9/5. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) released a notice [213 pages in PDF] to be published in the Federal Register (FR) on September 6, 2012, that announces, describes, and recites proposed rules to adjust patent fees, pursuant to Section 10 of the America Invents Act.

This notice states that "In all, the routine fees to obtain a patent (i.e., filing, search, examination, publication, and issue fees) will decrease by 22 percent under this NPRM relative to the current fee schedule. Also, despite increases in some fees, applicants who meet the new micro entity definition will pay less than the amount paid for small entity fees under the current fee schedule for 88 percent of the fees eligible for a discount under section 10(b)." (Parentheses in original.)

Also on September 5, the USPTO published a notice in the FR that announces, describes, recites, and sets the effective date for, its rules changes that adjust certain patent fees for fiscal year 2013 to reflect fluctuations in the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The effective date is October 5, 2012. See, FR, Vol. 77, No. 172, September 5, 2012, at Pages 54360-54367.

The "Leahy-Smith America Invents Act", or AIA, was HR 1249 [LOC | WW]. President Obama signed it into law on September 16, 2011. It is now Public Law No. 112-29.

Section 10 of the bill gives the USPTO fee setting authority. It provides that the USPTO "(1) ... may set or adjust by rule any fee established, authorized, or charged under title 35".

It also provides that "(2) ... Fees may be set or adjusted under paragraph (1) only to recover the aggregate estimated costs to the Office for processing, activities, services, and materials relating to patents (in the case of patent fees) and trademarks (in the case of trademark fees), including administrative costs of the Office with respect to such patent or trademark fees (as the case may be)." (Parentheses in original.)

It also provides that certain fees "shall be reduced by 50 percent with respect to the application of such fees to any small entity that qualifies for reduced fees under section 41(h)(1) of title 35, United States Code, and shall be reduced by 75 percent with respect to the application of such fees to any micro entity as defined in section 123 of that title".

It also provides for this rule making proceeding.

David Kappos (at right), head of the USPTO, stated in a release that "We are complying with Congress' mandate to set fees at a level that enables the USPTO to recover the actual costs of the services it provides, while enabling us to implement all of the provisions of the Act. The result will be a patent system that will further fuel innovation across our economy and our society."

This notice states that this rule will provide "a new 75 percent fee reduction for micro entities, and expand the availability of the 50 percent fee reduction for small entities as required under section 10, providing small entities a discount on more than 25 patent fees that do not currently qualify for a small entity discount."

It also states that the new fees maintain "the current fee setting philosophy of keeping front-end fees below the cost of application processing and recovering revenue from back-end fees".

So, for example, while routine fees to obtain a patent will decrease, excess claims fees will increase sharply, fees for first requests for continued examination (RCEs) will increase, and fees for second or subsequent RCEs will increase sharply. (See, pages 94, 62, and 105.)

And, this notice asserts that these changes will reduce the patent application backlog, decrease patent pendency, and improve patent quality.

This notice, and the USPTO release, state that comments will be due within 60 of publication of the notice in the FR. Monday November 5, 2012, is the deadline to submit comments.

The USPTO will also host a series of public meetings which it titles "AIA Roadshows". See, schedule of events and agenda for each event.

8/29. U.S. District Court (NDIll) sentenced Hanjuan Jin, a former Motorola software engineer who stole trade secrets, to serve four years in prison.

The grand jury returned an indictment in April of 2008 charging her will three counts of violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1832(a)(3) in connection with her theft of Motorola (now Motorola Solutions) trade secrets. See, story titled "Grand Jury Indicts Software Engineer for Theft of Communications Software Trade Secrets" in TLJ Daily E-Mail Alert No. 1,740, April 1, 2008.

Section 1823(a)(3) provides in part that "Whoever, with intent to convert a trade secret, that is related to or included in a product that is produced for or placed in interstate or foreign commerce, to the economic benefit of anyone other than the owner thereof, and intending or knowing that the offense will, injure any owner of that trade secret, knowingly ... receives, buys, or possesses such information, knowing the same to have been stolen or appropriated, obtained, or converted without authorization ... shall ... be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both".

On February 8, 2012, the District Court found her guilty of theft of trade secrets following a bench trial conducted by Judge Ruben Castillo. See, story titled "More Tech Crimes" in TLJ Daily E-Mail Alert No. 2,342, February 20, 2012.

The Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois elaborated in a release that she worked for Motorola from 1998 through February of 2006, when she took medical leave. She then worked in the People's Republic of China (PRC) for Sun Kaisens, a Chinese telecommunications company that developed products for the Chinese military, without informing Motorola. She then returned to Motorola, for two days, during which time she accessed technical documents belonging to Motorola on its secure internal computer network, and then attempted to flea to the PRC with Motorola documents.

Judge Castillo wrote in his February opinion that she conducted a "purposeful raid to steal technology".

Acting USA Gary Shapiro stated in the release that "We will do everything we can to guard our economic and national security from the theft of American trade secrets, and this case shows that we can work with victim corporations to protect the trade secrets involved".

This case is U.S.A. v. Huanjan Jin, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, D.C. No. 08 CR 192.

8/30. The Technology Policy Institute (TPI) published a short essay titled "Is a Broadband Tax a Good Idea". The author is the TPI's Scott Wallsten.

This pertains to the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) system of taxation to fund its waste, fraud and abuse plagued universal service subsidy programs. The FCC asked in its April Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (FNPRM) [182 pages in PDF], among other things, whether it should tax broadband internet access service (BIAS), and if so, how. See, FNPRM at paragraphs 65-72. The FCC adopted this FNPRM on April 27, and released it on April 30, 2012. It is FCC 12-46 in WC Docket No. 06-122 and GN Docket No. 09-51.

See also, related story in this issue titled "Summary of Comments Submitted to the FCC Regarding Proposed USF Tax on Broadband".

(The FCC also asks if it should also tax one way VOIP service providers and/or text messaging services.)

Wallsten offers an economic analysis of the proposal to tax BIAS on two criteria: efficiency and equity.

His efficiency analysis is based upon the classical theory of price elasticity of demand (PED). Wallsten argues that a tax on broadband would be efficient because of the low PED.

Wallsten's equity argument pertains to "how much people of different income levels pay". He argues that a tax on broadband would not be equitable.

He argues that "a broadband tax may actually be efficient relative to some other options". Some critics of the proposal argued in comments to the FCC that taxing broadband would tend to decrease consumption of it, and this runs contrary to the FCC's goal of promoting broadband consumption. See especially, comments submitted by BIAS providers and the NCTA.

Wallsten argues, however, that taxing it would not have much effect. He wrote that "for the typical household, fixed (and, increasingly, mobile) broadband has likely become quite inelastic." (Parentheses in original.)

He cites survey data that shows most consumers would be willing to pay much more for their broadband service. He then argues that "While no recent study has specifically evaluated price elasticity, the large gap between prices and willingness to pay suggests that a tax of any size likely to be considered might not be hugely inefficient overall."

PED is a concept addressed in price theory and microeconomics texts. PED is a measure of the responsiveness of the total demand for something to a change in its price. A tax, such as a FCC mandatory universal service contribution, increases the price. Demand is inelastic when a change in the price has little effect upon demand. When conceptualized in terms of supply and demand curves in Cartesian coordinates, the downward sloping demand curve is steep. Demand is elastic when a change in the price has great effect upon demand; the demand curve is flatter.

The FCC's FNPRM acknowledged that some have argued that taxing BIAS "could discourage broadband adoption". The FCC asked for "empirical data ... regarding the potential impact of assessing broadband Internet access services on consumer adoption or usage of services. Would assessing broadband Internet access service in the near term undermine the goals of universal service?"

The FCC received many comments that merely stated that taxation could affect demand, without further data or economic analysis. But then, the FCC is a agency that is run by lawyers, and that lacks in house economic analysis capabilities.

Wallsten next argued that the proposed tax on broadband would be inequitable. If it were a connection based tax, then it "is the same for everyone regardless of income, making the tax regressive. The tax becomes even more regressive because much of the payments go to rural residents regardless of their income while everyone pays regardless of their income, meaning the tax includes a transfer from the urban poor to the rural rich."

If the tax varied with the tier of service, this "may lead to other efficiency problems if it reduces demand for higher tiers of service".

Finally, Wallsten argues that "The real solution is to dramatically reduce spending on ineffective universal service programs in order to minimize the amount of money needed to fund them."

8/30. This article summarizes some of the comments submitted in response to the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) April Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (FNPRM) [182 pages in PDF] regarding its universal service fund (USF) tax and subsidy programs.

This FNPRM covered many issues related to the FCC's USF tax regime. This article focuses on the FCC's request for comments on whether it should also tax broadband internet access service (BIAS).

The deadline for initial comments was July 9. The deadline for reply comments was August 6. See, notice in the Federal Register, Vol. 77, No. 110, Thursday, June 7, 2012, at Pages 33896-33944.

The US Telecom wrote in its comments that if the FCC were to tax broadband service, then "it must seriously examine including more participants in the broadband ecosystem", such as "edge providers whose business plans ultimately depend on ubiquitous broadband" and horizontal network layer participants.

Google submitted comments in which it argued for shifting to a connections based system. It wrote that "facilities-based providers of access connections could be required to contribute based on the number of access connections in service". Google opposes taxing "services used over a network", or over the top applications. See also, reply comments.

Similarly, Microsoft, owner of Skype, submitted comments in which it argued that the FCC should not tax "over-the-top" or "network-independent" applications, such as VOIP, e-mail, or instant messaging.

Microsoft also noted that "many such over-the-top communications applications are offered for free, thus further complicating any revenues-based approach". It also stated that "it is highly unlikely that any over-the-top communications provider today has the billing and operational backend to easily calculate, assess, remit" universal services taxes. Finally, it pointed about that taxing over the top applications would be inequitable, because it would reach certain applications, such as VOIP that connects to the PSTN, but not others, such as PC to PC VOIP.

Microsoft also argued at length against taxing one way VOIP and text messaging services. And, Microsoft wants the FCC to shift from a revenue based system to a connections based system. See also, reply comments.

The Information Technology Industry Council (ITIC) submitted comments in which it argued for "a system that assesses a flat fee on end user broadband connections". It wrote that some services are free but ad supported or bundled with other hardware or software products, while others are fee supported. It wrote that a revenue based system would discriminate against fee based services. In contrast, taxing free services that are bundled with other products, or are ad supported, would be "burdensome, difficult, and costly for companies to maintain compliance".

Verizon wrote in its comments that taxing broadband would increase revenues, but would "run counter to many of the Commission's policy goals, including specifically its goals of achieving increased broadband adoption and promoting broadband deployment". Moreover, it would be difficult to draw a line between BIAS and "the applications and services that rely on broadband". See also, reply comment.

The National Telecommunications and Cable Association (NCTA) wrote in its comments that the FCC "must take care that its efforts to reform the contribution system do not have unintended consequences, such as discouraging consumers from adopting broadband services".

It argued that "assessing broadband could inadvertently skew competition in the broadband marketplace. For example, a regime that imposed a larger contribution burden on faster tiers of residential service (e.g., through a revenue-based or capacity-based assessment) would be of great concern. Cable operators have invested billions of dollars upgrading their networks to DOCSIS 3.0 technology in order to provide consumers with increasing broadband speeds and capabilities. A regime that imposes a greater contribution burden on services provided by companies that invest in broadband upgrades than it does on services provided by competitors that choose not to upgrade their networks creates all the wrong incentives for investment."

It also stated that "we would be concerned about any regime that unduly affects broadband adoption. As noted above, from a consumer perspective, the universal service contribution has the same effect as a tax. Generally speaking, governments try to avoid imposing taxes on products or services that they want to encourage consumers to use (and tax those products or services that they would like to discourage). A new contribution regime could discourage people from buying broadband service, or upgrading to a faster tier of service, which would undermine or conflict with the Commission's stated policy goal of reducing consumers' costs of buying or upgrading broadband service." (Parentheses in original.) See also, reply comments.

Time Warner Cable wrote in its comments that imposing "contribution mandates" on BIAS "would risk undermining the Commission's concerted efforts to promote increased broadband adoption and further infrastructure investment".

EarthLink, Integra Telecom, and tw telecom submitted joint comments in which they argued that the FCC "must impose contribution obligations on providers of broadband Internet access service", noting that the FCC already subsidizes BIAS.

And, some comments pointed that 17 U.S.C. § 254 only authorizes the FCC to tax a "telecommunications carrier" that provides "telecommunications service", while the FCC proposes to tax non-taxable information services. Others argued that Section 254 does authorize taxing BIAS.

See also, AT&T comments and reply comments, Sprint Nextel comments, T-Mobile USA comments, Comcast comments and reply comments, and CTIA comments and reply comments.

9/4. The White House news office issued a release that announces the appointment of White House Fellows. The list includes Amen Ra Mashariki. This release states that he is a computer scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. His LinkedIn page states that his title is a "Senior BioInformatics Researcher". He previously worked as a software engineer at Motorola.

8/22. Jerome Pender was named Executive Assistant Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Information and Technology Branch (ITB). He was previously Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division (CJIS). FBI Director Mueller did not promote someone from within the ITB. Pender has worked for the FBI since 2003. Previously, he worked for UBS. See, FBI release.

9/5. The Department of Justice's (DOJ) Antitrust Division published a notice in the Federal Register (FR) that announces that the ODVA filed a notification of a change in its membership, pursuant to the National Cooperative Research and Production Act of 1993, which pertains to limiting antitrust liability of standard setting consortia. See, FR, Vol. 77, No. 172, September 5, 2012, at Page 54612.

8/30. The Department of Commerce's (DOC) National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced in a release the NTIA head Lawrence Strickling and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski met on August 29, 2012. They are required by statute to hold a biannual meeting on spectrum issues. This release states that they discussed "implementation of the spectrum-related provisions of the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012, as well as the President’s initiative to make available 500 MHz of spectrum for wireless broadband and the recent report from the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. They agreed that efforts to identify spectrum must include all available options, including both clearing spectrum and sharing spectrum where appropriate. They specifically discussed ongoing and planned activities to make additional spectrum available for wireless broadband including: industry/government collaboration and testing to determine the viability of sharing federal spectrum in the 1695-1710 MHz and 1755-1850 MHz bands with commercial wireless services; a planned FCC proposal to free up a substantial amount of spectrum through TV incentive auctions; an FCC proposal planned for later this year regarding the use of 100 megahertz of spectrum for small cells that NTIA identified at 3.5 GHz as part of its Fast Track evaluation; a pending FCC proposal to repurpose Mobile Satellite Service (MSS) S-band spectrum for AWS-4; a pending proposal to revise the rules for the Wireless Communications Service at 2.3 GHz to accommodate mobile broadband; and NTIA studies of additional spectrum for unlicensed devices in the 5 GHz band."

8/28. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a civil complaint [19 pages in PDF] in the U.S. District Court (SDNY) against Wwebnet, Inc. and Robert L. Kelley alleging violation of federal securities laws, including Section 10b fraud, in connection with alleged misrepresentations to investors regarding use of investor funds to develop software. See also, SEC release. This case is SEC v. Wwebnet, Inc and Robert L. Kelly, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, D.C. No. 12 CV 6581, Judge Kaplan presiding.

Day two of three of the Democratic National Convention.

10:00 AM. The U.S. Court of Appeals (FedCir) will hear oral argument in Raylon v. Complus Data Innovations, App. Ct. No. 2011-1355. This is an appeal from the U.S. District Court (EDTex) in patent infringement cases. The issues are denials of FRCP Rule 11 motions for sanctions, and denials of motions for attorneys fees under 35 U.S.C.§ 285. See also, HR 6245 [LOC | WW | TLJ], the "Saving High-tech Innovators from Egregious Legal Disputes Act" or "SHIELD Act", and story titled "SHIELD Act Would Allow Court to Award Costs and Attorneys Fees to Prevailing Parties in IT Patent Cases" in TLJ Daily E-Mail Alert No. 2,420, August 4, 2012. Panel D. Location: Courtroom 201.

10:00 AM. The U.S. Court of Appeals (FedCir) will hear oral argument in Alcohol Monitoring System v. Actsoft, App. Ct. No. 2012-1066. This is another appeal from the U.S. District Court (DColo) in the patent infringement case involving technology used in the Lindsay Lohan SCRAM ankle bracelet. Panel D. Location: Courtroom 201.

12:00 NOON. The World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Tracking Protection Working Group will meet by teleconference. The call in number is 1-617-761-6200. The passcode is TRACK (87225).

12:15 - 1:45 PM. The New America Foundation (NAF) will host a panel discussion titled "Upgrading America: Better, Faster, Cheaper Broadband and Energy". The speakers will be Reed Hundt, Harold Furchtgott-Roth (Hudson Institute), Blair Levin, Mark Cooper (Consumer Federation of America), and Michael Calabrese (NAF). See, notice. Location: NAF, Suite 400, 1899 L St., NW.

12:15 - 1:30 PM. The Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) Bobby Baker (Media Bureau) and Hope Cooper (Media Bureau) will discuss the FCC's political advertising rules. This is a free brown bag lunch. The Federal Communications Bar Association (FCBA) states that this is an event hosted by its Mass Media Committee. Location: National Association of Broadcasters, 1771 N St., NW.

Day three of three of the Democratic National Convention.

10:00 AM. The President's Export Council's (PEC) Subcommittee on Export Administration will hold a partially closed meeting. See, notice in the Federal Register, Vol. 77, No. 162, August 21, 2012, at Page 50463. Location: Department of Commerce, Hoover Building, Room 4830, 14th Street between Pennsylvania and Constitution Avenues, NW.

10:00 AM - 3:00 PM. The Department of Health and Human Services' (DHHS) Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology's (NCOHIT) HIT Policy Committee will meet. See, notice in the Federal Register, Vol. 77, No. 163, August 22, 2012, at Page 50690-50691. Location: Washington Marriott, 1221 22nd St., NW.

1:00 - 2:00 PM. The law firm of Fulbright & Jaworski (FJ) will host a webcast panel discussion titled "FTC Speaks Through Spokeo: When Privacy Meets FCRA: Web and Social Media Data Collection in the Crosshairs". See, June 7, 2012, Complaint, Stipulation, and Consent Decree in USA v. Spokeo, U.S. District Court (CDCal), D.C. No. 2:12-cv-05001-MMM-SH. The speakers will be Jamie Hine (FTC Division of Privacy & Identity Protection), Shauna Clark (FJ), Erika Lee (FJ), Sue Ross (FJ), and Pamela Harbour (FJ). See, registration page.

1:00 - 2:00 PM. The American Bar Association (ABA) will host a webcast panel discussion titled "Privacy and Information Security Update". The speakers will be Benita Kahn (Vorys Sater Seymour & Pease), Kelly DeMarchis (Venable), and Julia Kernochan Tama (Venable). No CLE credits. See, notice.

1:30 - 4:30 PM. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will hold a public roundtable regarding its notice of proposed rulemaking and a notice of proposed examination guidelines to implement the first inventor to file provisions of the Leahy Smith America Invents Act. See, notice of proposed rules in the Federal Register (FR) Vol. 77, No. 144, July 26, 2012, at Pages 43742-43759; notice of proposed examination guidelines in the FR, Vol. 77, No. 144, July 26, 2012, at Pages 43759-43773; and, notice of public roundtable in the FR, Vol. 77, No. 159, August 16, 2012, at Pages 49427-49428. See also, story titled "USPTO Announces First Inventor to File NPRM and Roundtable" in TLJ Daily E-Mail Alert No. 2,430, August 16, 2012. Location: USPTO, Madison Auditorium, Madison Building, 600 Dulany Street, Alexandria, VA.

Deadline to submit comments to the Copyright Royalty Board regarding the Alliance of Artists and Recording Companies' (AARC) motion for partial distribution in connection with 2011 DART Sound Recordings Fund royalties. See, notice in the Federal Register, Vol. 77, No. 152, August 7, 2012, at Pages 47120-47121.

The Department of Labor's (DOL) Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is scheduled to release its August 2012 unemployment data.

12:30 PM. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will host a webcast and teleconferenced event titled "USPTO America Invents Act Webinar". The speakers will be USPTO Director David Kappos, Deputy Director Terry Rea, Commissioner for Patents Peggy Focarino, General Counsel Bernie Knight, Chief Judge James Smith, and Lead Judge Michael Tierney. See, notice.

Deadline to submit reply comments to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in response to the Wireline Competition Bureau's WCB) Public Notice [23 pages in PDF] regarding expanding FCC subsidies for rural health care providers to include broadband. The FCC released this item on July 19, 2012. It is DA 12-1166 in WC Docket No. 02-60. See, notice in the Federal Register, Vol. 77, No. 144, Thursday, July 26, 2012, at Pages 43773-43780.

The House will return from its August recess.

The Senate will return from its August recess.

9:00 AM - 5:30 PM. The Department of Justice's (DOJ) Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will host a public workshop titled "Most Favored Nation Clauses and Antitrust Enforcement and Policy". See, event web site. See also, story titled "Antitrust Agencies to Host Workshop on MFN Clauses" in TLJ Daily E-Mail Alert No. 2,429, August 15, 2012. Location: FTC, Satellite Building and Conference Center, 601 New Jersey Ave., NW.

Deadline to submit initial comments to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in response to its Notice of Inquiry [29 pages in PDF] that requests information to assist it in preparing its next video competition report. This NOI is FCC 12-80 in MB Docket No. 12-203. See, story titled "FCC Releases Video Competition Report" in TLJ Daily E-Mail Alert No. 2,411, July 25, 2012. See also, notice in the Federal Register, Vol. 77, No. 153, August 8, 2012, at Pages 47383-47392.

Deadline to submit comments to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in response to its further notice of proposed rulemaking implementing the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). See, FTC notice [43 pages in PDF] and story titled "FTC Releases COPPA Further NPRM" in TLJ Daily E-Mail Alert No. 2,418, August 2, 2012.

Deadline to submit initial comments to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in response to its Further Notice of Proposed Rule Making (FNPRM) [67 pages in PDF] regarding Medical Body Area Network (MBAN) coordinators for the 2360-2390 MHz band. The FCC adopted and released this item on May 24, 2012. It is 12-54 in ET Docket No. 08-59. See, notice in the Federal Register, Vol. 77, No. 143, Wednesday, July 25, 2012, at Pages 43567-43570.

8:00 AM - 1:30 PM. The Women in Government Relations (WGR) will host an event titled "Trends in Technology Conference". There will be panels titled "The Buzz with Tech Reporters", "Will Congress Pass Cyber Security Legislation?", and "Outlook for the Lame Duck and Prospect in the 113th Congress". See, notice and registration page. Prices vary. Location: Hyatt Regency Washington on Capitol Hill, 400 New Jersey Ave., NW.

9:00 AM. The Department of Commerce's (DOC) Bureau of Industry and Security's (BIS) Regulations and Procedures Technical Advisory Committee will hold a partially closed on site and teleconferenced meeting. See, notice in the Federal Register, Vol. 77, No. 162, August 21, 2012, at Page 50463. Location: DOC, Hoover Building, Room 3884, 14th Street between Constitution and Pennsylvania Avenues, NW.

9:30 AM - 5:00 PM. Day one of a three day meeting of the Department of Transportation's (DOT) Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) RTCA Special Committee 222, Inmarsat Aeronautical Mobile Satellite (Route) Services. See, notice in the Federal Register, Vol. 77, No. 157, August 14, 2012, at Pages 48584-48585. Location: RTCA, Inc., Suite 910, 1150 18th St., NW.

1:00 - 2:00 PM. The American Bar Association (ABA) will host a webcast panel discussion titled "The Limits of the FTC’s Data Security Program: Where is the line, and where should it be?". The speakers will be Thomas Zych (Thompson Hine), Janis Kestenbaum (FTC), Michael Scott (Southwestern Law School), and David Zetoony (Bryan Cave). No CLE credits. See, notice.

2:15 PM. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) will hold an executive business meeting. The agenda includes numerous items, including consideration of SConRes 50, a resolution "Expressing the sense of Congress regarding actions to preserve and advance the multistakeholder governance model under which the Internet has thrived". See, notice. Location: Room S-116, Capitol Building.

6:00 - 9:15 PM. The DC Bar Association will host a panel discussion titled "Trade Secret Fundamentals: What You Can and Can’t Do". The speakers will be Richard Horowitz and Peter Toren (Weisbrod Matteis & Copley). The price to attend ranges from $89 to $129. CLE credits. See, notice. For more information, call 202-626-3488. The DC Bar has a history of barring reporters from its events. Location: DC Bar Conference Center, 1101 K St., NW.

TIME? The American Bar Association (ABA) will host a webcast panel discussion titled "Video Games and Digital Media: A Litigation Update".

TIME? The U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) will hold a hearing on the probable economic effect of providing duty free treatment for imports under the U.S.-Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement. See, notice in the Federal Register, Vol. 77, No. 155, August 10, 2012, at Pages 47880-47882. Location: USITC, 500 E St., SW.

9:00 AM - 5:00 PM. The U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission will meet to consider drafts of material for its 2012 annual report to Congress. See, original notice in the Federal Register (FR), Vol. 77, No. 143, July 25, 2012, at Pages 43662-43663, and second notice in the FR, Vol. 77, No. 171, September 4, 2012, at Pages 53965-53966. Location: Hall of the States, Conference Room 233, 444 North Capitol St., NW.

9:00 AM - 1:00 PM. The Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) Communications Security, Reliability, and Interoperability Council (CSRIC) will meet. See, notice in the Federal Register, Vol. 77, No. 156, August 13, 2012, at Page 48153. Location: FCC, Commission Meeting Room, Room TW-C305, 445 12th St., SW.

9:30 AM - 5:00 PM. Day two of a three day meeting of the Department of Transportation's (DOT) Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) RTCA Special Committee 222, Inmarsat Aeronautical Mobile Satellite (Route) Services. See, notice in the Federal Register, Vol. 77, No. 157, August 14, 2012, at Pages 48584-48585. Location: RTCA, Inc., Suite 910, 1150 18th St., NW.

10:30 AM - 5:00 PM. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will host an event titled "roadshow" to explain and answer questions about USPTO rules that implement provisions of the Leahy Smith America Invents Act, which take effect on September 16, 2012. See, notice and agenda. Location: USPTO, Alexandria, Virginia.

12:00 NOON. The World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Tracking Protection Working Group will meet by teleconference. The call in number is 1-617-761-6200. The passcode is TRACK (87225).

2:00 PM. The House Homeland Security Committee's (HHSC) Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Communications will hold a hearing titled "Resilient Communications: Current Challenges and Future Advancements". See, notice. Location: Room 311, Cannon Building.

5:00 PM. Deadline to submit reply comments to the Copyright Office (CO) in response to its notice in the Federal Register (FR) regarding its proposed rules that implement the provision of the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act of 2010 (STELA) that allows copyright owners to audit certain Statements of Account filed with the CO. See, FR, Vol. 77, No. 115, Thursday, June 14, 2012, at Pages 35643-35652. See also, story titled "Copyright Office Issues Proposed STELA Rules Regarding Auditing Statements of Account" in TLJ Daily E-Mail Alert No. 2,398, June 18, 2012.

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