Information Age Technology, Industrial Age Laws

The United States patent system was born during the Industrial Age — at a time where the focus was on promoting innovation in machines, and tangible means of changing the world. With the dawn of the Information Age, innovation is increasingly intangible. The industrial age laws, as currently interpreted, are not well-suited for the changing and evolving technological world. Information age innovators face challenges at the United States Patent and Trademark Office, through the judicial system and at the United States International Trade Commission. It is time for a change in the system to reflect the realities of modern technology. Adequate protection is not currently provided for intangible innovations. This lack of protection has wide-ranging implications, especially now as data processing is increasingly migrating to “the cloud,” geographic boundaries are eroding, and intangible technology is advancing in importance. The industrial age laws can incentivize innovation in the information age — and it is time to recognize this before private ordering subsumes the public interest

The Inequalities of Innovation

Over the last few decades, the United States has become more innovative, but the gains have been distributed unequally. In 2020, over 50% of new U.S. patents went to the top 1% of patentees, and more than 50% of all patents of U.S. origin were generated by just five states, all coastal. Less than 13% of inventors were women. The economic, geographic, and demographic concentration of innovation highlight how the intersections between two traditionally discrete topics—innovation and inequality—have become increasingly relevant. But rather than any single inequality, this Article argues, multiple inequalities—of income, opportunity, and access—have relevance to innovation. Examining the inequalities of innovation, separately and together, exposes the tensions, at times surprising, between notions of equity. When mapped onto patent law, an inequalities framework also reveals how patent law can exacerbate inequality by providing enhanced returns to “invention capital”—the role models, trust, know-how, and networks required to take advantage of inventing. But an inequalities framework also shows how patented innovation can improve conditions for the worst-off, by providing paths to prosperity and hastening the creation and diffusion of innovation across classes, even as it makes the rich richer. Building on the “inequalities” framework described above, this Article offers a set of legal and administrative proposals grounded in patent law for addressing inequality concerns. To ensure equal opportunities to participate, this Article proposes the creation of an Independent Office of the Small Inventor Advocate, akin to the National Taxpayer Advocate, that would have responsibility for outreaching to and increasing invention capital and know-how among first-time, underrepresented, and under-resourced inventors, and leveling up the inventing playing field, for example through universally accessible patent-quality technology. To expand access to innovation through partnerships and expand public understanding and oversight of the patent system, by other agencies, for example, this Article proposes the introduction of an independent Office of Public Interest and Partnerships in Innovation. Finally, introducing and centering equity metrics, like the number of first-time innovators and gaps in the rates, can support equitable growth in innovation

Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence

Section 1. Purpose. Artificial intelligence (AI) holds extraordinary potential for both promise and peril. Responsible AI use has the potential to help solve urgent challenges while making our world more prosperous, productive, innovative, and secure. At the same time, irresponsible use could exacerbate societal harms such as fraud, discrimination, bias, and disinformation; displace and disempower workers; stifle competition; and pose risks to national security. Harnessing AI for good and realizing its myriad benefits requires mitigating its substantial risks. This endeavor demands a society-wide effort that includes government, the private sector, academia, and civil society. My Administration places the highest urgency on governing the development and use of AI safely and responsibly, and is therefore advancing a coordinated, Federal Government-wide approach to doing so. The rapid speed at which AI capabilities are advancing compels the United States to lead in this moment for the sake of our security, economy, and society. In the end, AI reflects the principles of the people who build it, the people who use it, and the data upon which it is built. I firmly believe that the power of our ideals; the foundations of our society; and the creativity, diversity, and decency of our people are the reasons that America thrived in past eras of rapid change. They are the reasons we will succeed again in this moment. We are more than capable of harnessing AI for justice, security, and opportunity for all. Includes additional sections covering policy and principles, definitions, ensuring the safety and security of AI technology, promoting innovation and competition, supporting workers, advancing equity and civil rights, protecting consumers, patients, passengers and students, protecting privacy, advancing Federal government use of AI, strengthening American leadership abroad, implementation, and general provisions

Mining Claims on Public Lands: A Study of Interior Department Procedures

The Department of the Interior\u27s disposition of mining claims on public lands, largely unknown to lawyers outside the West, is a significant field of federal administrative activity and an important element in planning rational use of the public lands. While energy minerals found under public lands typically pass by lease and common varieties such as sand and gravel are subject to sale, most other mineral deposits on federal property are claimed for possible exploitation by the mining claim, or location. The location system arose out of miners\u27 custom, at a time when the federal lands were vacant and no federal law governed acquisition of mining rights. During the turbulent rushes of the mid-nineteenth century, each mining district worked out and enforced, however colorfully and informally, its own rules on the important matters of acquiring and holding a mineral claim. These rules tended to embody similar features: physical marking of the land, filing the claim in a local record center, and continuing work on the claim to preserve its validity

What is the influence of genre during the perception of structured text for retrieval and search?

This thesis presents an investigation into the high value of structured text (or form) in the context of genre within Information Retrieval. In particular, how are these structured texts perceived and why are they not more heavily used within Information Retrieval & Search communities? The main motivation is to show the features in which people can exploit genre within Information Search & Retrieval, in particular, categorisation and search tasks. To do this, it was vital to record and analyse how and why this was done during typical tasks. The literature review highlighted two previous studies (Toms & Campbell 1999a; Watt 2009) which have reported pilot studies consisting of genre categorisation and information searching. Both studies and other findings within the literature review inspired the work contained within this thesis. Genre is notoriously hard to define, but a very useful framework of Purpose and Form, developed by Yates & Orlikowski (1992), was utilised to design two user studies for the research reported within the thesis. The two studies consisted of, first, a categorisation task (e-mails), and second, a set of six simulated situations in Wikipedia, both of which collected quantitative data from eye tracking experiments as well as qualitative user data. The results of both studies showed the extent to which the participants utilised the form features of the stimuli presented, in particular, how these were used, which ocular behaviours (skimming or scanning) and actual features were used, and which were the most important. The main contributions to research made by this thesis were, first of all, that the task-based user evaluations employing simulated search scenarios revealed how and why users make decisions while interacting with the textual features of structure and layout within a discourse community, and, secondly, an extensive evaluation of the quantitative data revealed the features that were used by the participants in the user studies and the effects of the interpretation of genre in the search and categorisation process as well as the perceptual processes used in the various communities. This will be of benefit for the re-development of information systems. As far as is known, this is the first detailed and systematic investigation into the types of features, value of form, perception of features, and layout of genre using eye tracking in online communities, such as Wikipedia

Rules for Growth: Promoting Innovation and Growth Through Legal Reform

The United States economy is struggling to recover from its worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. After several huge doses of conventional macroeconomic stimulus - deficit-spending and monetary stimulus - policymakers are understandably eager to find innovative no-cost ways of sustaining growth both in the short and long runs. In response to this challenge, the Kauffman Foundation convened a number of America’s leading legal scholars and social scientists during the summer of 2010 to present and discuss their ideas for changing legal rules and policies to promote innovation and accelerate U.S. economic growth. This meeting led to the publication of Rules for Growth: Promoting Innovation and Growth Through Legal Reform, a comprehensive and groundbreaking volume of essays prescribing a new set of growth-promoting policies for policymakers, legal scholars, economists, and business men and women. Some of the top Rules include: • Reforming U.S. immigration laws so that more high-skilled immigrants can launch businesses in the United States. • Improving university technology licensing practices so university-generated innovation is more quickly and efficiently commercialized. • Moving away from taxes on income that penalize risk-taking, innovation, and employment while shifting toward a more consumption-based tax system that encourages saving that funds investment. In addition, the research tax credit should be redesigned and made permanent. • Overhauling local zoning rules to facilitate the formation of innovative companies. • Urging judges to take a more expansive view of flexible business contracts that are increasingly used by innovative firms. • Urging antitrust enforcers and courts to define markets more in global terms to reflect contemporary realities, resist antitrust enforcement from countries with less sound antitrust regimes, and prohibit industry trade protection and subsidies. • Reforming the intellectual property system to allow for a post-grant opposition process and address the large patent application backlog by allowing applicants to pay for more rapid patent reviews. • Authorizing corporate entities to form digitally and use software as a means for setting out agreements and bylaws governing corporate activities. The collective essays in the book propose a new way of thinking about the legal system that should be of interest to policymakers and academic scholars alike. Moreover, the ideas presented here, if embodied in law, would augment a sustained increase in U.S. economic growth, improving living standards for U.S. residents and for many in the rest of the world

Aerospace Medicine and Biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes (supplement 153)

This bibliography lists 175 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in March 1976

A New Approach to Patent Reform

Scholars and policy makers have tried for years to solve the tenacious and harmful crisis of low quality, erroneously granted patents. Far from resolving the problem, these determined efforts have resulted in hundreds of conflicting policy proposals, failed Congressional bills, and no way to evaluate the policies’ value or impact or to decide between the overwhelming multiplicity of policies. This Article provides not only new solutions, but a new approach for designing and assessing policies both in patent law and legal systems more generally. We introduce a formal economic model of the patent system that differs from existing scholarship because it permits us to (1) determine how a policy change to one part of the patent system affects the system as a whole; and (2) quantify the impact of policy changes. Existing scholarship typically analyses a policy by assessing its effect on just the targeted element of the patent system, but legal systems are complex with interrelated components and players react along multiple margins, so these analyses are incomplete and sometimes incorrect. Our approach fixes this problem, providing a comprehensive understanding of how a policy change affects the patent system from beginning-to-end. It also permits us to conduct complex analyses such as varying multiple policies at once. Further, much existing scholarship fails to quantify the magnitude of a policy’s effect, and even empirical scholarship can only measure the effect of an already-implemented policy, not predict the effect of a proposed change. Quantification is critical because policies generally have multiple effects, often in countervailing directions. Quantification—as shown using our model—permits scholars to determine the overall direction and size of a theoretically ambiguous effect. Quantification also allows us to compare the social welfare effects of different reforms so that policy-makers know where to focus their efforts. We apply our model to several of the most prominent policy debates in patent law. We conclude that certain reforms such as regulation of settlement licenses and increased examination intensity yield large gains in social welfare and should be prioritized. Other reforms that are popular with scholars, including decreasing the availability of injunctions and reducing litigation costs produce surprisingly small gains in social welfare. Often existing scholarship operates too much on intuition, which, we show, can be wrong. Our new approach to patent reform provides an approach that offers deeper understanding and a more effective evaluation framework

A Comparative Analysis of Best Practices in a Facial Recognition Policy for Law Enforcement Agencies

Facial Recognition Technology (FRT) and the plethora of applications that have adopted this technology have exploded in the last decade. Most people have probably heard about local law enforcement agencies utilizing FRT to catch criminals, locate missing persons, and provide large-scale event security. Law enforcement\u27s use of FRT has been criticized since its implementation. Critics have lambasted FRT, citing inaccuracy of the technology; potential race, age, and gender bias; the collection and retention of images; and a lack of governing standards as to when the technology can be applied. In addition, the lack of transparency has been met with fierce pushback as entities such as the ACLU have filed multiple lawsuits against federal agencies in an attempt to garner additional information on the use and practices of FRT within these agencies. This research paper will discuss multiple aspects of Facial Recognition Technology. A brief history of the technology will be given along with an overview of how FRT works and its implementation in law enforcement agencies, as well as in private sector settings. This paper will also review new and existing laws at the state, local, and federal level. Issues over the misuse of FRT, concerns of civil rights activists, and limitations of FRT will be conveyed. Police department policies governing the use of FRT will also be explored in detail