December 2014

Verizon and Google announced a global patent cross-licensing agreement that will cover a broad range of technologies.

The companies say it will lower the risk of frivolous patent litigation in the future. “[T]he Johnny-come-lately owner of a single patent can threaten an entire innovative ecosystem,” Verizon wrote. The company also stated that the arrangement will reduce the number of potential patents available to so-called patent trolls. The deal mirrors three earlier ones that Google signed with Cisco, Samsung and LG earlier in 2014. For Google, the goal of such deals is to show that cross-licensing is a better model than “patent privateering,” in which companies farm out patents to shell companies that then threaten to sue a broad range of targets.

[Commentary] For the nearly 8 million people in the US with some degree of vision impairment, the advent of e-books and e-readers has been both a blessing and a burden.

A blessing, because a digital library -- everything from academic textbooks, to venerated classics, to romance novels -- is never further away than your fingertips. A burden, because the explosion of e-books has served as a reminder of how inaccessible technology really can be. For more than a decade, the visually-impaired have been locked in an excruciatingly slow and circuitous battle against US copyright laws. And it’s left the visually-impaired with few options but to hack their way around digital barriers -- just for the simple pleasure of reading a book. Text-to-Speech (TTS) is an incredible tool for making the collective digital library more accessible, but publishers argued that TTS would negatively impact the audiobook market, and that a computer reading an e-book aloud constituted a violation of copyright. Reading is a basic human right, and no one -- not the Library of Congress and not corporate copyright lobbyists -- should have the power to take that away.

Wiley Rein LLP announced that senior public policy advisor Scott Weaver has been named co-chair -- and will lead the day-to-day operations -- of the firm’s Public Policy Practice.

The Practice, which represents a wide range of clients before the Administration, Congress, and various regulatory bodies, has served for decades as an industry-leading advocate with an established record of success. Weaver serves as co-chair of the Group along with Jim Slattery, the former six-term Democratic congressman who joined the firm in 2009.

The Ofcom Board announced the appointment of Sharon White as Chief Executive.

White will join Ofcom in late March 2015 from HM Treasury, where she is Second Permanent Secretary. In this role White has been the lead official responsible for managing the UK's public finances, a position she has held since November 2013. Before that she served as Director General, Public Spending at HM Treasury.