Institute for Information Law and Policy

The Institute for Information Law and Policy is New York Law School's home for the study of law, technology and civil liberties. Participants in the Institute aim not only to understand the interplay of law and technology but to influence its development. The Institute develops and applies theories of information and communication to analyze law and policy. It also seeks to design new technologies and systems that will best serve democratic values in the digital age.

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Institute Blog

• Prof. James Grimmelmann on "Worlds Colliding"

  On October 31 and November 1, Professor James Grimmelmann will participate in a Symposium titled When Worlds Collide: Intellectual Property at the Interface Between Systems of Knowledge Creation at Fordham Law School in New York City. The Symposium will discuss how intellectual property law doctrines should address the interface between commercially driven innovation and other social systems of knowledge creation.

  Professor Grimmelmann’s presentation is tentatively titled "The Ethical Visions of Copyright Law.”

  When Worlds Collide: Intellectual Property at the Interface Between Systems of Knowledge Creation
  When: October 31, 2008 9:00 AM – 5:30 PM and November 1, 2008 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM
  Where: Fordham Law School, 140 West 62 Street, New York, NY

  The symposium is Free and Open to the Public!

  To register click here.

  For more information on the symposium, please visit Professor Michael Madison's IP & IT Conferences blog.

• NYLS Students Serena Lai, Vivian Tseng, and Coleman Watson named as Law Student Editors to ABA-IP Section

  The ABA Section of Intellectual Property Law is producing a new, flagship publication, Annual Review of Intellectual Property Law Developments, covering the year's top developments in Intellectual Property Law. The inaugural publication to debut in January 2009 presents a unique opportunity for law student members to become published. Three NYLS students, Serena Lai, Vivian Tseng, and Coleman Watson have been named as Law Student Editors to the Annual Review of Intellectual Property Law. Of the 100+ applications nationally, only thity-one students received invitations.

  In addition to legal developments identified throughout the ABA year by the Section's committees, the Annual Review will include select case summaries from past issues of the Section's IPL Newsletter. Each editor will be recognized as a contributor in the Annual Review. Thus, this is a rare, journal-like opportunity for law student members to become published, better informed about intellectual property law, and engaged with leadership of the ABA-IPL Section.

  Applications to become a Law Student Editor are released during the early fall semester each year by the Chair of the Annual Report Editorial Board. The 2008-09 Chair is George W. Jordan III, Fulbright & Jaworski LLP. Future inquiries concerning Law Editor inquiries should be emailed to ANNUALREPORT@mail.abanet.org.

• Prof. David Johnson Part of NYC Panel on Attorney Social Networking

  On Wednesday, September 17, 2008, the Metropolitan New York chapter of the Legal Marketing Association will present “Web 3.0 Attorney Social Networking: The Next ‘Next’ in Online Business Development and Client Service.”

  The three speaker panel, which includes Professor David Johnson of New York Law School, will speak on emerging technologies that provide an interactive experience and allow attorneys to create networks of connections and information, strengthen attorney-client relationships, and foster collaborative efforts between law firms and in-house legal departments. Legal journalist and leading authority on law and the web Robert Ambrogi will moderate the panel.

  More information here.

• Leading Internet Expert Clay Shirky Looks to Prof. David Johnson for Answers

  How can the networked world tackle the real world global environmental crisis?  Clay Shirky, a leading thinker on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies, asks, “Is there someone working on the problem of translating thought into action in a way that all members of the group can agree on?”  The answer may be yes, and it may be happening here at New York Law School.

  In a recent talk with WIRED Science entitled “A Wiki for the Planet: Clay Shirky on Open Source Environmentalism” Shirky discussed the need for new legal and social structures to solve the difficulties leaderless groups face when turning their thoughts into actions.  Shirky named New York Law School Professor David Johnson as someone who may be able to provide a solution that enables collective action. “Who's out there that's thinking about the structural difficulties of turning thought into action? I know it's not me. I wish it was. It may be David Johnson at New York Law School [creator of Do Tank, Democracy Design Workshop]. Whoever gets that right is going to be providing the key thing that's missing right now.”

  Read the full article here.

• Professor Beth Noveck among Leading Women in Politics, Technology, Policy

  The Political Voices of Women, a blog featuring opinion and commentary from over 400 female political bloggers, has named Beth Noveck to their list of "Women Leading in Politics and Technology or Policy."  From the site: "We hope this list will become a living document with changes added as we receive updates and new information, and we expect this list will grow."  To see the list click here.

• Vermont Governor Signs Virtual Corporations Bill into Law

  Vermont is now on the path to becoming "the Delaware of the Net."  Professor David Johnson and a team of NYLS students have helped to draft the nation’s first legislation that will make it easier to form and operate companies online, creating new opportunities for distributed work and innovation via the Internet.  The Governor of Vermont recently signed Digital Corporate Transactions H.0458 into law.  Johnson’s work with the State of Vermont is part of a larger project to foster a new type of economic production by allowing flexible collaboration among self-selecting, transient online groups.

  Imagine a group of people all around the country who want to find a way to share their collective expertise and start a consulting practice together without meeting face-to-face?
  

  Imagine people from around a neighborhood who already know each other face-to-face and want to have a way to open a bank account without the expense and hassle of a full-blown corporation?

  Imagine the team that seeks the limited liability protections of the corporate form but wants to contribute know-how not capital to form an entity?
  

  Vermont may be the answer for these digital age entrepreneurs.

  Alison Clarkson  introduced the  "Digital Corporate Transactions" (H.0458) into the Vermont house.  It was subsequently integrated into "H.0888, Miscellaneous Tax Documents."  Governor Jim Douglas signed the bill into law on June 6, 2008.

  Professor Johnson and his team of students at New York Law School’s Institute for Information Law & Policy endeavor to foster a new type of economic production by allowing flexible collaboration among self-selecting, transient online groups.

  They drafted legislative provisions and also analyzed the tax implications of the pending legislation.  In addition, they have started to plan for future virtual companies by drafting model operating agreements, developing the business plan for a service organization to host and support virtual companies and brainstorming the graphical interfaces for a virtual company headquarters.

  The key features of a virtual company are:

  --Participants in virtual companies will pool their attention and effort, not capital

  --Groups can come together online to create a legal entity that has the ability to own property (including the intellectual property they create together), open a bank account and contract with third parties

  --Participants will govern their own affairs, rather than relying on a Board of Directors or Officers or other forms of top down management.

  A transcript of Professor Johnson's testimony before the Vermont Legislature is available here.
  

  A recent essay about the current status of the Virtual Companies project is available here.

  Prof. Oliver Goodenough of Vermont Law School, the Berkman Center at Harvard Law School and the Vermont Bar Association provided substantial assistance, for which we are grateful.  The Virtual Company project is part of a capstone class offered by the Institute for Information Law and Policy at NYLS.  For more information visit the Do Tank.

• The Science of Search Engines

  On June 10, 2008, Associate Professor James Grimmelmann was a guest on “Charlotte Talks,” a morning radio show on WFAE 90.7FM in Charlotte, NC.  Host Mike Collins and officers of RushmoreDrive.com (a search engine designed to meet the interests of the African-American community) discussed how search engines work and whether they're biased; Professor Grimmelmann joined in to explain some of the legal issues that search engines raise. A copy of the audio is available at the WFAE web site.
  
  Hyperlinks:
  James Grimmelmann: http://www.nyls.edu/pages/5808.asp
  WFAE 90.7FM: http://www.wfae.org/wfae/index.cfm
  Charlotte Talks: http://www.wfae.org/wfae/nav1024.cfm?cat=18&subcat=91
  RushmoreDrive.com: http://www.rushmoredrive.com/
  WFAE web site: http://www.wfae.org/wfae/audio/CT20080610.m3u

• BNA: Peer-to-Patent Project Has Already Produced Results, Sponsors and PTO Say

  Prior art and commentary submitted by members of public under the nine-month old Peer-to-Patent examination project have already weeded out five patent applications that might otherwise have been mistakenly allowed, according to an April 25 statement by New York Law School, which initiated the project in cooperation with the Patent and Trademark Office.

  The Web-based project, launched as a one-year pilot by the PTO last June, is aimed at improving the quality of issued patents by giving the patent examiner access to better information through an open network of community peer review. PTO Director Jonathan W. Dudas touted the pilot program then as a major step for improvement of patent quality (111 PTD, 06/11/07 ).

  Publicly Submitted Prior Art Led to Rejections

  The pilot project was to be limited to 250 patent applications. According to the law school's statement, 19 applications have been examined so far, including applications from General Electric Co., Hewlett-Packard Co., International Business Machines Corp., Intel Corp., Microsoft Corp., Red Hat Inc., and Sun Microsystems Inc. Five of those patents have received non-final rejections that relied specifically upon prior art submitted through the Peer-to-Patent project, the statement said.

  For the first rejection--of an HP application--the PTO examiner used prior art and commentary submitted by Steven Pearson, a senior software engineer at IBM, the statement said. The second non-final rejection--of an IBM application--relied upon submissions by Rob Cameron, a professor of computer science at Simon Fraser University. Both companies will have the opportunity to respond to the first office actions and persuade the examiners that their claims are new and non-obvious.

  In recognition of their contributions to the project, Pearson and Fraser were designated "prior artists" on the Peer-to-Patent Web site. Both lauded the initiative.
  
  "I am confident these early results will help validate that this community approach can have a meaningful impact on the examination process and the quality of patents," Pearson said in a statement. Cameron said that the type of "open, mediated review process" developed under the Peer-to-Patent project "should become an integral part of best practice patent examination."

  PTO: 'Win-Win Situation.'
  
  The Peer-to-Patent Web site is operated independent of supervision by the PTO. However, the PTO was charged with certifying a limited number of volunteer applicants to submit their patent applications for the Internet-based collaborative review. Applicants are limited to Technology Center 2100, which covers computer architecture, software, and information security.

  Thus far, according to the statement, each posted application has garnered an average of 14 reviewers who have submitted five instances of prior art per application.
  
  The PTO's response time on office actions under the project has been "notable," according to the statement. Because the agency has agreed to examine applications in the pilot project ahead of other applications, it said, "the time between applications filing and the onset of examination shrank from four to two years."

  Assessing the project's progress, the PTO's Commissioner for Patents John Doll said in a statement, "I hope other patent applicants look at the processing statistics from this pilot program and realize that Peer-to-Patent review might be a win-win situation for them."

  Doll said that the PTO is encouraged by the initial success of the pilot, "and we believe it holds potential as a source of relevant prior art."

• Cybercrime, Cyberterrorism, and Digital Law Enforcement (Spring 2009, Wednesdays, 4-5:45 pm)

  Cybercrime, Cyberterrorism, and Digital Law Enforcement (Spring 2009, Wednesdays, 4-5:45 pm)

  On the Internet, "no one knows you are a dog" ... and every sociopath is your next door neighbor.  This course explores the dark side of the Internet by examining how hackers, crackers, spammers, botnet herders, pornographers, con artists, child exploiters, organized crime, international terrorists, rogue corporations, hostile governments, and other assorted bad guys exploit and take advantage of the networked world.  We examine how these developments impact law, policy and social response mechanisms.   This course is not a criminal procedures class and should be of interest to anyone interested in cyber or information law generally.

  The "official" course description and syllabus is available at http://cybercrime.advancedstudies.org/ .  Don't be turned off by the apparent amount of material listed in the syllabus, we pick and choose appropriate readings depending on what topics are relevant and in the news at the time the course is given.

  Cybercrime is taught by Kim Taipale, the executive director and founder of the Center for Advanced Studies in Science and Technology Policy.  Mr. Taipale is a nationally recognized expert and frequent invited speaker, often appears before Congressional and other national committees, and is the author of numerous academic papers, journal articles, and book chapters on information, technology, and national security issues.  See http://taipale.info/

• Intellectual Property in the World of Magic (April 10)

  IP Surprise: Magic

  When: April 10, 2008 - 5:00 PM 
  Where: Wellington Conference Center (47 Worth St., 5th Floor)

  Jacob Loshin, Law Clerk for the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and author of Secrets Revealed: How Magicians Protect Intellectual Property without Law, will discuss the challenges magicians face in protecting their intellectual property and the creative ways in which the magic community has adapted to those challenges.