WASHINGTON, December 4, 2009 – The Senate has confirmed Victoria Espinel to be the first U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator.

Her job will be to craft the nation’s next intellectual property strategy. Though former President George Bush created the position of U.S. Coordinator for International Intellectual Property Enforcement and filled it with Chris Israel, the intellectual property czar has been elevated to a White House position under President Obama.

Half a century ago, economist Ronald Coase criticized the political allocation of radio frequencies by the federal government in a seminal article, entitled “The Federal Communications Commission,” in the Journal of Law and Economics. He argued that the government could achieve efficient allocation by allowing property rights in the electromagnetic spectrum. He later won the Nobel Prize in Economics for the ideas first articulated in that paper.

WASHINGTON, September 25, 2009 – The annual Telecommunications Policy Research Conference, a must-attend event for academics focused on broadband-related topics, begins at Friday at 2 p.m. ET at Geoge Mason University School of Law in Arlington, Va. It is likely to be particularly noteworthy this year.

WASHINGTON, September 22, 2009 – Public and transparent broadband data has now been elevated to the level of a fundamental principle, at least in the Monday speech by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski. But it’s worth reflecting on the time – not so long ago – when the quest to collect this kind of broadband data was an unrealized vision at the losing end of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.