Comparative and Foreign Law Commons^™

Direct To Consumer Or Direct To All: Home Dna Tests And Lack Of Privacy Regulations In The United States, Karen J. Kukla

IP Theory

Although the U.S. has some measures of privacy protection for genetic data, the lack of a comprehensive approach to protecting direct-to-consumer genetic testing results in privacy violations for both consumers and their relatives. This essay explores the critical need for the U.S. government to address these privacy violations and argues that the U.S. should approach the problem and strategize a solution similar to the European Union’s (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Part I identifies current United States law, both federal and state regulations that address DTC-GT and genetic privacy. Part II examines the lack of regulation surrounding current DTC-GT …

Achieving A (Copy)Right To Repair For The Eu’S Green Economy, Anthony D. Rosborough, Leanne Wiseman, Taina Pihlajarinne

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

• The Right to Repair is a global movement in favour of rebalancing the relationship between manufacturers and end users of products and devices. As part of the European Union (EU) Green Deal and the Circular Economy Action Plan, EU legislators have made the Right to Repair a key policy aim. To date, however, the EU’s Right to Repair policy focus has been predominantly consumer law–oriented.

• This article sheds light on another key dimension of the Right to Repair—IP (and principally copyright law). It canvasses the ways in which copyright can inhibit repair activities, including curtailing access to repair information and …

  ---

  Go to article

Digitizing Scent And Flavor: A Copyright Perspective, Amara Lopez

Michigan Technology Law Review

Should the flavor of a cheese fall under copyright protection? The Court of Justice of the European Union recently confronted this question in Levola Hengelo BV v. Smilde Foods. Although the court ultimately denied protection, its reasoning opened many doors for those seeking intellectual property protection for scents and flavors. The court implied that it was the subjective nature of a cheese flavor that bars it from enjoying the protection copyright affords, which begs the question of what would happen if there were a sufficiently objective way to describe a flavor.

Recent developments in technology have led to the digitization …

Seeing Color: Implications Of The European Union's New Common Practice For Transatlantic Trademark Registration By United States Trademark Holders, Christine Park

Seattle University Law Review

This Note explores two issues related to the EU’s new common practice: (1) whether the new common practice will deter ongoing efforts to integrate trademark registration and protection at the international level; and (2) whether U.S. trademark holders, when expanding business into the EU, should register through the Madrid Protocol and obtain Community Trade Mark or register through a country’s trademark office. This Note argues that the new trademark practice hinders international efforts for standardizing trademark registration and that U.S. trademark holders should claim color when registering their marks with the EU.

The Need For An International Convention On Data Privacy: Taking A Cue From The Cisg, Morgan Corley

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

In light of the invalidation of the U.S.-EU Safe Harbor, along with the increase in sales of personal data as a commodity, data privacy has become a major concern amongst different nations. The lack of harmonization of data-privacy laws around the world continues to pose obstacles to the free flow of data across national borders. The free flow of data is, nonetheless, essential the international economy. As a result, nations continue to work together to try to create mechanisms by which data can be transferred across borders in a secure manner. This Note examines the current state of data-privacy law …

Technology, Ethics, And Access To Justice: Should An Alogrithm Be Deciding Your Case?, Anjanette H. Raymond, Scott J. Shackelford

Michigan Journal of International Law

At a time of U.S. budget cuts, popularly known as the “sequester,” court systems across the nation are facing financial shortfalls. Small claims courts are no exception. Among the worst hit states is California, which is suffering staffing cutbacks that result in long delays prompting consideration of the old maxim, “justice delayed is justice denied.” Similar problems, albeit on a larger scale, are evident in other nations including India where the Law Commission has argued that the millions of pending cases combined with the lagging uptake of technological best practices has impeded judicial productivity, leading to “disappointment and dissatisfaction among …

Safe To Be Open: Study On The Protection Of Research Data And Recommendations For Access And Usage, Lucie Guibault, Andreas Wiebe

Books

Openness has become a common concept in a growing number of scientific and academic fields. Expressions such as Open Access (OA) or Open Content (OC) are often employed for publications of papers and research results, or are contained as conditions in tenders issued by a number of funding agencies. More recently the concept of Open Data (OD) is of growing interest in some fields, particularly those that produce large amounts of data – which are not usually protected by standard legal tools such as copyright. However, a thorough understanding of the meaning of Openness – especially its legal implications – …

Why Cherry Picking Never Leads To Harmonisation: The Case Of The Limitations On Copyright Under Directive 2001/29/Ec, Lucie Guibault

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The article examines whether the norms laid down in the Directive in relation to the exceptions and limitations on copyright and related rights can be conducive to a sensible degree of harmonisation across the European Union. Before discussing the degree of harmonisation achieved so far by the Directive, the first part gives a short overview of the main characteristics of the list of exceptions and limitations contained in Article 5 of the Directive. A comprehensive review of the implementation of each limitation by the Member States is beyond the scope of this article. The following section takes a closer look …

Consumer Privacy And Radio Frequency Identification Technology, Teresa Scassa, Theodore Chiasson, Michael Deturbide, Anne Uteck

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Radio Frequency ID tags are poised to replace the UPC barcode as a mechanism for inventory control in the wholesale and retail contexts. Yet the tiny chips offer a range of potential uses that go beyond the bar code. In this paper the authors define RFID technology and its applications. They explore the privacy implications of this technology and consider recent attempts in the U.S. and European Union to grapple with the privacy issues raised by the deployment of RFIDs at the retail level. The authors then consider the extent to which Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act …

A Gradual Shift In U.S. Privacy Laws Towards A Comprehensive Regime , Kamaal R. Zaidi

ExpressO

This paper examines the current trends in a predominantly sectoral U.S. privacy regime that appears to be becoming more comprehensive in nature with respect to data privacy protection. This trend has been greatly attributed to the European Union's comprehensive position on data privacy protection. This paper investigates the growth in U.S. data privacy protection in relation to federal and state legislative history, federal administrative procedures, and private industry efforts. This shift from sectoral to comprehensive regimes is significant in the backdrop of U.S-EU trade relations.