Politics and Law

WASHINGTON--Trends indicate that more and more commercially successful innovations are backed by federal dollars, a researcher said Monday, and politicians should do even more--even create a cabinet-level Innovation Department--to support the innovation economy if they want to kick-start the wider national economy.

"We need economic policies that pull us out of the recession but are oriented towards innovation," said Fred Block, a sociology professor from the University of California at Davis. "What we have to do as a country is figure out how to walk and chew gum at the same time."

Block co-authored a report … Read more

President-elect Barack Obama on Wednesday announced the formation of an Economic Recovery Advisory Board, naming an economist with expertise in Internet policy as the board's staff director and chief economist.

The newly established economic advisory board will be expected to regularly brief Obama, Vice President-elect Joe Biden, and their economic team with independent, nonpartisan information and analysis that will help the administration formulate a plan for economic recovery. Obama named former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker as the board's chairman and Austan Goolsbee as staff director and chief economist of the board.

Goolsbee is an economics professor at … Read more

A new feature called "Join the Discussion" was added Tuesday to President-elect Barack Obama's transition Web site, Change.gov, making the site more interactive for visitors.

The new page allows people to post to comments on a specific topic deemed a top priority by Obama. The page's first discussion focuses on health care and features a video from health care transition team members Dr. Dora Hughes and Lauren Aronson. As of Wednesday morning, more than 1,100 comments had been posted.

"A critical part of our health reform efforts is making sure every American voice … Read more

In light of the recent breach of President-elect Barack Obama's cell phone records, a senator on Monday sent a letter (PDF) to the Justice Department asking how many investigations or prosecutions the department has undertaken for violations of the Telephone Records and Privacy Protection Act.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) sent the letter to Matthew Friedrich, acting assistant attorney general, noting that "data privacy breaches involving the sensitive phone records of ordinary Americans are occurring with greater frequency."

The Telephone Records and Privacy Protection Act, which Leahy sponsored and Congress passed in 2007, prohibits telecommunications … Read more

A new company is launching with the intent of acquiring patents to shield technology companies from costly patent lawsuits.

RPX, a San Francisco-based start-up, calls itself a "defensive patent aggregator." The company plans to buy available patents to keep them out of the hands of "patent trolls," or firms that obtain patents for the purpose of suing other companies for royalties or licensing fees.

RPX will sell memberships to companies for a fixed annual fee that could range from $35,000 to $4.9 million, depending on the member company's operating income. For the price … Read more

Facebook has been awarded $873 million in damages against a Canadian man accused of sending spam messages to its members.

The default judgment was issued in federal court in San Jose, Calif., on Friday against Adam Guerbuez, of Montreal, and his company, Atlantis Blue Capital. The ruling also forbids Guerbuez from using Facebook or interacting with its members ever again.

Facebook doesn't expect to necessarily collect the money because "it's unlikely that Geurbez and Atlantis Blue Capital could ever honor the judgment rendered against them," Max Kelly, Facebook's director of security, wrote in a blog posting … Read more

The worsening U.S. economy has elicited a range of responses from lawmakers in recent weeks.

President-elect Barack Obama officially introduced his economic team on Monday, giving more indication that reinvigorating the nation's slumping economy will be his top priority once he is sworn into office. Lawmakers are still considering whether to provide assistance to the auto industry and may put together a new, massive stimulus package.

Meanwhile, President Bush over the weekend continued to press for more free trade--a cause heartily endorsed by the consumer electronics industry.

The chance for Congress to put the Colombia free trade … Read more

Barack Obama will be the most shadowed president in history, and it won't be just the Secret Service and press corps surrounding him.

Citizens and paparazzi armed with camera phones and a variety of other multimedia devices will chronicle every movement he makes in public and post it online.

Obama's visit on Friday afternoon to Manny's Cafeteria and Deli in Chicago was treated as a major event. Some footage was recorded by the Associated Press (see below), and in the background you can see employees, as well as a horde of press members, pointing their cameras at … Read more

The United States through its history has been the world's leading innovator thanks to a few hobbyists tinkering in their garages. If the U.S. wants to maintain its dominance in the world market, some argue, its policies should encourage innovation through broadband deployment.

While Congress has taken steps to promote universal broadband, a new working paper from the New America Foundation suggests a peculiar route to fostering the nation's next great innovators: allowing consumers to purchase and own their own fiber-optic connection.

In their paper Homes with Tails (PDF), Columbia Law School professor and NAF Fellow Tim … Read more