Commissioner Brill and Morgan Reed Debate Mobile Health Regulation
Last week, FTC Commissioner Julie Brill and ACT’s Morgan Reed took the stage at The Hill’s Tech in Policy event to discuss mobile health. While Morgan urged a focus on the behavior of entities, Commissioner Brill staked out her position that both the collection and use of health data by third-party apps should be treated equally. It became clear in this discussion that the mobile health industry needs to educate the FTC about why collecting health data can provide better health outcomes. If we [...]
FTC’s Brill & ACT’s Reed talk tech at Hill Newseum event
Tech in Policy: Innovation Impacting Washington ACT | The App Association Executive Director Morgan Reed and FTC Commissioner Julie Brill will discuss health and education policy at The Hill’s Tech in Policy event on July 23rd at the Newseum. Commissioner Brill is leading the FTC’s efforts to review consumer privacy and security in healthcare and technology, and Reed serves as the legal and policy chair for the mobile arm of the largest Health IT organization, HIMSS. In conjunction with [...]
ACT Welcomes FTC changes to COPPA
Today the Federal Trade Commission made updates to its FAQ for the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) in response to concerns raised by app makers and parents. This FAQ is the principal means by which the Commission provides guidance for its children's online privacy regulation. Today’s action by the FTC gives platforms and app makers more guidance in areas where confusion has persisted. With the Commission now providing a better explanation of the regulatory landscape, we expect innovation and [...]
How to Read a Patent Application in Four Steps
1. Skip the abstract. Patent abstracts are hard to read--meandering at best, and deliberately vague at worst. The abstract has little legal significance beyond shedding light on the claims and often does not accurately capture the essential nature of the patent. 2. Think through the drawings. The drawings in a patent application can assist in the understanding of an invention. The United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) selects one representative drawing to appear on the front page of the [...]
Show the USPTO the Money
We’ve talked about patents a lot recently and one of our main points has always been that the best place to address patent quality is at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The USPTO plays a key role in promoting innovation by granting quality patents. The USPTO is a “fee for service” organization, meaning they get their funding not from appropriated taxpayer dollars but by the fees paid by people applying for a patent or trademark. By [...]
Who will win the health app race?
ACT | The App Association has been deeply involved in the health app market for some time now. While we’ve long believed in the transformative potential of this marketplace, it’s clear that care providers, developers, consumers, and industry analysts are catching on as well. 2014 has been declared the Year of the Health App according to leading mobile analytics firm Flurry. Average daily use of health apps is growing at nearly twice the rate of apps overall. This points to a promising future [...]