Law Commons^™

The Promise And Perils Of Tech Whistleblowing, Hannah Bloch-Wehba

Northwestern University Law Review

Whistleblowers and leakers wield significant influence in technology law and policy. On topics ranging from cybersecurity to free speech, tech whistleblowers spur congressional hearings, motivate the introduction of legislation, and animate critical press coverage of tech firms. But while scholars and policymakers have long called for transparency and accountability in the tech sector, they have overlooked the significance of individual disclosures by industry insiders—workers, employees, and volunteers—who leak information that firms would prefer to keep private.

This Article offers an account of the rise and influence of tech whistleblowing. Radical information asymmetries pervade tech law and policy. Firms exercise near-complete …

The First Amendment And Online Access To Information About Abortion: The Constitutional And Technological Problems With Censorship, John Villasenor

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

To what extent could an abortion-restrictive state impede access to online information about abortion? After Dobbs, this question is no longer theoretical. This essay engages with this issue from both a legal and technological perspective, analyzing First Amendment jurisprudence as well as the technological implications of state-level online censorship. It concludes that the weight of Supreme Court precedent indicates that state attempts to censor information regarding out-of-state abortion services would violate the First Amendment. That said, the essay also recognizes that as Dobbs itself upended precedent, it is unclear what Supreme Court would do when ruling on questions regarding …

Technocapital@Biglaw.Com, Bruce A. Green, Carole Silver

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

The transformative potential of technology in legal practice is well recognized. But wholly apart from how law firms actually use technology is the question of what law firms say about how they use and relate to technology—in particular, how law firms communicate whether technology matters and has value in what they do. In the past, firms in the BigLaw category, especially at the top echelon, have grounded their reputations on the credentials and achievements of their lawyers. In this paper, we explore whether elite law firms use technology similarly by describing it as an additional tool of inter-firm competition—a sort …

Technological Incarceration And The End Of The Prison Crisis, Mirko Bagaric, Dan Hunter, Gabrielle Wolf

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

The United States imprisons more of its people than any nation on Earth, and by a considerable margin. Criminals attract little empathy and have no political capital. Consequently, it is not surprising that, over the past forty years, there have been no concerted or unified efforts to stem the rapid increase in incarceration levels in the United States. Nevertheless, there has recently been a growing realization that even the world’s biggest economy cannot readily sustain the $80 billion annual cost of imprisoning more than two million of its citizens. No principled, wide-ranging solution has yet been advanced, however. To resolve …

Data-Generating Patents, Brenda M. Simon, Ted Sichelman

Northwestern University Law Review

Patents and trade secrets are often considered economic substitutes. Under this view, inventors can decide either to maintain an invention as a trade secret or to seek a patent and disclose to the public the details of the invention. However, a handful of scholars have recognized that because the patent disclosure requirements are not always rigorous, inventors may sometimes be able to keep certain aspects of an invention secret, yet still receive a patent to the invention as a whole. Here, we provide further insight into how trade secrets and patents may act as complements. Specifically, we introduce the concept …

Riley And Abandonment: Expanding Fourth Amendment Protection Of Cell Phones, Abigail Hoverman

Northwestern University Law Review

In light of the privacy concerns inherent to personal technological devices, the Supreme Court handed down a unanimous decision in 2014 recognizing the need for categorical heightened protection of cell phones during searches incident to arrest in Riley v. California. This Note argues for expansion of heightened protections for cell phones in the context of abandoned evidence because the same privacy concerns apply. This argument matters because state and federal courts have not provided the needed protection to abandoned cell phones pre- or post-Riley.

What Happens After The Right To Counsel Ends? Using Technology To Assist Petitioners In State Post-Conviction Petitions And Federal Habeas Review, Margaret Smilowitz

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

No abstract provided.

Knowledge And Fourth Amendment Privacy, Matthew Tokson

Northwestern University Law Review

This Article examines the central role that knowledge plays in determining the Fourth Amendment’s scope. What people know about surveillance practices or new technologies often shapes the “reasonable expectations of privacy” that define the Fourth Amendment’s boundaries. From early decisions dealing with automobile searches to recent cases involving advanced information technologies, courts have relied on assessments of knowledge in a wide variety of Fourth Amendment contexts. Yet the analysis of knowledge in Fourth Amendment law is rarely if ever studied on its own.

This Article fills that gap. It starts by identifying the characteristics of Fourth Amendment knowledge. It finds, …

Siri-Ously? Free Speech Rights And Artificial Intelligence, Toni M. Massaro, Helen Norton

Northwestern University Law Review

Computers with communicative artificial intelligence (AI) are pushing First Amendment theory and doctrine in profound and novel ways. They are becoming increasingly self-directed and corporal in ways that may one day make it difficult to call the communication ours versus theirs. This, in turn, invites questions about whether the First Amendment ever will (or ever should) cover AI speech or speakers even absent a locatable and accountable human creator. In this Article, we explain why current free speech theory and doctrine pose surprisingly few barriers to this counterintuitive result; their elasticity suggests that speaker humanness no longer may be …

Top Tens In 2010: Patent And Trademark Cases, Stephen Mcjohn

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Top Tens In 2010: Copyright And Trade Secret Cases, Stephen Mcjohn

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Who Defines The Law? Uspto Rulemaking Authority, Jonathan Masur, James B. Speta, Nicholas M. Zovko, Donald L. Zuhn, Jr

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Network Transparency: Seeing The Neutral Network, Adam Candeub

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Machines And Transformations: The Past, Present, And Future Patentability Of Software, Andrei Iancu, Peter Gratzinger

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

The Microsoft Case 10 Years Later: Antitrust And New Leading "New Economy" Firms, Chris Butts

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

The Patenting Of Social Interactions:, Jonathan Masur, Matthew Sag, Joshua Sarnoff, Daniel Williams

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Strategies For The Uspto: Ensuring America’S Innovation Future, Sharon Barner

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

O’Keefe And The Wheel That Begs For Reinvention: An Exceptionalist Approach To Electronic Discovery In Criminal Actions, Jared S. Beckerman

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Three Years Post-Ksr: A Practitioner’S Guide To “Winning” Arguments On Obviousness And A Look At What May Lay Ahead, Katherine M. L. Hayes

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Empirical Analysis Of Drug Approval-Drug Patenting Linkage For High Value Pharmaceuticals, Ron A. Bouchard, Richard W. Hawkins, Robert Clark, Reider Hagtvedt, Jamil Sawani

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

The Genomic Research And Accessibility Act: More Science Fiction Than Fact, James Degiulio

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Is Patent Hold-Up Anticompetitive?, Vishesh Narayen

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Evaluation Of The Design Piracy Prohibition Act: Is The Cure Worse Than The Disease? An Analogy With Counterfeiting And A Comparison With The Protection Available In The European Community., Silvia Beltrametti

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

To Be Fixed Or Not To Be: The Seemingly Never-Ending Question Of Copyrighted Material, Karl O. Riley

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Redefining "Free": A Look At Open Source Software Management, Jon Christiansen, Alfred E. Hanna, Joseph A. Herndon, John L. Hines, Jr

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Acquiring A Flavor For Trademarks: There's No Common Taste In The World, Amanda E. Compton

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Trademark And Copyright In The Days Of Internet: The Google Influence, Michael H. Baniak, Matthew Sag

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

The Federal Circuit's Inequitable Conduct Standard After, Benjamin Johnson

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Legally Correct But Technologically Off The Mark, Daniel B. Garrie, Bill Spernow

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Successfully Defending Against False Marking Claims, Steve Williams, Jane Du

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.