Intellectual Property Law Commons^™

Global Supply Chain Resilience In Emerging Technologies: A Case Study Of Bitcoin Mining, Kishanthi Parella, Carla L. Reyes

Seattle University Law Review

The United States has put into motion bold plans in critical and emerging technologies to bolster its national and economic security.  For example, the federal government created a national bitcoin strategic reserve and a stockpile of other cryptocurrency; while several states have committed to or are considering similar goals.  However, the security of these reserves is dependent on two types of supply chains within the Bitcoin mining industry: analogue supply chains, relating to the physical components needed for Bitcoin mining, and data supply chains, relating to the complex and layered logistical network of actors that create input into the software …

Volume 49 Masthead

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 49 Masthead

Restricting Data Flows Is A Sign Of Weakness, Nikolas Guggenberger

Seattle University Law Review

There has been a seismic shift in American attitudes toward the free flow of data across borders.  In less than a decade, the United States has transitioned from condemning barriers to digital trade to constructing a digital fortress of its own. It passed legislation requiring TikTok’s parent company to divest its U.S. operations or face a nationwide ban affecting 170 million U.S. users, citing national security concerns about its ties to China and the potential for data surveillance and content manipulation. Upon legal challenge by TikTok on First Amendment grounds, the Supreme Court affirmed the ban’s constitutionality. Recent federal legislation …

A Comparative Study Of Chinese And American Approaches To Shaping International Outer Space Law And Norms, Ariel G. Silverman

Seattle University Law Review

This article explores convergences and divergencies in the United States and PRC’s responses to the stalemate in the United Nations over the future of outer space resource governance. I do so by systematically analyzing these leading space-faring nations’ policy-positions and tactics deployed to shape norms around three substantive areas of outer space resource governance: rights of ownership and scope of utilization of space resources, mechanization of the “benefits sharing” principle, and the rights and responsibilities of the private sector. I theorize that these leading space-faring nations have adopted divergent approaches due to their differing historical relationships with international law and …

Kim Gyeong-Seok And The Origins Of Northeast Asia’S Corporate Accountability Movement For War And Colonialism, Timothy Webster

Seattle University Law Review

For the past three decades, a transnational reparations movement has unfolded across Northeast Asia. Hundreds of victims—assisted by attorneys, academics, and activists—seek remedies from Japan for various atrocities committed during World War II, colonialism, and other historical injustices.  They press their claims in street protests, legislative hearings, dramatic performances, and other fora.  The “comfort women” are the best known of these claimants; their global redress campaign ex-tends from noisy protests outside of Japan’s embassy in Seoul, to mute statues in raucous boroughs of Berlin.  More obscure, though larger in number, were the roughly one million Koreans who performed forced labor …

Table Of Contents

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Third-Party Funding: Balancing Transparency, National Security, And Access To Justice, Victoria Shannon Sahani

Seattle University Law Review

Many lawmakers who have recently become aware of the multi-billion-dollar global third-party funding industry are raising new national security concerns that further complicate preexisting, longstanding debates about transparency, disclosure, access to justice, and the best way to regulate third-party funding. In response, this Article briefly asserts three main points relating to the question of how best to regulate third-party funding. First, this Article explains the third-party funding industry, including its global regulatory landscape and how it serves three distinct populations: consumers, businesses, and law firms. Second, this Article explains that third-party funding is one tool that can help expand access …

Resilient Dispute Resolution Systems For International Energy Conflicts, Guillermo J. Garcia Sanchez

Seattle University Law Review

Energy-related conflicts are on the rise, spanning diverse issues such as the impacts of rare mineral mining on local communities, the impacts of sanctions on energy investments due to the Russia-Ukraine war, and the impacts of expanded subsidies on the electric vehicle and solar panel industries. Increasingly, companies, communities, and governments are clashing over the challenges of pursuing disparate and sometimes competing energy policies. This Article argues that dispute resolution mechanisms in the energy investment sector must be fundamentally rethought. Traditional semi-adjudicatory models, which focus on winners and losers, fail to accommodate the complex and multifaceted nature of contemporary energy …

Product Nationality And Corporate Identity, Trang (Mae) Nguyen

Seattle University Law Review

Global supply chains have long depended on a deceptively technical device: the attribution of a “nationality” to goods. A trade law principle, rules of origin assign products an “economic passport” that governs how they are treated at the border, including what markets they may enter and which tariff rates apply. In recent years, however, product nationality has taken on a new and far more ambitious role. As U.S. trade policy increasingly intersects with national security and human rights policy, policymakers rely on nationality-based measures to police supply chain linkages, curb geopolitical issues, and discipline firms for their links to forced …

No Patent Attorney In Their Right Mind: How Jepson Claims Clarify Subject Matter Eligibility Post-Mayo, Jared M. Brown

Georgia Journal of Law & Technology

Patent practitioners have gradually shelved Jepson claims for four decades. In those four decades, Supreme Court patent subject matter eligibility jurisprudence has taken a roller-coaster ride from an ancient point-of-novelty approach through the days of Diamond v. Diehr and back to a modernized arguably point-of-novelty-focused approach again in Mayo and Alice. In the absence of congressional action, the Federal Circuit has been left to deal with the aftermath. The inventive landscape—particularly with regard to biotech and software—is shifting fast, and our patent scheme is struggling to keep up.

In the case of software inventions, the Federal Circuit has largely …

Editorial

Indian Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

Fiscal Sponsorship In Truly Independent Film: Entity And Model Choice And Legal Risks, Samuel Johnson

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

This article examines fiscal sponsorship as a legal and financing structure for “truly independent” films—low-budget, non-commercial projects created by filmmakers without access to studio financing, tax incentives, or traditional investors. Neither standalone nonprofit incorporation nor purely for-profit entity structures adequately address the unique needs of such projects. After surveying the development of fiscal sponsorship as a means of funding projects that meet an exempt purpose, relevant IRS guidance, and current prevailing practices and organizational structures in independent film, the article contends that a Model C (“regranting”) fiscal sponsorship paired with a single-member limited liability company (SMLLC) offers the optimal balance …

Fluid Agency In Ai Systems: A Case For Functional Equivalence In Copyright, Patent, And Tort, Anirban Mukherjee, Hannah H. Chang

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

Modern artificial intelligence (AI) systems lack human-like consciousness or culpability, yet they exhibit fluid agency: behavior that is (i) stochastic (probabilistic and path-dependent), (ii) dynamic (co-evolving with user interaction), and (iii) adaptive (able to reorient across contexts). Fluid agency generates valuable outputs but collapses attribution, irreducibly entangling human and machine inputs. This fundamental unmappability fractures doctrines that assume traceable provenance—authorship, inventorship, and liability—yielding ownership gaps and moral “crumple zones.”

This Article argues that only functional equivalence stabilizes doctrine. Where provenance is indeterminate, legal frameworks must treat human and AI contributions as equivalent for allocating rights and responsibility—not as a claim …

Death Of Substantiality: Why The Legal System Should Rethink The Application And Weight Of This Fair-Use Factor In The Context Of Social Media, Lindsey Vickers

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

The fair use test for exemption for liability from copyright infringement was codified in the 1970s and has not been updated since—despite major technological changes in the interim. While three of the test’s four prongs are still useful when applied to short-form media that now dominates worldwide media consumption, the factor that considers the substantiality of the portion used relative to the total work is obsolete. The current dysfunctionality of this prong in social media settings is not the only reason it should be reassessed by courts and Congress. The prong and its analysis are a bit of a Frankenstein. …

Table Of Contents

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

No abstract provided.

Masthead

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

No abstract provided.

Mitigating Data Privacy Risks In Political Micro-Targeting Through Gdpr-Compliant Federated Learning: Lessons From The Cambridge Analytica Controversy, Jingfan (Serena) Xiao

Marquette Intellectual Property & Innovation Law Review

Political micro-targeting employs granular data analytics to deliver hyper- personalized political messaging, raising fundamental tensions between electoral strategy, data privacy, and democratic accountability. The Facebook- Cambridge Analytica scandal exposed significant gaps in pre-GDPR data protection laws, highlighting the risks of unchecked algorithmic profiling in shaping voter behavior. However, as micro-targeting evolves under more sophisticated AI-driven systems, a pressing question emerges: should AI- generated political messaging qualify for First Amendment protection? This Article introduces the concept of speech certainty, arguing that speech must be intentional and cognitively understood by the speaker at the moment of articulation to warrant constitutional protection. Under …

Operational Agency: A Permeable Legal Fiction For Tracing Culpability In Ai Systems, Anirban Mukherjee, Hannah H. Chang

SMU Science and Technology Law Review

Modern artificial intelligence (AI) systems act with a high degree of independence yet lack legal personhood—a paradox that fractures doctrines grounded in human-centric notions of mens rea and actus reus. This Article introduces Operational Agency (OA)—a permeable legal fiction structured as an ex post evidentiary framework—and Operational Agency Graph (OAG)—a tool for mapping causal interactions among human actors, organizations, and AI systems. OA evaluates an AI’s observable operational characteristics: its goal-directedness (as a proxy for intent), predictive processing (as a proxy for foresight), and safety architecture (as a proxy for standard of care). OAG operationalizes that analysis by embedding these …

Front Matter

SMU Science and Technology Law Review

No abstract provided.

Suing The Ghost In The Medical Machine, Jason R. Cheek

SMU Science and Technology Law Review

Devices that autonomously diagnose medical conditions, with no human interaction, have arrived. These self-operating systems incorporate artificial intelligence (AI), and include machines that diagnose preventable blindness, as well as some that write radiology reports. These devices feature AI-integrated software to make diagnosis decisions traditionally made by humans who have received extensive medical training. Soon, AI-driven devices will autonomously make treatment decisions.

What happens when these autonomous medical systems harm a patient? At the moment, most would expect product liability law to provide a path to recovery. But AI oftentimes uses multiple complex inputs and approaches, including statistical probabilities, to reach …

An Empirical Examination Of Law Student Attitudes Toward Legal Writing With Generative Ai, Abigail L. Perdue

SMU Science and Technology Law Review

Amid mounting predictions that generative artificial intelligence (AI) will substantially disrupt legal education, legal writing professors grapple with how and when to integrate generative AI into the classroom. While some believe that it should be woven into existing courses and integrated across the curriculum, even in the first year, others contend that it is better reserved for discussion in upper-level courses dedicated to AI-assistance. Yet it remains unclear which approach will best prepare graduates for the modern practice of law. Indeed, some scholars caution that permitting law students to use generative AI to complete their legal writing coursework, particularly in …

State Ai Therapy Regulations – Analyzing The Illinois Wellness And Oversight For Psychological Resources Act, Natalie Browne

SMU Science and Technology Law Review

According to the Harvard Business Review, the top use case for generative artificial intelligence (AI) in 2025 was therapy and companionship. Accordingly, numerous “therapy-specific” AI tools have hit the market in recent years, vying to fill this growing need. However, individuals are also turning to generic large language models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, to express their deepest anxieties, seek reassurance, and gather advice. While tech optimists assert that AI therapy tools will extend mental health treatment in care deserts, attention-grabbing headlines about such use cases have shattered communities and shocked legislatures. To address growing concerns about AI therapy, Illinois enacted …

Beyond Hipaa: The Ftc’S Expanding Role In Digital Health Privacy Enforcement, Sandhya Srinivasa

SMU Science and Technology Law Review

Consumer digital health platforms have become an increasingly prominent feature of modern health care, collecting and storing sensitive health information directly from users. Yet most of these applications operate outside the scope of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), creating a significant regulatory gap in the protection of personal health data. This case note examines how the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has stepped into that gap by leveraging Section 5 of the FTC Act and the Health Breach Notification Rule (HBNR) to police privacy and data security practices among non-HIPAA-covered digital health platforms. Focusing on three landmark enforcement …

Body Of Law: When Content Moderation Becomes Gender Oppression And Triggers Legal Consequences, Sarah E. Bahrenburg

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

For as long as the Internet has existed, it has been used as a tool for good and as a tool for malice. However, there is a discrepancy between punishment for those maliciously invading individuals’ personal space and those posting consensual images of themselves for art or entertainment purposes (not to mention for work). Over the years, while attempting to create safe spaces for people to express themselves, the Internet has also created barriers to individuals doing just that. The Internet and the laws surrounding exposure therein have become increasingly misogynistic and anti-women’s sexual freedom. The laws encompassing safety on …

Judging Art: Copyright, Creativity, And The Meaning Of Art In The Eyes Of The Law, Scott J. Sholder

Marquette Intellectual Property & Innovation Law Review

This Article examines how copyright law defines creativity and authorship in an era of rapidly evolving artistic expression, with particular emphasis on generative artificial intelligence. Tracing the development of U.S. copyright law from its constitutional foundations through modern case law, the author explores the legal standards governing originality, fixation, human authorship, and the idea-expression dichotomy. The Article analyzes how these principles have been applied to both traditional and emerging forms of art, including conceptual, performance, appropriation, digital, and AI-generated works. It also examines recent guidance from the U.S. Copyright Office and evolving judicial decisions addressing the copyrightability of AI-assisted and …

Caught In The Web: The Resolution Of The Internet Service Provider Contributory Copyright Infringement Split, Olivia F. Johnson

Cybaris®

No abstract provided.

Owning Data: Semantic Control As Inaccess To Information, Zvikomborero Chadambuka

FIU Law Review

This Article discusses the impacts of the introduction of a data ownership scheme on access to information. It does so with reference to the distinction between data, defined as some representation of information by a specific medium (the syntactic level), and the information itself (the semantic level). With respect to data, it then looks at the difference between standard property rights and intellectual property (IP) rights, similarly assessing impacts on access to information. Private control at the semantic level is bad policy as it effects particularly serious limitations, relative to private control at the syntactic level, on the availability of …

Digital Dialectic: Why Every “Ai-Generated” Work Has A Human Author, Lea Bishop

FIU Law Review

Are ChatGPT and Midjourney tools or creators? Ownership of billions of AI-assisted creative outputs hangs in the balance. Copyright scholars have long debated whether an autonomous artificial intelligence could qualify as an author, but this remains a hypothetical question. Despite widespread application of the term “AI” to software products of the 2020s, autonomously creative artificial intelligence still does not exist. Today’s commercial AI products—such as ChatGPT, Midjourney, Dall-E, Copilot, Gemini, Claude, Suno, Perplexity, and Lumo—are simply the newest generation of computer software. They do not qualify as “artificial intelligence” in either the scientific or science fiction senses. They are mere …

Blood Diamonds Of The Digital Age: The Need For Multi-Perspective Legislation On Cryptocurrency, Peter Derdzinski

Marquette Intellectual Property & Innovation Law Review

This comment examines how cryptocurrency is used in illicit cross-border transactions before examining some of the means currently employed to combat this criminal activity. Through analysis of the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulations, this Comment proposes a multi-perspective approach for new legislation in the United States beyond the GENIUS Act of 2025. Specifically, this Comment argues that any new legislation needs to approach cryptocurrency as both a medium of exchange and as an investment vehicle or a store of value. Such legislation is necessary to create a trellis for cryptocurrency growth and to provide an organized approach for …

Greenhat’S Greenlight To The Cftc: The Case For A Jurisdictional Shift Of Financial Transmission Rights From The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission To The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Timothy K. Shaw Ii

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

Regional Transmission Organizations and Independent System Operators are a relatively new platform to buy and sell wholesale electricity and transmission service of that electricity. These groundbreaking organizations have been around since 1996 after the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) issued Order 888. FERC regulates the physical electricity wholesale sale and transmission service market managed by a Regional Transmission Organization (“RTO”) or Independent System Operator (“ISO”),through its Federal Power Act mandate. Many RTOs and ISOs offer a product called a Financial Transmission Right (“FTR”). Traditionally, FTRs assist the holder by providing price certainty, or a hedge, in the capacity market. This …