President Obama's new hires are going after big business - in the name of competition.

Gary Gensler, head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, said yesterday he'll invite consumers, industry leaders, and investors to Washington this summer to tell him whether to "set federal speculative limits" on oil, gas, and energy traders.

He says he wants to see if government bidding limits would "eliminate, diminish, or prevent the undue burdens on interstate commerce that may result from excessive speculation."

Lots of Americans are mad at the commodities traders and big banks who bet on higher oil prices earlier this year.

Traders deny they manipulate prices. They say the market's too big to corner. But how else can we explain the apparent anomaly of rising fuel prices while consumers and industry were using less oil, and stockpiles were rising?

Meanwhile the Justice Department is going after the big phone companies "such as AT&T Inc. and Verizon" to see if they're "abusing market power," the Wall Street Journal reports.

M. Kelly Tillery, partner at Pepper Hamilton L.L.P., wishes Obama would go further and roll back restrictive copyright and patent policies enacted under President Clinton and other Obama predecessors.

"The Obama philosophy is to stimulate competition. In what? We don't make things anymore in this country," says Tillery, who entered the intellectual-property field when he represented rockers Ozzy Osbourne and the Grateful Dead in the 1970s. Now his corporate clients include Tyco International and Saint-GobainCertainTeed Corp.

"We want others to do the dirty jobs. We're now the most creative people on the planet: We make the world's movies, music, software, medicine, design," says Tillery. "We value brains, not brawn."

So why, he asks, do our laws go to extremes in protecting property owners? "The first copyright laws gave you rights to your work for 14 years. Now it's close to 100 years," Tillery answers. "There's no reason why, except for money."

Tillery says less expansive property rights could be good for America in general, and small business in particular. He notes Obama has talked about tilting away from owners, toward users. "But the interests against change are strong," he says.

Wall Street's next act

Philadelphia law firm Cozen O'Connor has set up a Capital Markets Group in the middle of a howling financial recession.

"It's a down market for securitizations. But there will be a new business, in some form," Michael Heller, head of Cozen's business-law practice, told me.

"You've got all these guys on Wall Street who developed these very sophisticated products, many of which there is no longer a market for," Heller said. "Those very smart guys are still out there, looking to develop new products."

The firm is amalgamating Cozen's securities, public finance, and private debt-and-equity lawyers with new hires like ex-Wolf Block securitization specialists Abby Wenzel and Helene Jaron, and insurance-securities lawyer Albert Pinzon, of New York-based Stroock & Stroock, for the new group. Clients include Goldman Sachs and Calyon Securities, among others.

Sidewalk drama

"There is no better measure of the revival of Center City Philadelphia than the flourishing of sidewalk cafes," writes the Central Philadelphia Development Corp. in its latest census of outdoor tables and the restaurants that set them up.

But the survey shows the number of outdoor cafes slipped to 209 in 2008, from 218 the year before, in the survey of the restaurant district, river to river and Pine to Vine. That's the first year the count fell since the survey started in 2001 (when there were just 69).

Says Paul Levy, president of the affiliated Center City District: "There's a recession going on." Plus, they counted in the rainy first weeks of June, when tables were still in storage, he said.

Yet there are signs more drinkers are staying home, or going BYOB. Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board spokesman Nick Hays told me preliminary state data shows sales to retail customers were up 5.9 percent this year through May, while sales to bars and restaurants fell 1.4 percent.

Contact Joseph N. DiStefano at (215)854-5194 or JoeD@phillynews.com.