Tech industry opposes immigration bill
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Also: Ancestry.com puts 90M war records online. Read these stories and more from around the Web on News.com Extra.
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The defeat of an immigration reform bill in the U.S. Senate was a blow to efforts to raise the annual cap on H-1B visas, but IT industry groups can still pursue other legislative options.
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An influential group of Republicans in the US House of Representatives on Tuesday rejected President George W. Bush&#39;s sweeping immigration reform bill -- before even seeing the final product.
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Business lobbyists believe lawmakers will ultimately strip from Senate minimum wage legislation any sanctions against companies caught hiring illegal immigrants. Whether they can keep it out of immigration law is another matter
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(InfoWorld) - Legislation that would overhaul the U.S. patent system would hurt innovation and decrease the value of patents, representatives of two tech companies said Wednesday. Though the legislation is supported by many large IT vendors, two bills now being considered by the U.S. Congress, both called the Patent Reform Act, go too far in watering down the patent system, said representatives of Texas Instruments (TI) and AmberWave Systems, a New Hampshire semiconductor manufacturer. While both companies support large chunks of the bills, one in the House of Representatives and one in the Senate, provisions that would change the way courts apportion damages in patent lawsuits and allow new ways to challenge existing patents would hurt their businesses, said Christopher Gallagher, a lawyer representing AmberWave. "For more than 200 years, the [U.S. patent] system has worked well," Gallagher said during a debate sponsored by the Congressional Internet Caucus. The patent reform debate is often portrayed as high-tech vs. large pharmaceutical companies, but TI and AmberWave are among the tech companies asking Congress to scale back its efforts to change the patent system. Representatives of CiscoÂ and the Business Software Alliance (BSA), a trade group representing Microsoft, Dell, and IBM, called for Congress to pass the patent reform bills. Cisco spends $45 million a year defending itself against patent lawsuits, said Matt Tanielian, director of government relations for the company. The company currently is defending against a dozen patent lawsuits, "most of them by companies that have never built or sold anything," he said. Patent reform is the company's top priority in Congress this year, Tanielian said. "There's a lot of bad patents out there," he said. "When you get sued, you ought to get a fair shake." Among the most controversial issues: The bills would change the way courts apportion damages when a company is found to infringe a patent. Currently, courts generally consider the value of the entire product when a small piece of the product infringes a patent, but Cisco and other supporters of the bills want Congress to base damages only on the value of the infringing piece. The current system encourages lawsuits by patent holders hoping to win a legal "lottery," said Emery Simon, a lawyer for the BSA. The awards are unfair because the small piece patent holders often add to a larger product "is less than what they're trying to claim," he said. But Amy Burke, TI's director of government relations, said the apportionment changes would take away from the value of patents. "This language would trivialize damages and actually encourage infringement," she said. Another major issue in the bills is a new way of challenging patents after they're issued, called post-grant review. The bills would allow companies sued for patent infringement to file challenges with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) The post-grant review would create a continuing question about whether a patent was valid, making it difficult for small companies like AmberWave to get funding, Gallagher said. "If we can't get venture capital, we can't function," he said. Instead of a new way to challenge patents after they're granted, Congress should focus on giving the USPTO more money, he said. "The way to ensure patent quality is to get it right the first time," he said. BSA's Simon said worries about a new post-grant review watering down the value of patents are overblown, because there are several ways to challenge patents now. But the USPTO's current patent-challenging mechanisms don't work well, and the most common way of challenging a patent, in a lawsuit, can cost millions of dollars, he said. "We think administrative challenges are good things," he said. "It saves time, it saves money."
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Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates called on the U.S. Congress toÂ raise the cap on skilled-worker visas, saying the county's economic future was at stake.
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TheÂ U.S. congressman who chairs a House Judiciary subcommittee says Congress could pass an immigration reform bill by July, including lifting the limit on how many high-tech engineers can come to the U.S. for jobs.
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(InfoWorld) - Three major technology trade groups urged the U.S. Senate on Friday to resurrect a wide-ranging immigration reform bill that would expand a controversial skilled-worker visa program. The Senate late Thursday failed to gain enough votes to close debate on the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act and bring the bill to a floor vote. The bill, which critics said provided amnesty to illegal aliens living in the U.S., also would have expanded exemptions to the cap on high-skilled H-1B visa programs, a move supported by many tech vendors. [ Analysis:Â Immigration reform's high-tech impactÂ ] The bill would increase the annual H-1B cap from 65,000 to 115,000 and exempt foreign students who have earned a master's degree or higher from a U.S. university from the annual cap. Right now, 20,000 students are exempted from the cap. U.S. tech vendors don't want to lose those workers, especially because many of them have their education supported by U.S. tax dollars at public universities, said David LeDuc, director of public policy for the SIIA (Software & Information Industry Association). "We don't want to export our seed corn," he said. "We don't want [those students] leaving and working for our competitors." The bill also sets preferences based on merit, instead of family connections, for clearing multiyear backlogs for employment green cards, another provision supported by many tech groups. Tech vendors want to keep high-skilled workers in the U.S. under the long-term green card program but often face delays, LeDuc said. The SIIA, the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) and the ITIÂ (Information Technology Industry Council) all urged the Senate to try again to pass the legislation. Negotiations on the bill will continue, and ITI is optimistic the bill will still move forward, said James Ratchford, communications director there. The fate of the bill should become clearer by early next week, he said. LeDuc agreed, saying SIIA is confident the bill can still pass. Many large tech vendors have in recent years urged Congress to expand the H-1B program. In March, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates called for more H-1B visas during a visit to Washington, D.C. Gates said then he had "deep anxiety" about the ability of the U.S. to compete globally. SIIA's position is similar to Microsoft's. "Companies need to be able to hire the best and brightest workers regardless of where they're born," LeDuc said. The H-1B program isn't generating controversy during the congressional debate on the bill. Instead, provisions to allow illegal aliens to become permanent citizens have raised major concerns among many Republicans. But U.S.-based tech worker groups such as the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers-USA have opposed a higher H-1B cap, arguing that companies use the program to hire foreign workers for less money than unemployed U.S. workers would receive.
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As proposed legislation adding safeguards to electronic voting languishes, criticism of the bill is mounting among legislators and experts.
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American investors and European companies are opposing a proposal to allow foreign companies to use international accounting standards in filings with United States regulators.
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The U.S. government's plan to use RFID chips in a proposed passport card program for U.S. citizens is drawing fire from certain groups concerned it could undermine security and privacy.
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U.S. senators are debating a controversial measure to exempt foreign student graduates from the cap on H-1B visas.
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A group of Republican senators opposed to a sweeping immigration overhaul that would legalize millions of unlawful immigrants said on Thursday they were determined to torpedo the bill when the Senate resumes debate next week.
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(InfoWorld) - Alumni of a major Indian university want the U.S. Congress to take separate action to passÂ H-1B visaÂ legislation that went down with the immigration reform bill thatÂ failed in CongressÂ last week. Members of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) alumni association, meeting for a three-day conference in Santa Clara, California, said Friday that they are hoping to get a separate vote on an immigration bill provision that would increase the number of visas granted to highly skilled engineers coming from abroad to work at U.S. technology companies. "Almost as soon as the bill died, there was talk of piecemeal moves to get parts of that bill passed," said Umang Gupta, chairman and CEO of Keynote Systems, a company that measures the technical performance of Web sites. He's also chairman of the board of PAN IIT, the alumni group hosting the conference, which has drawn close to 4,000 people. The legislation would increase the limit of H-1B visas to be granted every year to 115,000 from 65,000 today. Backers say the extra visas are needed because there aren't enough qualified U.S. engineers to do the work U.S. companies need done. Opponents say the visas just make it possible for U.S. companies to hire foreigners at lower wages than they would have to pay U.S. hires. The legislation would also continue to allow 20,000 visas per year to applicants who have advanced degrees from U.S. colleges and universities. Today, about half of the graduates of U.S. engineering schools are non-Americans, many of whom have to return to their home countries to find work when they should be allowed to work here and contribute to U.S. economic growth, said Pradeep Khosla, dean of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania. "The day this country limits the free flow of skilled immigrants coming into this country, that's the day we start going downhill," said Khosla. Another IIT alum, Yogen Dalal, managing director at Mayfield Fund, a venture capital firm, noted that in the early 1990s, some in Silicon Valley thought they would be overcome by the Japanese. But the success of valley companies like Google and Apple, which introduced its iPhone a week ago, shows it remains a center for innovation. "Wealth is being created by innovation right here in [Silicon Valley]. Economic value is being created here. The work force is just being redistributed," Dalal said. The H1-B discussion is happening against the backdrop of the loss of thousands of jobs in recent years, particularly in Silicon Valley, as companies outsourced work to lower-wage markets in countries like India. But as more work is done in India,Â wage inflationÂ has begun to narrow the pay gap between India and the U.S. And in some cases, Indian companies have begun moving jobs to the U.S., said Arjun Malhotra, chairman and CEO of Headstrong, an outsourcing consulting firm. "If you look at the issue today, it's not outsourcing, it's global sourcing. You go to wherever the best resources are available to do that job," said Malhotra. The Indian Institute of Technology was created in 1950, three years after India gained its independence from Great Britain. It has about 100,000 alumni, 25,000 of whom live and work in the U.S.
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Goolag understaffed Google has added to calls for immigration authorities to allow more skilled foreign labour into the US, as the Mountain View firm struggles to keep pace with its own expansion.â¦
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Debate centered on how and when to limit federal wiretaps, and the role of tech companies. Meanwhile, the Real ID Act ran into some real opposition.
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(InfoWorld) - Patent overhaul legislation thatÂ passed the U.S. House of Representatives FridayÂ still faces significant opposition as it heads to the Senate, opponents said. The House bill, supported by several large tech vendors, would tighten the way courts assess patent infringement damages and add a new way to challenge patents after they've been granted. Currently, courts generally consider the value of the entire product when a small piece of the product infringes a patent; the bill would allow courts to base damages only on the value of the infringing piece. DespiteÂ support from such tech vendors as Microsoft, IBM, and Symantec, the bill faces significant opposition from small inventors, many pharmaceutical companies, several small tech vendors, and labor unions. The tech supporters of patent reform have called for the changes for five years. "I would not throw a party just yet," said Bobbie Wilson, director in the litigation department at the Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk & Rabkin PC law firm, based in San Francisco. "Congress has tried to address patent reform before, starting off with a bang and ending with a whimper." Wilson, who supports parts of the bill and questions other parts, said she's a "bit pessimistic" that patent reform legislation will pass before the November 2008 elections. "Remember that there is a whole cottage industry, from the so-called trolls to the patent litigators, who are heavily invested in the status quo," she added. "They will be lobbying hard and spending substantial sums of money to water down or dilute any reform." Opponents will focus hard on the debate in the Senate, added Ronald Riley, president of the Professional Inventors Alliance, a trade group that opposes the House bill. The 45-vote margin in the House is not enough for the Senate "to see it as a mandate," Riley said. Riley's group was among those recruiting labor unions to oppose the bill. In July and August, three labor unions, including the giant AFL-CIO, came out against the House bill. Groups opposed to the bill are going to target lawmakers who support the legislation during the 2008 elections, "regardless of what might happen in the end," Riley said. "We don't care if they get mad," he said. "They can't do anything worse to us than they're doing now. There has to be a price for being bought." Riley and other opponents of the bill argue that it would allow large companies to steal patented inventions from small companies without fear of repercussions. When large tech vendors steal intellectual property and "ship it off to India, everybody loses," Riley said. "This is about jobs." Supporters of the bill argue it's needed because the number of patent infringement lawsuits and size of awards have exploded in recent years. It's too easy for patent holders to sue and collect huge damage awards when a small piece of a tech product is found to infringe, supporters argue. The House passage of the bill was "a major victory for U.S. innovation and competitiveness," John W. Thompson, chairman and CEO of Symantec, said in a statement. "This landmark legislation is the first comprehensive modernization and revision of the patent law in 55 years." But Wilson said the House bill largely ignores the biggest problem with the U.S. patent system -- that an underfunded Patent and Trademark Office lacks examiners and often loses experienced employees due to poor salaries. While the bill would make "sweeping changes" in the way patents are prosecuted and whether they are litigated, the bill's post-grant review provision targets the wrong point of the patent-issuing process, she said. "That's kind of like closing the barn after the horse is gone," she said. "Most of the problem is with bad patents." Representative Howard Berman, a California Democrat and main sponsor of the Patent Reform Act, has also introduced a bill to increase funding at the Patent and Trademark Office. He said Friday he will continue to push for the legislation to be passed.