Law Commons^™

Defining Privacy And Utility In Data Sets, Felix T. Wu

Articles

Is it possible to release useful data while preserving the privacy of the individuals whose information is in the database? This question has been the subject of considerable controversy, particularly in the wake of well-publicized instances in which researchers showed how to re-identify individuals in supposedly anonymous data. Some have argued that privacy and utility are fundamentally incompatible, while others have suggested that simple steps can be taken to achieve both simultaneously. Both sides have looked to the computer science literature for support.

What the existing debate has overlooked, however, is that the relationship between privacy and utility depends crucially …

"Pets Must Be On A Leash": How U.S. Law (And Industry Practice) Often Undermines And Even Forbids Valuable Privacy Enhancing Technology, A. Michael Froomkin

Articles

No abstract provided.

Does The Constitution Protect Abortions Based On Fetal Anomaly?: Examining The Potential For Disability-Selective Abortion Bans In The Age Of Prenatal Whole Genome Sequencing, Greer Donley

Articles

This Note examines whether the state or federal government has the power to enact a law that prevents women from obtaining abortions based on their fetus’s genetic abnormality. Such a ban has already been enacted in North Dakota and introduced in Indiana and Missouri. I argue below that this law presents a novel state intrusion on a woman’s right to obtain a pre-viability abortion. Moreover, these pieces of legislation contain an outdated understanding of prenatal genetic testing—the landscape of which is quickly evolving as a result of a new technology: prenatal whole genome sequencing. This Note argues that the incorporation …

Protecting Elites: An Alternative Take On How United States V. Jones Fits Into The Court's Technology Jurisprudence, Tamara Rice Lave

Articles

This Article argues that the Supreme Court's technology jurisprudence can be best understood as protecting the privacy interest of elites. After providing an overview of the major technology cases from Olmstead to Kyllo, the Article focuses on the recent case of United States v Jones. The Article does not contend that the Court intended to protect elites, but instead posits that this motive likely operated at a more unconscious level because of the Justices' greater relative affluence and elevated social position.

Prometheus Rebound: Diagnostics, Nature, And Mathematical Algorithms, Rebecca S. Eisenberg

Articles

The Supreme Court’s decision last Term in Mayo v. Prometheus left considerable uncertainty as to the boundaries of patentable subject matter for molecular diagnostic inventions. First, the Court took an expansive approach to what counts as an unpatentable natural law by applying that term to the relationship set forth in the challenged patent between a patient’s levels of a drug metabolite and the indication of a need to adjust the patient’s drug dosage. And second, in evaluating whether the patent claims add enough to this unpatentable natural law to be patent eligible, the Court did not consult precedents concerning the …