Discussing Privacy Law Need, FTC’s Slaughter Cites COPPA Strengths
Discussing the need for a federal privacy law, Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter cited the “real tools” the FTC gained from the children’s privacy law: specific rulemaking and civil penalty authorities. Granted under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, those tools have been debated this Congress (see 1810110043). Children should be at the center of the legislative debate, said Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., in a video address. Slaughter spoke Wednesday at the Georgetown Institute for Tech Law & Policy (see 1810220041) and at that day’s FTC hearing (see 1810230042).
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“COPPA has allowed us to establish a baseline of security and protection without impeding the pace or ingenuity of innovators,” Slaughter said, citing “widespread acknowledgement” better data security and privacy protections are needed for all. She noted COPPA faced stiff opposition, with opponents claiming it would prevent websites from developing child-friendly services. Those fears haven't been realized, she said. The FTC plays an important role, but the Center for Digital Democracy wants a federal agency focused on privacy exclusively, Deputy Director Katharina Kopp said at the Georgetown event.
Speaking at the FTC hearing, which focused on intellectual property issues, Patent and Trademark Office Commissioner-Patents Drew Hirshfeld said his office isn't ready to release “initial” programs to improve patent search using artificial intelligence, but the effort is “certainly going in the right direction.” The PTO teamed with Google, Cisco, MIT and others in creating a modernized archive system to search prior art. There's a “very significant future” for AI in search, Hirshfeld said.
MIT Media Lab built the new archive, Google supplemented it with technology that automatically assigns class codes to documents, and Cisco, AT&T and others uploaded hundreds of thousands of documents. The archive will put PTO examiners in a “better position to reject new patent applications on what are in fact old or obvious ideas,” Cisco said. In September, the office submitted a request for information to gain a better understanding of artificial intelligence. PTO can take best practices and feed them back into an AI system, Hirshfeld said, saying 8,000-plus examiners are all searching. The effort is in line with Director Andrei Iancu’s strategy of ensuring office decisions are “transparent and repeatable,” he said.
Engine Executive Director Evan Engstrom criticized Iancu Wednesday for recently dismissing the threat of “patent trolls” to innovators. In its zeal to eliminate trolls and bad patents, the agency has over-corrected and risks “throwing out the baby with the bathwater,” Iancu said. It’s “troubling” Iancu would “ignore the overwhelming data showing that low-quality patents have led to a rash of abusive patent litigation directed towards small companies and entrepreneurs over the past decade,” Engstrom said.
The Supreme Court’s patent-related Alice decision had a “very positive impact” on R&D in the internet and software sectors, said Computer and Communications Industry Association Vice President-Law and Policy Matthew Schruers. The year following Alice saw those sectors increase R&D spending by 27 percent, he said, and patent litigation has declined. Alice (see 1804180073) established that a patent claim for a computer-generated financial services program was patent-ineligible because it's an abstract idea.