In the 110th Congress, the IP subcommittee was among the House's most active under the direction of Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., who plans to chair the House Foreign Affairs Committee in the coming session. Hot topics like overhauling the U.S. patent system; ending a long-standing music royalty exemption for AM and FM radio and changing a portion of copyright law that deals with musical tracks, writings, images, videos or other content whose owners cannot be easily identified drew ample attention from the high-tech and entertainment industries. Conyers plans to remain just as active on IP issues at the full committee level, the staffer said.

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