Science and Technology Law Commons^™

Incoming: Regulating Drones In Oklahoma, Jane Dunagin

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Charting The Contours Of A Copyright Regime Optimized For Engineered Genetic Code, Christopher M. Holman

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Driverless Seattle: How Cities Can Plan For Automated Vehicles, Matthew Bellinger, Ryan Calo, Brooks Lindsay, Emily Mcreynolds, Mackenzie Olson, Gaites Swanson, Boyang Sa, Feiyang Sun

Tech Policy Lab

The advent of automated vehicles (AVs)—also known as driverless or self-driving cars—alters many assumptions about automotive travel. Foremost, of course, is the assumption that a vehicle requires a driver: a human occupant who controls the direction and speed of the vehicle, who is responsible for attentively monitoring the vehicle's environment, and who is liable for most accidents involving the vehicle. By changing these and other fundamentals of transportation, AV technologies present opportunities but also challenges for policymakers across a wide range of legal and policy areas. To address these challenges, federal and state governments are already developing regulations and guidelines …

Toys That Listen: A Study Of Parents, Children, And Internet-Connected Toys, Emily Mcreynolds, Sarah Hubbard, Timothy Lau, Aditya Saraf, Maya Cakmak, Franziska Roesner

Tech Policy Lab

Hello Barbie, CogniToys Dino, and Amazon Echo are part of a new wave of connected toys and gadgets for the home that listen. Unlike the smartphone, these devices are always on, blending into the background until needed. We conducted interviews with parent-child pairs in which they interacted with Hello Barbie and CogniToys Dino, shedding light on children’s expectations of the toys’ “intelligence” and parents’ privacy concerns and expectations for parental controls. We find that children were often unaware that others might be able to hear what was said to the toy, and that some parents draw connections between the toys …

Misappropriation Of Genetic Resources In Africa: A Study Of: Pentadiplandra Brazzeana,Impatiens Usambarensis, And Combretum Micranthum, Julie Micalizzi

Journal of Law, Technology, & the Internet

"This paper...address[es] three potential cases of misappropriation concerning traditional knowledge and genetic resources of traditional groups in Africa and will explore how the Western patent system enabled,prevented, and corrected misappropriation in the context of these case studies. In all three studies, the patent system failed in misapplying the requirements of patentability and in granting patents for information that is per se unpatentable. However, the unpatentability of these specific instances of traditional knowledge also precludes the indigenous populations from claiming property rights over the information. Without an exclusionary property right, third parties are still able to commercialize the information. While such …

In Defense Of Secondary Pharmaceutical Patents: Response To The Un's Guidelines For Pharmaceutical Patent Examination, Christopher M. Holman

Faculty Works

In 2015 the United Nations Development Programme issued a document entitled Guidelines for Pharmaceutical Patent Examination: Examining Pharmaceutical Patents from a Public Health Perspective (the “Guidelines”). The heart of the Guidelines is a category-by-category examination of eight types of “secondary” pharmaceutical patent claims: Markush claims; selection patents; polymorphs; enantiomers; salts; ethers and esters; compositions; doses; combinations; prodrugs; metabolites; and new medical uses. The Guidelines advise patent offices to apply heightened patentability requirements to these claims in a manner that would effectively deny patent protection to important pharmaceutical innovations currently afforded patent protection. In particular, the Guidelines postulate that many forms …

Charting The Contours Of Copyright Regime Optimized For Engineered Genetic Code, Christopher M. Holman

Faculty Works

There is a growing disconnect between the traditional patent-centric approach to protecting biotechnological innovation and the emerging intellectual property imperatives of “synthetic biology,” a promising new manifestation of biotechnology that enables the design and construction of artificial biological pathways, organisms or devices, as well as the redesign of existing natural biological systems. As explained in previous articles, one way to deal with this disconnect would be to expand the scope of copyrightable subject matter to encompass engineered genetic sequences, much in the way that copyright was expanded in the 1970s and 1980s to include computer programs. The present article expands …

Fda’S Efforts To Tame The 'Wild West' Of Regenerative Medicine, Christopher M. Holman

Faculty Works

Stem cell-based regenerative therapies hold the potential to address a host of health concerns, particularly congenital, age-related, and trauma-induced injuries, and diseases involving organ and tissue degeneration, conditions that have proven refractory to conventional drug-based approaches. For the time being, however, there is little in the way of solid evidence supporting the safety and efficacy of most cell-based therapeutic approaches (with the notable exception of hematopoietic stem cells used to treat diseases of the blood and immune system). This Holman Report begins with an overview of the current uncertain regulatory status of regenerative medicine in the U.S., including several draft …

The Fourth Amendment In A Digital World, Laura K. Donohue

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Fourth Amendment doctrines created in the 1970s and 1980s no longer reflect how the world works. The formal legal distinctions on which they rely—(a) private versus public space, (b) personal information versus third party data, (c) content versus non-content, and (d) domestic versus international—are failing to protect the privacy interests at stake. Simultaneously, reduced resource constraints are accelerating the loss of rights. The doctrine has yet to catch up with the world in which we live. A necessary first step for the Court is to reconsider the theoretical underpinning of the Fourth Amendment, to allow for the evolution of a …

Regulating Human Germline Modification In Light Of Crispr, Sarah Ashley Barnett

Law Student Publications

This comment evaluates the United States‘ current regulatory scheme as it applies to CRISPR and related gene-modifying technologies and discusses the ethical ramifications of regulating human germline modification versus continuing to allow self-regulation within the scientific community. Part I explains what CRISPR is, how it works, and its impact on genetic engineering technology. Although CRISPR offers "unparalleled potential for modifying [both] human and nonhuman genomes," this comment focuses primarily on the use of CRISPR technology to manipulate the human germline. Part II discusses the social and bioethical implications of altering the human germline, including safety concerns, multigenerational consequences, equity issues, …

Emergent Ai, Social Robots And The Law: Security, Privacy And Policy Issues, Ramesh Subramanian

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

The rapid growth of AI systems has implications on a wide variety of fields. It can prove to be a boon to disparate fields such as healthcare, education, global logistics and transportation, to name a few. However, these systems will also bring forth far-reaching changes in employment, economy and security. As AI systems gain acceptance and become more commonplace, certain critical questions arise: What are the legal and security ramifications of the use of these new technologies? Who can use them, and under what circumstances? What is the safety of these systems? Should their commercialization be regulated? What are the …

Fetishizing Copies, Jessica Litman

Book Chapters

Our copyright laws encourage authors to create new works and communicate them to the public, because we hope that people will read the books, listen to the music, see the art, watch the films, run the software, and build and inhabit the buildings. That is the way that copyright promotes the Progress of Science. Recently, that not-very-controversial principle has collided with copyright owners’ conviction that they should be able to control, or at least collect royalties from, all uses of their works. A particularly ill-considered manifestation of this conviction is what I have decided to call copy-fetish. This is the …

Genome Editing And The Jurisprudence Of Scientific Empiricism, Paul Enriquez

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Humankind has reached, in tow by the hand of a scientific breakthrough called CRISPR, the Rubicon of precise genetic manipulation first envisioned over fifty years ago. Despite CRISPR's renown in science and its power to transform the world, it remains virtually unaddressed in legal scholarship. In the absence of on-point law, the scientific community has attempted to reach some consensus to preempt antagonistic regulation and prescribe subjective standards of use under the guise of a priori scientific empiricism. Significant and complex legal issues concerning this technology are emerging, and the void in legal scholarship is no longer tolerable.

This Article …

Immigrant Families Behind Bars: Technology Setting Them Free, Jennifer Blasco

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

In July of 2015, Judge Dolly Gee from the US District Court for the Central District of California ordered that all immigrant women and children currently detained in a federal family detention facility be released immediately. She described the conditions of these detention centers as "deplorable" and stated that detention of these women and children directly violated the 1997 Flores Agreement. However, the practice of immigrant family detention remains alive and well in this country. Why? This Note provides an answer to this question and proposes a cost-effective and more efficient solution to the problem: electronic monitoring.

Reshaping Ability Grouping Through Big Data, Yoni H. Carmel, Tammy H. Ben-Shahar

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

This Article examines whether incorporating data mining technologies in education can promote equality. Following many other spheres in life, big data technologies that include creating, collecting, and analyzing vast amounts of data about individuals are increasingly being used in schools. This process has already elicited widespread interest among scholars, parents, and the public at large. However, this attention has largely focused on aspects of student privacy and data protection and has overlooked the profound effects data mining may have on educational equality. This Article analyzes the effects of data mining on education equality by focusing on one educational practice--ability grouping--that …

Teaching Legal Technology, Camille Broussard, Kathleen Brown, Daniel Cordova, Sarah Mauldin

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Achieving American Retirement Prosperity By Changing Americans' Thinking About Retirement, Peter H. Huang

Publications

There are many decisions that Americans have to make about retirement before, at, and after retirement. For example, Americans have to decide when to start saving for retirement, how much to save, how to invest those savings, when to retire, when to claim social security, and how to take required minimum distributions from 401(k) plans or Individual Retirement Accounts. Different things can go wrong at each of these decisions for different reasons. Many Americans, for various reasons, including insufficient energy, money, motivation, time, and understanding, do no retirement planning. Some Americans do some retirement planning, yet worry they are doing …

How Should Justice Policy Treat Young Offenders?: A Knowledge Brief Of The Macarthur Foundation Research Network On Law And Neuroscience, Bj Casey, Richard J. Bonnie, Andre Davis, David L. Faigman, Morris B. Hoffman, Owen D. Jones, Read Montague, Stephen J. Morse, Marcus E. Raichle, Jennifer E. Richeson, Elizabeth S. Scott, Laurence Steinberg, Kim Taylor-Thompson, Anthony Wagner

Faculty Scholarship

The justice system in the United States has long recognized that juvenile offenders are not the same as adults, and has tried to incorporate those differences into law and policy. But only in recent decades have behavioral scientists and neuroscientists, along with policymakers, looked rigorously at developmental differences, seeking answers to two overarching questions: Are young offenders, purely by virtue of their immaturity, different from older individuals who commit crimes? And, if they are, how should justice policy take this into account?

A growing body of research on adolescent development now confirms that teenagers are indeed inherently different from adults, …

"Through A Glass, Darkly" Technical, Policy, And Financial Actions To Avert The Coming Digital Dark Ages, Richard S. Whitt

Santa Clara High Technology Law Journal

"Through A Glass, Darkly" Technical, Policy, and Financial Actions to Avert the Coming Digital Dark Ages

Privacy, Vulnerability, And Affordance, Ryan Calo

Articles

This essay begins to unpack the complex, sometimes contradictory relationship between privacy and vulnerability. I begin by exploring how the law conceives of vulnerability — essentially, as a binary status meriting special consideration where present. Recent literature recognizes vulnerability not as a status but as a state — a dynamic and manipulable condition that everyone experiences to different degrees and at different times. I then discuss various ways in which vulnerability and privacy intersect. I introduce an analytic distinction between vulnerability rendering, i.e., making a person more vulnerable, and the exploitation of vulnerability whether manufactured or native. I also describe …

Artificial Intelligence Policy: A Primer And Roadmap, Ryan Calo

Articles

Talk of artificial intelligence is everywhere. People marvel at the capacity of machines to translate any language and master any game. Others condemn the use of secret algorithms to sentence criminal defendants or recoil at the prospect of machines gunning for blue, pink, and white-collar jobs. Some worry aloud that artificial intelligence will be humankind’s “final invention.” This essay, prepared in connection with UC Davis Law Review's 50th anniversary symposium, explains why AI is suddenly on everyone's mind and provides a roadmap to the major policy questions AI raises. The essay is designed to help policymakers, investors, technologists, scholars, and …

Introducing Sts Scholarship To The Gun Policy Debate In United States Society, Caroline Skinner

Scripps Senior Theses

The following thesis will merge the field of legal studies with the field

of Science, Technology, and Society, and will focus on issues surrounding the

gun control debate. The goal is to ultimately bring new light to this hot-

button legal topic through the use of STS scholarship. STS tools and theories,

which have previously been absent from most gun control discussions, have

much to contribute to the discourse in terms of motivating the need for gun

control, fully understanding the user-gun relationship, breaking down

misconceptions about the technology and its role in society, and further

understanding the complex societal …

War In The Expanse: The Metaphysics Of Cyberspace, Roy Balleste

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

A Critical Assessment On The Extraterritorial Application Of Human Rights Treaties To Transnational Cyber Surveillance, Wanshu Cong

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

In this essay, I question the appropriateness of applying the substantive requirements of lawful domestic surveillance developed from international human rights treaties and relevant case law to transnational cyber surveillance. And I argue in the negative. Therefore, for the purpose of this essay, I would not delve into the highly debatable issue of what counts as ‘‘control” in cyber surveillance and which standard of control triggers a state’s jurisdiction. Instead, this essay assumes that a control test was established. In the following section, I shall examine the substantive requirements for states restricting fundamental freedoms drawn on from current human rights …

Do They Want To Regulate Online Profiling?, Laura Garcia Vargas

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

Online profiling or behavioural tracking is the process by which private companies track and gather data about users’ activities in online platforms. The data collected by all the companies is aggregated with the purpose of creating a comprehensive profile about users. Since at least 15 years ago, there have been several attempts to regulate online profiling in order to reduce its privacy implications. In general, these regulations have tried to limit the way the information is used, the type of data that is collected, and impose or suggest the security standards that the companies should take to protect it.

This …

The Dark Web: Some Thoughts For An Educated Debate, Vanessa Henri

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

The ‘‘dark web” is a part of cyberspace that is only accessible through an anonymity software, such as The Onion Router. This encrypted network has prompted important legal challenges. As jurisprudence develops, many factors are at risk of inhibiting users’ right to privacy. Misunderstandings of the dark web’s functioning or myths regarding its veil of anonymity has justified invasive criminal investigations that has threatened users’ right to remain anonymous online. This article discusses these challenges while analyzing current legal developments in the United States and Canada.

Third-Party Services As Potential Sources For Law Enforcement Procurement Of Genomic Data, Katherine Kwong

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

This paper examines two cases studies: Ancestry.com’s experience with law enforcement use of its genetic databases, and 23andMe’s responses to requests for users’ genomic data. Analyzing the responses to law enforcement requests by the two of the largest providers of third-party genomic services provides insight into the struggles third-party genomic services are likely to face and possible future directions for companies facing this type of law enforcement request.

A Whole New Meaning To Having Our Head In The Clouds: Voice Recognition Technology, The Transmission Of Our Oral Communications To The Cloud And The Ability Of Canadian Law To Protect Us From The Dangers It Presents, Sarit K. Mizrahi

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

Voice recognition technology is now included in modern devices as a matter of course, being used in anything from our cellular telephones, to our televisions, and even the toys of our children. While we may voluntarily interact with some of our devices using this technology, such as conversing with Siri on our iPhones, many of us remain unaware as to the dangerous implications of using voice recognition technology.

Its ability to record some of our most personal conversations allows private companies to eavesdrop on us in an unprecedented manner and amass highly sensitive information about our lives that would have …

The Lawful Access Fallacy: Voluntary Warrantless Disclosures, Customer Privacy, And Government Requests For Subscriber Information, Matthew P. Ponsford

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

This paper explores the recent legal, political, privacy, and communications developments surrounding warrantless government requests for basic subscriber information. I assert the current practice remains marred in secrecy and therefore poses a significant threat to Canadian civil liberties and privacy rights.

Can You Hear Me Now? Conceptions Of Privacy In Section 8, Chris Sewrattan

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

This article will examine the different conceptions of privacy that are present in the jurisprudence of s. 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Section 8 guarantees that everyone has the right against unreasonable search and seizure. As a constitutional right, the protection covers the privacy relationship between the state and the individual. It confers privacy over information for which there exists a reasonable expectation of privacy. The article will analyze a taxonomy of four privacy conceptions present in the literature and discuss their presence in s. 8 case law. It will then examine two criticisms that arise …