The Best Path to Maintaining an Open Internet is Through Congress
Unless you live under a rock or avoid social media, you’ve probably seen that the controversy around net neutrality has re-entered our lives like an obnoxious uncle at Thanksgiving dinner. This holiday season might bring good tidings, but it also drags in heated protests against the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC’s) upcoming vote to repeal “Open Internet” regulation of the internet. The FCC is proposing to undo its own 2015 reclassification of last-mile internet service as a Title II “telecommunications” service. [...]
Member Monday: An App That Rewards Our Service Members for Their Service
Each Veterans Day, the ACT | The App Association staff joins Americans across the country to give thanks to the veterans and active military who have and continue to serve our country every day. The United States currently has roughly 20.4 million veterans, in addition to the 1.3 million active-duty service men and women, who have served and sacrificed in different ways to uphold American values. This Veterans Day, we’re shining our Member Monday spotlight on Scout, an app designed [...]
Have Qualcomm, Ericsson and Nokia become open source converts? Or are they inviting pirates to clone their SEP-protected communications chips?
If you can have access to a patented technology but you aren't allowed to licence it, that either means the licensor is offering it up for free, in the way open source software developers offer up their wares free to others without asking them to sign a licence. Or it means that piracy of your technologies isn't a big deal, help yourself. IP Europe has attacked the concept of 'licence for all', calling it a licence to kill innovation. The [...]
IP Europe’s Disingenuous Case for Giving its Members a License to Discriminate
In a new blog post, IP Europe gave its favorite false narrative a new coat of paint by suggesting that the bedrock FRAND requirement of “license for all” equates to some kind of “license to kill.” It’s a clever turn-of-phrase designed to appeal to European Commission officials debating the final shape of a Communication on the licencing of standard essential patents. Parts of the Commission, including the all-powerful DG Competition, have been skeptical of language in the upcoming SEP Communication [...]
Four Issues Every App Developer Should Watch in the Tax Reform Debate
Tax reform is all the buzz in Washington. Last week, House Republicans introduced the 429-page Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which provides Americans with the most recent, and comprehensive look at what to expect in the tax reform effort. The plan proposes tax cuts and other changes that will affect all Americans, whether filing taxes as an individual, small business, or large corporation. But what are the tax policies that will impact America’s tech companies and innovators? We've put together [...]
Television White Spaces: Providing a Service Road for Broadband Traffic Jams
For any day ending in “y,” commuters across the country fire up the latest traffic app to find the fastest, most efficient route to work. Apps like Waze and Google Maps give commuters access to up-to-the-minute traffic data and alerts to get them to the office on time. It’s no coincidence that we depend on minimal congestion on our data network to successfully navigate away from congestion on the roads. In areas where traffic is especially bad, the network is [...]