Law Commons^™

The Lack Of Responsibility Of Higher Education Institutions In Addressing Phishing Emails And Data Breaches, Muxuan (Muriel) Wang

Duke Law & Technology Review

Higher education institutions (HEIs) are highly susceptible to cyberattacks, particularly those facilitated through phishing, due to the substantial volume of confidential student and staff data and valuable research information they hold. Despite federal legislations focusing on bolstering cybersecurity for critical institutions handling medical and financial data, HEIs have not received similar attention. This Note examines the minimal obligations imposed on HEIs by existing federal and state statutes concerning data breaches, the absence of requirements for HEIs to educate employees and students about phishing attacks, and potential strategies to improve student protection against data breaches.

Olivia Greer: Weil Gotshal And Privacy Practice And Insights, Cardozo Data Science Law Society

2023–2024 Flyers

No abstract provided.

The Wild, Wild West Of Laboratory Developed Tests, John Gilmore

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

Since the 1950’s, scientists have built novel technologies to screen for genetic diseases and other biological irregularities. Recently, researchers have developed a method called “liquid biopsy” (as opposed to a standard tissue biopsy) that uses a liquid sample (e.g., blood) to non‑invasively spot biomarkers indicating different types of cancers in the patient’s body. While the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has fully cleared a small number of liquid biopsy tests under its rigorous and expensive review process, most biotech companies have instead followed a less restrictive regulatory path through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which label …

Techno-Legal Solutionism: Regulating Children's Online Safety In The United States, Maria P. Angel, Danah Boyd

Scholarly Works

Convinced that social media is directly harming children, policymakers have started to introduce legislation that requires technology companies to be safe by design through “duty of care” provisions. Unlike regulations that focus on product safety, these bills incorporate technosolutionist logics into regulation by presuming that technology companies can remedy complex harms like mental health duress and bullying if their products were only designed better. In this paper, we unpack the theory of change at the center of the “duty of care” included in the “Kids Online Safety Act” (KOSA). We argue that techno-legal solutionism is both ineffective as a framework …

Do Patents Drive Investment In Software?, James Hicks

Northwestern University Law Review

In the wake of a quartet of Supreme Court decisions which disrupted decades of settled law, the doctrine of patentable subject matter is in turmoil. Scholars, commentators, and jurists continue to disagree sharply over which kinds of invention should be patentable. In this debate, no technology has been more controversial than software. Advocates of software patents contend that denying protection would stymie innovation in a vital industry; skeptics argue that patents are a poor fit for software, and that the social costs of patents outweigh any plausible benefits. At the core of this disagreement is a basic problem: the debate …

The Unregulated World Of Your Most Personal Of Personal Information: A Proposal For A Federal Biometric Information Privacy Law, Isabel M. Vuyk

The University of Cincinnati Intellectual Property and Computer Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Why Outlaw Laws?: An Argument For A Probationary Period For Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems Under Meaningful Human Control., Katherine E. Vuyk

The University of Cincinnati Intellectual Property and Computer Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Wyoming V. Environmental Protection Agency, Ayden D. Auer

Public Land & Resources Law Review

Wyoming v. EPA consolidated two petitions for review of a portion of Wyoming’s plans to reduce visibility impacts from two powerplants, Wyodak and Naughton. First, the Tenth Circuit held EPA was incorrect to disapprove Wyoming’s best available retrofit technology determination for Wyodak because EPA based its disapproval on noncompliance with guidelines that are optional to determine the best available retrofit technology for Wyodak. These same guidelines are nonbinding on Naughton as well, and the court held the petitioners failed to persuade the court that EPA’s approval of Naughton was arbitrary and capricious because the petitioners did not establish why Wyoming’s …

Incremental Improvement Of The Patentability Standard Of Nonobviousness, Kayla Siletti Brown

Fordham Law Review

Patents incentivize innovation, but the face of innovation has changed over the past several decades. Patent law is adapting to the radical growth of the pharmaceutical and biotechnological industries, which produce drugs and biologics respectively. Research and development in these fields is largely incremental—new products are often derived from existing products. However, patents do not protect “obvious” improvements, those that anyone skilled in the relevant scientific field could have discovered through predictable, routine work. The line between incremental R&D and routine, obvious improvements is difficult to draw. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the Patent Trial …

Copyright's Public Reliance Interests, Bo S. L. Kim

Washington Law Review

Courts are increasingly invoking copyright law’s “scenes a faire” doctrine, which precludes infringement liability for copying typical or standard elements in a copyrighted work. But judges and commentators only cursorily discuss why certain elements constitute scenes a faire. Alternatively, they characterize the doctrine as merely an extension of other copyrightability doctrines. The result is doctrinal inconsistency in how scenes a faire applies and theoretical disagreement about why the doctrine exists.

This Article advances a “public reliance interests” theory of scenes a faire that provides descriptive clarity to the doctrine and highlights its underexplored importance to copyright law writ large. Drawing …

Orthogonalizing Inputs, Talia B. Gillis

Faculty Scholarship

This paper examines an approach to algorithmic discrimination that seeks to blind predictions to protected characteristics by orthogonalizing inputs. The approach uses protected characteristics (such as race or sex) during the training phase of a model but masks these during deployment. The approach posits that including these characteristics in training prevents correlated features from acting as proxies, while assigning uniform values to them at deployment ensures decisions do not vary by group status.

Using a prediction exercise of loan defaults basedon mortgage HMDA data and German credit data, the paper highlights the limitations of this orthogonalization strategy. Applying a lasso …

Dci Submission To The European Commission (Ec) On Generative Artificial Intelligence, Stephen Dnes, Lee Fleming, Keith N. Hylton, Bowman Heiden, Juliana Oliveira Domingues, Lola Montero Santos, Nicolas Petit, Jason Potts, Asta Pundziene

Faculty Scholarship

The DCI welcomes the opportunity to submit comments on the EC’s consultation on competition and generative artificial intelligence (hereafter, “GenAI”).1 The two main messages of the DCI submission are the following: • The technological and economic properties of GenAI do not support a case of tipping in which one firm takes the entire market; • The financial and regulatory context of GenAI could fuel ‘winner takes all or most’ dynamics in GenAI markets. These points are set out in more detail in the paragraphs below.

Critical Data Theory, Margaret Hu

William & Mary Law Review

Critical Data Theory examines the role of AI and algorithmic decisionmaking at its intersection with the law. This theory aims to deconstruct the impact of AI in law and policy contexts. The tools of AI and automated systems allow for legal, scientific, socioeconomic, and political hierarchies of power that can profitably be interrogated with critical theory. While the broader umbrella of critical theory features prominently in the work of surveillance scholars, legal scholars can also deploy criticality analyses to examine surveillance and privacy law challenges, particularly in an examination of how AI and other emerging technologies have been expanded in …

Trinity Western University Decisions And Engineers’ Equity, Diversity, And Inclusion Obligations Under The Statutory Public Interest Mandate, Michelle Liu, Vanessa Matta

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

Engineers create technologies but do not sufficiently care for their biased and inequitable outcomes despite the engineering profession’s statutory mandate to protect the public interest. The engineering and legal professions’ similar admission processes and statutory provisions mandating the protection of public interest may justify applying the Supreme Court of Canada’s interpretation of the legal profession’s public interest mandate in the Trinity Western University decisions to the engineering profession. The Supreme Court’s interpretation centres on equal access to the profession, diversity within its membership, and protection of 2SLGBTQ+ persons. The work begins by setting out the definitions and challenges of equity, …

Legal Framework For The Use Of Artificial Intelligence (Ai) Technology In The Canadian Criminal Justice System, Gideon Christian

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

This article seeks to identify and examine critical issues arising from the deployment and use of AI recidivism risk assessment tools in the Canadian criminal justice system. It commences with the historical evolution of these tools in the criminal justice system, tracing their development from the first generation to the emergence of AI-driven risk assessments. By examining the progression of risk assessment tools from their origins to the current AI-powered systems this research aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the challenges and opportunities that these tools present. The article then delves into crucial issues such as algorithmic bias, highlighting …

Legal And Ethical Challenges Raised By Advances In Brain-Computer Interface Technology, Colin Conrad, Carla Heggie

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

Brain-computer interfaces (BCI) consist of hardware and software that allow humans to control computers with their brain signals alone. Though these technologies are not new, existing approaches to BCI are either very limited in their capabilities or require highly invasive surgery. However, BCI has recently received increased attention due to advances that enable enhanced usability with less invasive approaches. Such advances could radically change the acceptance of the technology and BCI might become commonplace in the coming decades. In this article, we provide a technology scholar’s perspective on how these recent advances in BCI present new legal and ethical considerations. …

More Than ‘‘Responsible Ai” Bridging Artificial Intelligence Systems (Ais) And Aisystems Ethics Into Practice, Ruth Bankey

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

This article reflects on the question ‘‘how should we approach the ethics of AI and technology?” through the example of how the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) is working within this space to develop its Artificial Intelligence Systems (AIS) Ethics Lifelong Learning and Professional Development Strategy. This strategy is connected, but also acts as a critical counterpoint, to approaches to AI governance and accountability that are reliant on a notion of ‘‘Responsible AI”. In these contexts, responsible AI is understood as the regulatory adoption of ‘‘rules” diffused through a normative structure of hierarchical authority within the organization or business. Rather, this …

Generative Ai In Finance: Risks And Potential Solutions, Nydia Remolina Leon

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Generative Artificial Intelligence captured the attention of academics, policymakers, the private sector, and some regulators in 2022 after the launch of ChatGPT and its widespread adoption worldwide. Then, during the World Economic Forum session in 2023, Microsoft Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella said that the ‘golden age’ of AI is underway and generative AI is set to play a big role in it. Accordingly, Microsoft has invested billions of dollars into OpenAI, the company behind the launch of ChatGPT. Additionally, Google and Meta have also created their own generative AI models. Given the multiplicity of potential use cases …

Pest Or Guest, Friend Or Foe? Reframing The "Hard Look" Doctrine's Role In Environmental Pesticide Policy, James J. Burke

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

No Need To Reinvent The Wheel: The Positive Relationship Between Green Technology And Patent Enforcement, Addison S. Fowler

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Next-Generation Data Governance, Kimberly A. Houser, John W. Bagby

Duke Law & Technology Review

The proliferation of sensors, electronic payments, click-stream data, location-tracking, biometric feeds, and smart home devices, creates an incredibly profitable market for both personal and non-personal data. It is also leading to an amplification of harm to those from or about whom the data is collected. Because federal law provides inadequate protection for data subjects, there are growing calls for organizations to implement data governance solutions. Unfortunately, in the U.S., the concept of data governance has not progressed beyond the management and monetization of data. Many organizations operate under an outdated paradigm which fails to consider the impact of data use …

Today’S Pirates: Biopiracy, Biotech, And The International Frameworks That Are Not Up To The Challenge., Katy Rotzin

UC Law Science and Technology Journal

This paper analyzes biopiracy and its effects on Indigenous populations through case studies on specific incidences of biopiracy, and an analysis of modern day agro-neocolonialism, seed piracy, and advances in biotech that are changing modern patent landscapes. This paper suggests that current international frameworks are failing to defend against widespread biopiracy due to ineffective cross-cultural application of relevant treaties and differing domestic approaches to intellectual property frameworks. This paper examines the World Intellectual Property Organization, the World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, The Convention on Biological Diversity, The Bonn Guidelines, and The Nagoya Protocol. This …

Masthead

UC Law Science and Technology Journal

No abstract provided.

Autonomy And Free Thought In Brain- Computer Interactions: Review Of Legal Precedent For Precautionary Regulation Of Consumer Products, Sadia Khan, Daniel Cole, Hamid Ekbia

UC Law Science and Technology Journal

The expanding use of neurotechnologies in consumer products increases the risks to human rights such as autonomy and free thought. While potentially beneficial in clinical applications, technologies such as brain implants and EEG-enabled wearable devices pose serious concerns about mental and psychological manipulation of human beings. In the US in particular, law and policy are lagging behind technical developments, thereby increasing the risks of abuse and misuse from commercial neurotechnologies. This article focuses on commercial neurotechnologies, which are distinct from medical neurotechnologies for clinical diagnoses, and seeks to guard against human rights risks to users by overcoming that regulatory gap. …

Towards Responsible Quantum Technology: Safeguarding, Engaging And Advancing Quantum R&D, Mauritz Kop, Mateo Aboy, Eline De Jong, Urs Gasser, Timo Minssen, I. Glenn Cohen, Mark Brongersma, Teresa Quintel, Luciano Floridi, Raymond Laflamme

UC Law Science and Technology Journal

The expected societal impact of quantum technologies (QT) urges us to proceed and innovate responsibly. This article proposes a conceptual framework for Responsible QT that seeks to integrate considerations about ethical, legal, social, and policy implications (ELSPI) into quantum R&D, while responding to the Responsible Research and Innovation dimensions of anticipation, inclusion, reflection and responsiveness. After examining what makes QT unique, we argue that quantum innovation should be guided by a methodological framework for Responsible QT, aimed at jointly safeguarding against risks by proactively addressing them, engaging stakeholders in the innovation process, and continue advancing QT (‘SEA’). We further suggest …

One Nation, Under Dobbs: How Dobbs V. Jackson Women’S Health Impacts Data Privacy For All, Mikayla Domingo

UC Law Science and Technology Journal

The Supreme Court has gone against the fundamental principle of Stare Decisis in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, holding that the constitution confers no right to an abortion. The aftermath of Dobbs shines a spotlight on how reproductive and feminine health data are exploited to target women. From geolocation monitoring to abortion clinics, to women’s search history and private messages being used in her prosecution, the dystopian prospect of surveillance capitalism is now reality for women in the United States. The immediate impact of Dobbs illuminates the need for greater and clearer data privacy protections have never been more …

Destined To Deceive: The Need To Regulate Deepfakes With A Foreseeable Harm Standard, Matthew D. Weiner

Michigan Law Review

Political campaigns have always attracted significant attention, and politicians have often been the subjects of controversial—even outlandish—discourse. In the last several years, however, the risk of deception has drastically increased due to the rise of “deepfakes.” Now, practically anyone can make audiovisual media that are both highly believable and highly damaging to a candidate. The threat deepfakes pose to our elections has prompted several states and Congress to seek legislative remedies that ensure recourse for victims and hold bad actors liable. These recent attempts at deepfake laws are open to attack from two different loci. First, there is a question …

Faculty Handbook As Contract, Karen Halverson Cross

Cardozo Law Review

Colleges and universities, like other employers, typically have in place policies that govern the employment relationship with their faculty. Many such policies—policies against employee misconduct or policies on accommodations for persons with disabilities—are comparable to what employees might encounter outside of academia. Most higher education institutions also have in place policies that are more unique to academia, such as policies establishing shared governance bodies, affirming academic freedom as a core value, or outlining procedures on the granting and revocation of faculty tenure. These faculty policies may be aggregated in a faculty handbook, published separately on the institution’s web site, or, …

“Swifties” Or Swift Suppression? How Police Officers Exploit Copyright Law And Practice Online To Evade Public Accountability, Jeremy Lamstein

Cardozo Law Review

The video recording of the tragic killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers had an immediate and profound impact on the public. The video held essential evidentiary value in the prosecution of Floyd’s killers, as it told a very different story than what the police officers had made the situation out to be. It was by no means the first recording of police misconduct that generated significant attention from the public, but it remains among the most notable.

Now, imagine that the world had never seen the extent of this horrific incident. In this alternate universe, the video never …

Public Offices In Processes Of Constitutional Development, J.G. Allen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

What factors drive constitutional change and sustain positive transformation? How are democratic values recognised, restored, and preserved through constitutional change? How can these questions be answered in a manner that is relevant to most of the world? This collection brings together leading and emerging scholars and practitioners to explore the relationship between democratic consolidation and constitutional endurance through consideration of recent experiences in seven African and Asian states that have undergone an understudied democratising event in the past decade: Ethiopia, The Gambia, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. Building on the empirical surveys, seven thematic chapters offer analytical insights …