Rep. Anna Eshoo (From Silicon Valley!) Thinks PROTECT IP Is About Immigration?

from the well,-it-does-involve-ICE... dept

Last week, we noted that a bunch of law professors (at final count, 108) signed on to a letter to every member of Congress highlighting problems with PROTECT IP. One of the key authors of the letter was Mark Lemley, the respected lawyer and Stanford law professor, who is one of the leading voices on this and related issues. He, of course, sent the letter directly to his own elected official, Rep. Anna Eshoo, who represents a large part of Silicon Valley, and thus should be one of the Congressional Reps leading the charge against this horrific bill -- especially since a bunch of VCs (many of whom live and work in her district) have pointed out that if this goes through, they'll fund less innovation in her district.

In other words, this is an issue that Eshoo should be front and center on. Unfortunately, the only Silicon Valley Rep. who has actually bothered to pay attention and speak out against this has been Rep. Zoe Lofgren, from a nearby district. I've really been quite disappointed that none of the other Silicon Valley Reps, including Eshoo, Jackie Speier and Mike Honda, have spoken up about this awful legislation. But, it's even worse than that when it comes to Eshoo. In response to Lemley's letter, Eshoo appears to have responded to a totally unrelated issue: immigration:

"I do share your concerns about illegal immigration and have consistently supported legislation to strengthen our Border Patrol. Our immigration system is in dire need of reforms. This is a national security issue and an economic one as well. We have porous borders and illegal crossings which make us vulnerable on the security front. We have heavy backlogs to process those waiting to become citizens (years-worth) in a system that is highly strained, lengthy and inefficient. There are, as you know, 10 to12 million people in our country without legal status. Each of these issues represents a critical problem which must be addressed and I think they need to be taken up comprehensively to overhaul the system.

While I agree that more needs to be done to curb the flow of illegal immigrants into our country, I shall continue to vote against legislation that in large part places unnecessary burdens on individuals who have legally immigrated to the U.S."

Oops. Now, in our discussions about Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) group's Operation In Our Sites effort to seize domain names without due process and under very questionable legal theories, many people have asked: what does immigration have to do with copyright? The ICE folks and their supporters note that one of ICE's mandates is to keep counterfeit products out of the country, and the group has stretched and twisted that mandate into believing it now can run roughshod over any intellectual property issue, no matter how little it grasps the legal details. So perhaps in some twisted way, folks in Eshoo's office think that PROTECT IP is an immigration issue? Or we can go with Occam and his razor and assume that Eshoo's people sent back the wrong form letter. Either way, it's not particularly comforting to think that this is the level of concern they put in when a leading voice on a particular issue contacts them about a bill under discussion.

Filed Under: anna eshoo, immigration, mark lemley, protect ip

Biologic Drugs Likely To Get Separate 12-Year Monopoly Protection Beyond Patents

from the and-for-that,-we-all-suffer dept

A few weeks ago, we noted that some biotech firms were pushing hard to get a separate monopoly on biologic drugs, that went beyond patent protection, as if that wasn't enough. While we had some thoughtful comments from some industry insiders, claiming that the issue could be more about liability. If that's the case, then deal with the liability question, not the monopoly protections. Either way, Robert McClelland alerts us to the unfortunate news that our elected officials have caved in to what the big pharma companies wanted and agreed to a new plan that would give a twelve-year monopoly on these sorts of "biosimilars." It's still not clear why this is needed at all, other than to wipe out competition and make drugs much more expensive. The two congressional reps who pushed this through were Representatives Anna Eshoo and Joe Barton. This is no surprise from Barton, but Eshoo, who represents part of Silicon Valley should know better than to be increasing monopoly protections.

Oh wait... a quick look over at OpenSecrets.org shows that (take a guess...) the single largest contributor to Eshoo's election campaigns has been (yup) pharmaceutical companies. Oh, and they've already been the largest contributors to her 2010 re-election campaign. And people wonder why Larry Lessig's Change Congress movement is getting attention. Even if she's being totally sincere in her position, how else can you look on this without saying it smacks of corruption with bought-and-paid-for legislation that gives pharma companies an extra monopoly to gain significant monopoly rents at the expense of the public?

Filed Under: anna eshoo, biologics, biosimilars, corruption, drugs, joe barton, monopoly rights, patents, politics

Politician's Spectrum Plan Sounds Mighty Familiar

from the m2z-in-the-house... dept

You may recall the well-hyped venture-backed startup named M2Z that wanted the FCC to hand over a segment of unused spectrum. Part of the plan was to offer a free ad-supported wireless service that would cover 95% of the country, that would be slow and "filtered" so that it was "family-friendly." It would also offer a higher-level paid tier, as well as priority services for public safety uses. The kicker, though, was that M2Z hoped the FCC would hand over the segment of spectrum for free in exchange for a piece of the profits down the road. The FCC turned down the request, but apparently that's not the last we've seen of it.

Congressional Representative Anna Eshoo has introduced a bill that would reserve the same slice of spectrum for a wireless service that would cover 95% of the country, that would have a free tier that was slower and filtered, as well as a higher-level premium tier, and which would offer priority services for public safety uses. The difference, though, is that it looks like this bill wouldn't involve just handing spectrum over, but would include an auction component towards how that spectrum is used. While it does seem like M2Z is well meaning in its plans, it's still hard to see why setting up all these rules makes sense. It still seems like it would make much more sense to create a much more open market system, to allow the spectrum to be put into the best use possible, rather than setting so many rules for each slice of spectrum.

Filed Under: anna eshoo, politics, spectrum
Companies: m2z