Law Commons^™

Do-Not-Track As Default, Joshua A.T. Fairfield

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

Do-Not-Track is a developing online legal and technological standard that permits consumers to express their desire not to be tracked by online advertisers. Do-Not-Track has the ability to change the relationship between consumers and advertisers in the information market. Everything will depend on implementation. The most effective way to allow users to achieve their privacy preferences is to implement Do-Not-Track as a default feature.

The World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) standard setting body for Do-Not-Track has, however, endorsed a corrosive standard in its Tracking Preferences Expression (TPE) draft. This standard requires consumers to set their privacy preference by hand. This …

Addressing The Impediments Copyright Imposes On The Use Of Patent Specifications And Prior Art Documents To Improve Patent Quality, Ben Mceniery

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

This article considers from an Australian perspective the impediments that copyright law places in the path of those who seek to use patent specifications and non-patent prior art documents in ways that are necessary to the proper functioning of the patent system. Until recently, copyright law in Australia had limited the uses to which members of the public could put patent specifications in that country. Those impediments have been removed as a result of an important legislative change to the way in which copyright in patent specifications can be enforced. The change gives the public a greater freedom to make …

Heavyweight Bots In The Clouds: The Wrong Incentives And Poorly Crafted Balances That Lead To The Blocking Of Information Online, Anjanette H. Raymond

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

The United States and the European Union have long recognized the need to protect ISPs from potential liability from customers using their services to infringe intellectual property rights. These protections arise from a long-standing belief that intellectual property right holders should bear the burden of protecting their property, even in the quick moving Internet environment. However, a recent series of cases has called into question the ISPs’ liability protections as their technology is often the only real means to prevent wide scale infringing activity. This series has caused courts to revisit ISPs’ liability and to impose a ‘cooperative burden’ requiring …