Science and Technology Law Commons^™

Software As Text, John Shaeffer

Santa Clara High Technology Law Journal

Software as Text

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 …

Property Interests In Digital Assets: The Rise Of Digital Feudalism, Natalie M. Banta

Cardozo Law Review

The emergence of digital assets has created a host of new legal questions regarding their status as a property interest. Digital assets consist of intangible interests like e-mail accounts, social media accounts, reward points, and electronic media. These assets seem like a property interest, but because digital assets are a creature of contract, private contracts determine whether an owner can use, sell, transfer, exclude, donate, or dispose of the asset in a testamentary instrument. These digital asset contracts often take an unprecedented step of prohibiting or severely limiting the transfer of digital assets after death. By unilaterally eviscerating a long …

Achieving The Promise Of Assistive Technology: Why Assistive Technology Evaluations Are Essential For Compliance With The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, Alexandra Abend

Cardozo Law Review

The note advocates for a more rigorous and proactive approach to incorporating assistive technology (AT) in special education, arguing that it is essential for ensuring students with disabilities receive a free appropriate public education (FAPE) under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). It critiques the current legal standard established by Rowley as insufficient, calling for a higher threshold that prioritizes maximizing educational opportunities. The analysis emphasizes the importance of comprehensive AT evaluations and the need for systemic improvements to prevent procedural violations and ensure effective implementation of AT in Individualized Education Programs (IEPs).

3d Printing The Road Ahead: The Digitization Of Products When Public Safety Meets Intellectual Property Rights-A New Model, Shlomit Yanisky-Ravid, Kenneth S. Kwan

Cardozo Law Review

This Article addresses the threats of 3D printing to both the physical and legal world. Not only does 3D printing impact products protected by intellectual property rights, it also poses risk, threats, and challenges to many other regimes, including products governed by product liability and criminal laws, which consequently threatens public safety. 3D printing virtually possesses threats to medical devices and products, threats to legal and illegal drugs, threats to human organs, threats to the food industry, and to the transportation industry, including cars, trains, and aircrafts. Ultimately, 3D printing also threatens environmental protection, workplace protections, households, and even the …

Bitcoin Versus Regulated Payment Systems: What Gives?, Lawrence J. Trautman, Alvin C. Harrell

Cardozo Law Review

The article explores the evolution and challenges of virtual currencies like Bitcoin, highlighting their potential to transform traditional payment systems while posing significant regulatory and jurisdictional difficulties. It argues that while virtual currencies offer benefits such as reduced transaction costs and financial inclusion, their decentralized nature and association with illicit activities necessitate a balanced approach to regulation. The article emphasizes the importance of adapting legal frameworks to accommodate innovation while addressing risks, ensuring a stable environment for virtual currencies to coexist with traditional monetary systems.

Drones, Ai And Getting Undergrads Ready For Great Disruption, Tan K. B. Eugene, Thomas Menkhoff, Siew Ning Kan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In a joint commentary, SMU Academic Director (MSc in Innovation) and Professor of Organisational Behaviour and Human Resources (Education) Thomas Menkhoff; SMU Associate Professor of Law Eugene Tan; and SMU LKCSB Adjunct Faculty Kan Siew Ning, highlighted that the University recently launched an inter-disciplinary course on emerging technology, focusing on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV or drones), robotics, and artificial intelligence (AI). One key learning outcome is to enable students to appreciate, in a multi-disciplinary setting, the huge business potential of emerging technology in diverse areas - such as logistics, supply chain management, transportation, search and rescue, military, and scientific studies. …

Irs's Cp-2000 E-Mail Scams - Never In Dubai - Common In Canada & The Uk, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

On September 22, 2016 the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and its Security Summit partners issued an alert to taxpayers and tax professionals to be on guard against fake e-mails purporting to contain a tax bill related to the Affordable Care Act. Surprisingly, this e-mail scam works. It really should not.

Modern technology is facilitating many contemporary tax scams. In recent years the US has seen false (refund) return scams, phone scammers impersonation IRS agents, and now e-mail scams with fraudulent CP-2000 notices attached to a demand for payment. The same phone and e-mail frauds have appeared in both Canada and …

Blockchain, Bitcoin, And Vat In The Gcc: The Missing Trader Example, Richard Thompson Ainsworth, Musaad Alwohaibi

Faculty Scholarship

Blockchain is coming to tax administration and will cause fundamental change. This article considers the potential for blockchain technology as it applies to the introduction of a value added tax in the Gulf Cooperation Council.

Blockchain technology disrupts centralized ledgers. Blockchain improves efficiency, security and transparency. Perhaps no centralized ledger system presents more challenges than that of the modern tax administration. The central data storage system of a modern tax authority contains all return, payment, and audit activity for all taxpayers arranged tax-by-tax for three years or longer periods of time.

It is likely that blockchain will come first to …

False Rubicons, Moral Panic, & Conceptual Cul-De-Sacs: Critiquing & Reframing The Call To Ban Lethal Autonomous Weapons, Chris Jenks

Pepperdine Law Review

By casting into the indeterminate future and projecting visions of so-called killer robots, The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots (The Campaign) has incited moral panic in an attempt to stimulate a discussion—and ultimately a ban—on lethal autonomous weapons (LAWS). The real concern is the weapon systems’ ability to select and engage targets without human intervention. However, weapons systems that perform these functions have already been employed internationally since 1980 and The Campaign has been unable to specify which of the current systems its proposed ban should include. This article explains autonomy in general and as applied to weapons systems. It …

Mitochondrial Replacement Therapy And The Regulation Of Reproductive Genetic Technologies In The United States, Bob Zhao

Duke Law & Technology Review

The ability to alter the genes of future generations no longer belongs in the realm of science fiction. The genetic modification capabilities of modern science are advancing rapidly. Mitochondrial replacement therapy (MRT) represents the first crossing of the germline barrier in humans, and as of February 2015, it is the first procedure of its kind to be legalized in the Western world. How Congress decides to regulate MRT will influence future regulation of all genetic manipulation technologies. This brief argues that the current patchwork regulatory framework established in the United States is insufficient to deal with the complex issues MRT …

Can Jailbreaking Put You In Jail, Broke?, Trace H. Jackson

Florida Law Review

Most Americans own at least one “smart device.” These include smartphones and video game consoles. Device manufacturers limit an owner’s use of his smart device through both licensing agreements and technological measures. While the public largely ignores licensing agreements, the technological measures actively prevent an owner from using his device in whatever manner he sees fit, despite the fact that he owns the device. This prevention has led people to develop methods to circumvent these technological measures. These methods are device- dependent and include “jailbreaking” (iPhones), “modding” (video game consoles), and “rooting” (Androids).

This Note explores whether jailbreak developers or …

Antitrust And Information Technologies, Herbert Hovenkamp

Florida Law Review

This Article considers the relationship between competition policy and the technologies of information. Technological change can both facilitate and undermine the use of information for anticompetitive practices. The effects are heavily, although not exclusively, a result of digitization and the many products and processes that it enables. Further, information technologies account for a significant portion of the difficulties that antitrust law encounters when it addresses intellectual property (IP) rights. In addition, changes in the technologies of information affect the structures of certain products, in the process either increasing or decreasing the potential for competitive harm. Of particular importance here are …

Manhattan_Project.Exe: A Nuclear Option For The Digital Age, David Laton

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

This article explores the possible implications and consequences arising from the use of an artificial intelligence construct as a weapon of mass destruction. The digital age has ushered in many technological advances, as well as certain dangers. Chief among these pitfalls is the lack of reliable security found in critical information technology systems. These security gaps can give cybercriminals unauthorized access to highly sensitive computer networks that control the very infrastructure of the United States. Cyberattacks are rising in both frequency and severity and the response by the U.S. has been ineffective. A cyber-weapon of mass destruction (CWMD) implementing an …

How Many Likes Did It Get? Using Social Media Metrics To Establish Trademark Rights, Caroline Mrohs

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

This comment asserts that there is a need for an update to the multifactor test considered by courts in determining the strength of a trademark. Traditional factors include the expenses an entity can afford to pay in advertising, but do not give any weight to the presence of the entity on social media to reach its target consumer group.

Is Wifi Worth It: The Hidden Dangers Of Public Wifi, Ellie Shahin

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

Thriving In The Online Environment: Creating Structures To Promote Technology And Civil Liberties, Daniel W. Sutherland

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

Telecommunications Infrastructure: Another O-Ring In The Economic Development Of The Third World, James Germano

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

Autonomous Cars: Navigating The Patchwork Of Data Privacy Laws That Could Impact The Industry, Anthony Jones

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

The Ambiguity Of Redesignation: What Is 'Applicable' Under The Clean Air Act?, Andrew Miller

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

Targeted Advertising And The First Amendment: Student Privacy Vs. Protected Speech, Marco Crocetti

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

Masthead

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

Flying Under The Radar: Low-Altitude Local Drone Use And The Reentry Of Property Rights, Kenneth Maher

Duke Law & Technology Review

The characteristics and capabilities of civilian drones have proliferated in recent years, giving rise to a burgeoning industry. The popular media and academic literature have predominantly focused on privacy concerns, devoting considerably less attention to the regulatory challenges created by the new technology. Congress instructed the FAA to integrate drones into the National Airspace System in 2012, but rulemaking delays and a moratorium on commercial uses hampered the industry and withheld benefits from the public. Final regulations are now in place, but the new rules revive legal uncertainty over the constitutional limits of federal authority and the ambiguous vertical bounds …

Drones And Privacy In The Golden State, Brandon Gonzalez

Santa Clara High Technology Law Journal

Drones and Privacy in the Golden State

Managing Cyberthreat, Lawrence J. Trautman

Santa Clara High Technology Law Journal

Managing Cyberthreat

Keeping The Internet Invisible: Television Takes Over, Henry Perritt

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Technological Triggers To Tort Revolutions: Steam Locomotives, Autonomous Vehicles, And Accident Compensation, Donald G. Gifford

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Session On "Geoblocking Tools And The Law" At Law, Borders, And Speech Conference At Stanford Law School, Marketa Trimble

Boyd Briefs / Road Scholars

Professor Marketa Trimble appeared on a panel at the Law, Borders, and Speech Conference hosted by The Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School on October 24, 2016. The session defined and discussed geoblocking and its implications for internet users, government, and private companies.

A video of the session is available here. Additionally, Professor Trimble's presentation is available here.

Crimmigration-Counterterrorism, Margaret Hu

Scholarly Articles

The discriminatory effects that may stem from biometric ID cybersurveillance and other algorithmically driven screening technologies can be better understood through the analytical prism of “crimmigration-counterterrorism”: the conflation of crime, immigration, and counterterrorism policy. The historical genesis for this phenomenon can be traced back to multiple migration law developments, including the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. To implement stricter immigration controls at the border and interior, both the federal and state governments developed immigration enforcement schemes that depended upon both biometric identification documents and immigration screening protocols. This Article uses contemporary attempts to implement an expanded regime of “extreme vetting” …