBCUniversal Senior Vice President-Government Affairs Meredith Baker -- an FCC member when the deal was approved -- Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen and Senior Vice President-Regulatory and State Legislative Affairs Kathy Zachem. As “the success of Wi-Fi has placed great stress on existing unlicensed spectrum resources,” Comcast -- in a separate FCC meeting on the same day as the O'Rielly conversation -- asked top aides to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler for the agency to focus on “enabling additional Wi-Fi access.” That can occur in the 5 GHz band through designating more spectrum for unlicensed use, Cohen and Zachem told Wheeler aides, recounted another ex parte filing that was posted Friday in docket 13-184 (http://bit.ly/19mFBuR). Many connections to high-speed broadband in classrooms likely will be through Wi-Fi devices, the filing said FCC Chief of Staff Ruth Milkman, Senior Counselor Phil Verveer and Special Counsel Diane Cornell were told.

The person who replaces Gen. Keith Alexander as National Security Agency director will also be commander of U.S. Cyber Command, the White House said Friday. “Following a thorough interagency review, the Administration has decided that keeping the positions of NSA director and Cyber Command commander together as one, dual-hatted position is the most effective approach to accomplishing both agencies’ missions,” a White House spokeswoman said in a statement. Alexander had lobbied for the same person to hold both positions. The head of U.S. Cyber Command must be in the military, but some critics have argued that a civilian should lead the NSA to provide more sensitivity on civil liberties issues after the leaks about controversial NSA surveillance programs. Retaining control of U.S. Cyber Command in the hands of the NSA director will also ensure NSA’s continued “unique role” in supporting U.S. Cyber Command through “critical support for target access and development, including linguists, analysts, cryptanalytic capabilities, and sophisticated technological infrastructure,” the White House spokeswoman said. “These capabilities are essential in enabling [Department of Defense] cyberspace operations planning and execution."