Tuesday, August 21, 2012

So Close, Yet So Far Apart: The EU and U.S. Visions of a New Privacy Framework

C. Wolf, W. Maxwell, here

Embracing Magic

K. Walker, here. #TPIAspen

Quotation from  Magical Patent Policy: "one third of all patent lawsuits now involve software
patents, way out of whack to the relative size of the industry. Software and Internet patents are litigated
eight times more often than other patents. Troll lawsuits cost productive U.S. companies $29 billion in
direct payouts last year, $80 billion a year when you take all costs into account, and more than $500
billion in the years since the Federal Circuit first authorized software patents. Worst of all, wasteful
patent litigation is costing customers real money and real choices in the devices they love.
This happens because software patents too often allow ownership of broad, sometimes trivial ideas. It
should not be this way. It is the execution as much as the idea that often matters in the
marketplace. Facebook wasn’t the first social network -- but it thrived because it executed well. Google
wasn’t first in search, but the way we executed has made our results better."

Quotation from Magical Competition Policy: "we should pay close attention to switching costs and lock-in. Since everyone is competing against
everyone else, consumers, advertisers, and publishers typically have lots of options. But those options
are less useful if walled gardens or proprietary formats make it difficult for users to switch. That’s why
Google created our Data Liberation Front, letting users easily export their data. The inability to move
your data -- like contacts, emails, and web history -- from one service to another can sometimes make
switching more difficult in ways that are bad for consumers and bad for competition."

Panel - Internet Competition: Implications for Antitrust

ASPEN 2012 AGENDA, Technology Policy Institute 

August 21, 2012
Susan Athey, Professor of Economics, Department of Economics, Harvard University and Visiting Researcher, Microsoft Research New England
Tim Bresnahan, Landau Professor in Technology and the Economy, Stanford University
Carlos Kirjner, Vice President and Senior Analyst, Internet, Alliance Bernstein
William Kovacic, Global Competition Professor of Law and Policy; Professor of Law; Director, Competition Law Center, George Washington University
Edith Ramirez, Commissioner, Federal Trade Commission
Hal Varian, Chief Economist, Google
Thomas Lenard, President and Senior Fellow, Technology Policy Institute (moderator)
Full Agenda here.

  , Video here.


- EU setting standards for competition policy globally 
- Platform competition and multihoming
- Complements/substitutes
- counterfactuals and harm to competition by innovation
- leadership in the vertical stack
- lesson from MS: from complement to possible substitute
- dangerous competition threats ex-post and ex-ante (Google/Netscape)
- counterfactual analysis when high quality products are given away for free (multi-sided markets)
- screen control and design
- fines' irrelevance
- changing nature of switching costs  (e.g. privacy issues suddenly relevant to Internet users and Google users in particular)
- the importance of behavioural economics in order to understand consumers' actions

Canada modernizes its Copyright Act (beyond the Canadian Copyright Modernization Act)

T. Margoni, here

Gesetzliche Verankerung der Netzneutralität in Österreich?

Blog.lehofer.at, hier

‘European Square’ iZettle Now Works With Android; Visa Europe Dispute Drags On

Techcrunch.com, here

Android Litigation Update

Techrights.org, here

2012 EU Survey on R&D Investment Business Trends

Here.

From the Report, p. 12:
"For some sectors, the expected R&D investment changes of the respondents are higher than the growth rates observed in the past (both for the responding companies and the whole sector):  software & computer services (11% p.a. over the next three years), general industrials (6.8%), automobiles & parts (6.0%),
chemicals (5.5%), oil & gas producers (4.6%), aerospace & defence (4.1%), construction & materials (3.8%), technology hardware & equipment (3.5%), and fixed line telecommunications (2.6%).For a few other sectors,
the expected changes are lower than the past growth rates (both for the responding companies and the whole sector): electricity (4.6% p.a. over the next three years) and pharmaceuticals & biotechnology (3.2%)." (emphasis added).

Can this really be true? Patents for TV programme formats ...

Tht IPKat, here

Bundeskartellamt verhängt Bußgeld gegen TTS Tooltechnic wegen vertikaler Preisbindung

Pressemitteilung, hier

Judge Asks Google to Supplement Its List of Any Paid Folks

Groklaw, here

The Impact of Free Music Downloads on the Purchase of Music CDs in Canada

G. Barker, T. Maloney, here

Legal Challenge To ICM Registry’s and ICANN’s .XXX gTLD Continues – What Are The Implications For Other gTLD Applicants?

Jdsupra.com, here