Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., led filing Friday of the COVID-19 Emergency Telehealth Impact Reporting Act. S-4289 would require the Department of Health and Human Services to assess metrics, including utilization rates and hospital readmission rates, for patients who received healthcare via telehealth programs expanded during the pandemic. “I will fight for continued healthcare cost reduction and increased access to underserved Americans by making many of the coronavirus telehealth flexibilities permanent,” Young said in a statement. “However, for this effort to succeed Congress must first evaluate how current flexibilities are impacting our healthcare system, and more precisely assess their potential for long-term success.” Sens. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., and Angus King, I-Maine, are co-sponsors. Reps. John Curtis, R-Utah, and Peter Welch, D-Vt., earlier filed a House version, HR-7695.
Cloud and network infrastructure and PC capabilities were "vital in allowing businesses and people to continue to work, learn, stay connected and provide critical goods and services,” said Intel CEO Bob Swan on a Q2 investor call Thursday: Those trends helped Intel generate $19.7 billion revenue, exceeding forecasts by $1.2 billion. The company is making “significant progress” boosting its factory CPU capacity and improving its supply chain, he said. “We’re on track to return to more normal levels of PC inventory as we work through the second half of the year.” The downside is “yield” delays in its 7-nanometer chip process technology that's pushing commercialization schedules about “12 months behind our internal target,” said Swan. “We’ve root-caused the issue and believe there are no fundamental roadblocks, but we have also invested in contingency plans to hedge against further schedule uncertainty.” The stock closed down 16% Friday at $50.59. The “global problems we face are bigger than any one company can solve alone,” said Swan. It established 2030 “corporate responsibility goals” that call for a “collective response to revolutionize health and safety” and make technology “fully inclusive,” he said. The $50 million it committed to a “pandemic response technology initiative” typifies Intel’s “unique ability to partner and collectively solve critical problems.” The initiative will speed access to technology for patient care, said Intel. Chief Financial Officer George Davis said to expect "the weak economic environment will impact our commercial PC business, particularly the desktop.” The chipmaker expects the PC market to decline by high-single digits year over year in Q3, the CFO said.
The International Trade Commission “is working on technology that will permit virtual hearings,” Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) Dee Lord told Sharp and Vizio lawyers in a June 24 telephonic hearing, according to a transcript (login required) posted Thursday in docket 337-TA-1201. Lord is running the ITC’s Tariff Act Section 337 investigation into Sharp allegations that Vizio, its panel maker Xianyang CaiHong Optoelectronics, and TV set assembler TPV infringe five Sharp LCD patents (see 2005210041). The ITC picked Webex Meeting as its videoconferencing platform for Section 337 hearings and conferences “involving confidential business information,” said a July 20 update to its COVID-19 procedures. It’s working as quickly as possible to implement the software, but use of the technology will be at the discretion of individual ALJs, it said. “I'm not sure that I will conduct a virtual hearing in every case,” Lord told the attorneys. “We have had to make some significant adjustments at the ITC in the way we do business,” she said. “We have to assume that we're not going to have a live hearing, and we may not have a hearing procedure that's anything like what we're used to.” ALJs and ITC staff “are all trying really hard to make these investigations work,” she said. “I think so far we have been succeeding pretty well.” As issues arise due to the COVID-19 pandemic, “we will deal with them,” said the ALJ. “It's impossible to foresee what may happen at this point.”
The National Consumer Law Center and five other groups appealed to the FCC Friday the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau’s June declaratory ruling Telephone Consumer Protection Act rules don’t apply to peer-to-peer texts to cellphones. NCLC and the Consumer Federation of America, Consumer Action, Electronic Privacy Information Center, Public Knowledge and the National Association of Consumer Advocates urged CGB last year to deny the P2P Alliance petition (see 1907120056). The ruling “repeatedly characterizes the statutory definition of” an automated telephone dialing system “in ways that deviate from the statutory language, and conflict with each other, with the Commission’s rulings, and with prevailing case law,” they said in docket 02-278. The decision “fails to reconcile its interpretation of an ATDS with recent decisions in” the 2nd and 9th U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal. They said the decision “ignores the actual automated capacity of the P2P systems and fails to apply the TCPA’s fundamental principle that the definition of ATDS refers to the ‘capacity’ of the ‘equipment’ used by the caller, not on how the individual calls are sent out.” NCLC Senior Counsel Margot Saunders cited pandemic and election texts.
Verizon took a 14 cents a share COVID-19 hit, said Chief Financial Officer Matt Ellis on a Friday investor call. The carrier said the pandemic sent revenue declining 5.1% to $30.4 billion mainly due to lower equipment sales amid store closures and the pandemic's impact on “customer behavior.”
The FCC will allow workers who are teleworking now to continue doing so until at least June 2021, and delayed its move to new headquarters until September 2020 over concerns about staff being infected with COVID-19 during the packing process. That's according to interviews with staff, the employee union, and a memo emailed to workers Friday by Chairman Ajit Pai’s Chief of Staff Matthew Berry. (Our earlier news bulletin on this is in front of this publication's pay wall here and the other one is at 2007240038).
Critics of Nokia’s complaint seeking an exclusion order on allegedly infringing Lenovo devices “fail to raise any cognizable” concerns that “merit burdening” the International Trade Commission with a “fact finding” on public interest implications of an import ban, replied Nokia Wednesday (login required) in docket 337-3466. The issues unique to the standard-essential patents (SEPs) on H.264 video compression asserted in Nokia’s complaint justify building a public interest record, argued the App Association, the Computer & Communications Industry Association and Google (see report, July 21 issue). Banning the Lenovo goods couldn’t come at a worse time, with the COVID-19 pandemic taxing supplies of laptops and tablets, said critics. Nokia countered the “accused Lenovo products are a small fraction of the U.S. supply.” Any void “could easily be replaced by over a dozen competing makers, including Microsoft, Samsung, and Dell,” it said. It’s untrue, as CCIA “boldly argues,” that "the ITC is never a proper forum for investigating” infringement of any SEP, said Nokia. “Such a prohibition would be a drastic shift” from policy, it said. “Exclusion orders must be available as a remedy for SEP holders to maintain a balanced patent system and avoid harming innovation and competition,” the company said. A Dec. 19 joint policy statement from DOJ, the National Institute of Standards and Technology and Patent and Trademark Office supports that, it said.
NAB CEO Gordon Smith praised the Washington, D.C., Council Thursday for approving an amendment that would remove a new tax on local businesses that buy advertising on TV, in print or on digital outlets. The 3% sales tax “would have placed an undue burden on small businesses and local media already struggling amidst the pandemic,” Smith said. “This should serve as an example for other local governments that such misguided taxes on advertising are counterproductive in stimulating local economies and will continue to be met with fervent opposition.” The amendment, circulated by Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D), rearranges funding sources and cuts spending to cover the $18.4 million projected to be raised by the tax. Mendelson, who proposed the tax, said in a statement it's a policy choice he now regrets.
The top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee supports extending Trade Act Section 301 tariff exclusions on Chinese imports automatically instead of through burdensome notice and comment proceedings, he told reporters Wednesday. The Trump administration should alleviate “the energy and effort that businesses have to undertake to extend these exclusions right now when they frankly have bigger fish to fry,” said Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas. He said he expressed his views to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. Brady supports bipartisan legislation sponsored by fellow Ways and Means member Rep. Jackie Walorski, R-Ind., and House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn., that would direct USTR to extend expiring exclusions for at least a year, but would give the agency some discretion when it disagrees (see 2007170050). U.S. businesses should be “focused on surviving” the COVID-19 pandemic and keeping people employed instead of scrambling to find non-Chinese sourcing or arguing for an exclusion extension, Brady said. USTR and Commerce didn’t comment Thursday.
Industry and regulators should collect more data on broadband network quality and affordability to help address digital redlining, said speakers on a Public Knowledge webinar Thursday. Inequitable broadband deployment and infrastructure in impoverished neighborhoods contribute to the digital divide, said Daiquiri Ryan, National Hispanic Media Coalition strategic legal adviser. She said "lots of vulnerable communities are still reliant on older copper lines," which often aren't well maintained. Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council CEO Maurita Coley said better research and data are needed so policymakers can surgically target broadband where the need is greatest. "There's no federal money for digital inclusion efforts," said Angela Siefer, National Digital Inclusion Alliance executive director. She said big cities like Chicago have been able to secure funding from donors, "but what about smaller communities?" Lukas Pietrzak, Next Century Cities policy associate, said some cities with already degraded networks have had as much as 40% of broadband traffic fall below stated performance standards during the pandemic, citing New Orleans.