Clinton Lays Out Presidential Tech & Innovation Plans

US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has issued highlights of her plan to boost the nation’s competitiveness in and attention to technology, internet and innovation if elected. The platform hits many of the latest issues and buzzwords in those fields, continuing existing programs but also pushing further in some areas. Among the plans: appoint a chief innovation advisor, reduce frivolous patent litigation, support allowing the US Patent and Trademark Office to keep its fees, boost access to orphan copyrighted works and open licensing, support multi-stakeholder internet governance, and keep the internet open worldwide. Clinton also gave a nod to personal privacy online and took a jab at the SOPA bill that was defeated for over-reaching on behalf of IP rightsholders.

Hillary Clinton’s Initiative on Technology & Innovation is available here.

The IP Balance

Clinton’s plan to promote innovation while preserving privacy includes:

• Appoint a Chief Innovation Advisor to Reduce Federal Regulatory Barriers: Hillary will make the reduction of regulatory barriers to developing new products and services a top priority of the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs by appointing a Chief Innovation Advisor to that office.  This Chief Innovation Advisor would spearhead reforms across the government such as that spurred by the bipartisan FDA Safety and Innovation Act, which created a pathway for the quicker approval of medical device innovations to catalyze technological development.

• Defend Net Neutrality: Hillary believes that the government has an obligation to protect the open internet.  The open internet is not only essential for consumer choice and civic empowerment – it is a cornerstone of start-up innovation and creative disruption in technology markets. Hillary strongly supports the FCC decision under the Obama Administration to adopt strong network neutrality rules that deemed internet service providers to be common carriers under Title II of the Communications Act. These rules now ban broadband discrimination, prohibit pay-for-play favoritism, and establish oversight of “interconnection” relationships between providers. Hillary would defend these rules in court and continue to enforce them. She also maintains her opposition to policies that unnecessarily restrict the free flow of data online –such as the high profile fight over the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

• Improve the Patent System to Reward Innovators: Since our country’s Founding, the United States patent system has been an envy of the world and has helped propel inventions from the cotton gin to the computer. Hillary will ensure the patent system continues to reward innovators by enacting reforms to:

• Reduce Excessive Patent Litigation: The Obama Administration made critical updates to our patent system through the America Invents Act, which created the Patent Trial and Appeals Board, and through other efforts to rein in frivolous suits by patent trolls. But costly and abusive litigation remains, which is why Hillary supports additional targeted rule changes. She supports laws to curb forum shopping and ensure that patent litigants have a nexus to the venue in which they are suing; require that specific allegations be made in demand letters and pleadings; and increase transparency in ownership by making patent litigants disclose the real party in interest.

• Strengthen the PTO’s Operational Capacity: Hillary believes it is essential that the PTO have the tools and resources it needs to act expeditiously on patent applications and ensure that only valid patents are issued. That is why she supports legislation to allow the PTO to retain the fees it collects from patent applicants in a separate fund—ending the practice of fee diversion by Congress, and enabling the PTO to invest funds left over from its annual operations in new technologies, personnel, and training. Hillary also believes we should set a standard of faster review of patent applications and clear out the backlog of patent applications.

• Effective Copyright Policy: Copyrights encourage creativity and incentivize innovators to invest knowledge, time, and money into the generation of myriad forms of content. However, the copyright system has languished for many decades, and is in need of administrative reform to maximize its benefits in the digital age. Hillary believes the federal government should modernize the copyright system by unlocking—and facilitating access to—orphan works that languished unutilized, benefiting neither their creators nor the public. She will also promote open-licensing arrangements for copyrighted material and data supported by federal grant funding, including in education, science, and other fields. She will seek to develop technological infrastructure to supports digitization, search, and repositories of such content, to facilitate its discoverability and use.   And she will encourage stakeholders to work together on creative solutions that remove barriers to the seamless and efficient licensing of content in the U.S. and abroad.

US Tech and Innovation Leadership

On US leadership in technology and innovation, she said, “We must position American innovators to lead the world in the next generation of technology revolutions –from autonomous vehicles to machine learning to public service blockchain applications –and we must defend universal access to the global, digital marketplace of ideas.”

Promote Multi-Stakeholder Internet Governance: Hillary believes that internet governance – the coordination of the technical systems that allow the internet to function seamlessly across the globe – should be left to the global community of engineers, companies, civil society groups, and internet users, and not to governments. That is why as Secretary of State she championed the “multistakeholder approach” to internet governance and vigorously fought back against efforts by national governments to control the internet through government-led multilateral organizations, such as the International Telecommunications Union. She supports the Department of Commerce’s plans to formally transition its oversight role in the management of the Domain Name System to the global community of stakeholders, viewing the transition as a critical step towards safeguarding the internet’s openness for future generations. She will continue to fight to defend the internet from government takeover and to empower those internet governance organizations that advance internet openness, freedom, and technical innovation.

Fight for an Open Internet Abroad: As Secretary of State, Hillary boldly chose to elevate Internet Freedom to the top levels of American foreign policy and crystallized the issue in the international community as a contest between the values of open and closed societies. She embraced the power of technology as an asset of American leadership and an instrument of American ideals in the world.  She will continue this work as President –fighting for Internet Freedom and insisting on the responsibility of all nations to respect free speech and human rights online, as well as the open flow of data across borders and access to digital markets. She will oppose efforts to block or degrade internet access or to shutdown social media, and she will stand with likeminded countries against efforts by countries like China or Russia to create a balkanized internet run by governments.

Industry Reaction

The Consumer Technology Association issued a statement praising the agenda. CTA President and CEO Gary Shapiro said:

“Given the critical importance of our sector, it’s encouraging that Secretary Clinton is taking the initiative as the first major presidential candidate in this election cycle to put technology and innovation issues front-and-center in the national policy debate. I am especially pleased that Sec. Clinton, who started her career as a patent and IP lawyer, forcefully comes out against patent trolls and opposes SOPA-PIPA.

“We applaud Sec. Clinton for recognizing the importance and promise of the Internet of Things, cybersecurity, increasing available licensed and unlicensed spectrum for broadband and Wi-Fi, and balanced copyright policy. More, we welcome her call for the government to remove barriers that protect legacy incumbents against new innovators. Her proposals are admirable, but some like free Wi-Fi to the public come with staggering costs that go unaccounted for in her tech agenda.”

Image Credits: Clinton campaign