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Panel Today: “Will $Billions in Patent Lawsuits Kill Smartphone and Tablet Innovation?”

UPDATE: You can listen to an MP3 of the panel briefing at http://www.netcaucus.org/audio/2012/20121016mobilepatents.mp3 Today, I’m participating in a Hill briefing on the smart phone wars hosted by the Advisor Committee for the Congressional Internet Caucus.  Here’s the information: Date: Tuesday, October 16, 2012 Time: 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm. Program begins promptly at 12:00 pm, ... Panel Today: “Will $Billions in Patent Lawsuits Kill Smartphone and Tablet Innovation?”

That startup investors’ letter on net neutrality is a revealing look at what the debate is really about

Last week a group of startup investors wrote a letter to protest what they assume FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s proposed, revised Open Internet NPRM will say. Bear in mind that an NPRM is a proposal, not a final rule, and its issuance starts a public comment period. Bear in mind, as well, that the proposal ... That startup investors’ letter on net neutrality is a revealing look at what the debate is really about

From Today’s New York Times: Uber and Amazon

The Times seems to specialize in stories that use lots of economics but still miss the important points. Two examples from today: Stories about Uber, and about the dispute between Amazon and Hachette. UBER:  The article describes Uber’s using price changes to measure elasticity of demand, and more or less gets it right.  But it ... From Today’s New York Times: Uber and Amazon

Occupational Licensing, Competition, and the Constitution: Prospects for Reform?

U.S. antitrust law focuses primarily on private anticompetitive restraints, leaving the most serious impediments to a vibrant competitive process – government-initiated restraints – relatively free to flourish.  Thus the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) should be commended for its July 16 congressional testimony that spotlights a fast-growing and particularly pernicious species of (largely state) government restriction ... Occupational Licensing, Competition, and the Constitution: Prospects for Reform?

Microsoft’s mobile innovation today undercuts arguments built on yesterday’s Microsoft antitrust case

Last year, Microsoft’s new CEO, Satya Nadella, seemed to break with the company’s longstanding “complain instead of compete” strategy to acknowledge that: We’re going to innovate with a challenger mindset…. We’re not coming at this as some incumbent. Among the first items on his agenda? Treating competing platforms like opportunities for innovation and expansion rather ... Microsoft’s mobile innovation today undercuts arguments built on yesterday’s Microsoft antitrust case

Time To Make The Donuts: Self-Help Agreements and ICANN Accountability

It seems like debates that involve the ability to access the Internet fall into absolutism very quickly. One could almost construct a corollary of Godwin’s law: As the length of a policy discussion involving the Internet increases, the probability of someone claiming a nefarious plot to destroy the Internet approaches 1. Should there be zero-rated ... Time To Make The Donuts: Self-Help Agreements and ICANN Accountability

O competition, we stand on guard for thee

Today’s Canadian Competition Bureau (CCB) Google decision marks yet another regulator joining the chorus of competition agencies around the world that have already dismissed similar complaints relating to Google’s Search or Android businesses (including the US FTC, the Korea FTC, the Taiwan FTC, and AG offices in Texas and Ohio). A number of courts around ... O competition, we stand on guard for thee

Fracking, the Separation of Powers, Economic Welfare, and the Role of the Public (Or Mirabile Dictu! An Obama-Appointed Federal Judge Who Believes in the Separation of Powers)

An interesting thing happened on June 21st.  Scott Skavdahl, a federal district court judge appointed by President Barack Obama, invalidated the “Fracking Rule” adopted by the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM).  Even more interesting, however, was the fact that, in so holding, the judge relied heavily on a rather dusty, moth-eaten eighteenth century ... Fracking, the Separation of Powers, Economic Welfare, and the Role of the Public (Or Mirabile Dictu! An Obama-Appointed Federal Judge Who Believes in the Separation of Powers)

MVPDs “Unlock” the Box (again), but the FCC Doesn’t Seem to Care

The FCC’s blind, headlong drive to “unlock” the set-top box market is disconnected from both legal and market realities. Legally speaking, and as we’ve noted on this blog many times over the past few months (see here, here and here), the set-top box proposal is nothing short of an assault on contracts, property rights, and ... MVPDs “Unlock” the Box (again), but the FCC Doesn’t Seem to Care

The Allergan-Mohawk deal: An ingenious strategy to avoid an unbalanced IPR process

Last Friday, drug maker Allergan and the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe announced that they had reached an agreement under which Allergan assigned the patents on its top-selling drug Restasis to the tribe and, in return, Allergan was given the exclusive license on the Restasis patents so that it can continue producing and distributing the drug.  ... The Allergan-Mohawk deal: An ingenious strategy to avoid an unbalanced IPR process

Pai’s Right on Net Neutrality and Title II

As I explain in my new book, How to Regulate, sound regulation requires thinking like a doctor.  When addressing some “disease” that reduces social welfare, policymakers should catalog the available “remedies” for the problem, consider the implementation difficulties and “side effects” of each, and select the remedy that offers the greatest net benefit. If we ... Pai’s Right on Net Neutrality and Title II

Trade Agreements and Restatements as End Runs Around the Rule of Law

The Internet is a modern miracle: from providing all varieties of entertainment, to facilitating life-saving technologies, to keeping us connected with distant loved ones, the scope of the Internet’s contribution to our daily lives is hard to overstate. Moving forward there is undoubtedly much more that we can and will do with the Internet, and ... Trade Agreements and Restatements as End Runs Around the Rule of Law