A Call From the Panopticon to the Judicial Chamber “Expect Privacy!â€

Privacy is necessary in order for one to develop physically, mentally and affectively. Autonomy and self definitionhave been recognized by the United States Supreme Court as being values of privacy. In our technologicallyadvanced, and fear driven society, however, our right to privacy has been severely eroded. Due to encroachmentby government and business we have a diminished expectation of privacy. This article examines the detriments toself and society which result from a reduced sphere of privacy, as well as offering a modest suggestion for amethod to reintroduce an improved conception of privacy into citizens’ lives

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival

An Argument Against Business Method Patents Demonstrating That Algorithms Are Abstract and Business Methods Are Obvious

In the United States, the Patent and Trademarks Office and the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit are extending patent protection to the invention of new Internet business methods. The article argues that this discourages innovation and rewards existing monopolies. First, the article examines the leading case of Amazon.com v Barnes and noble.com Inc before considering the grounds on which the United States courts have concluded that business method software ought to be patentable. The author concludes that the courts have greatly expanded the concept of useful art to give protection to what are in fact abstract ideas. By doing so they have protected business methods in a way which the courts have refused to do in the past. Finally the author examines the nature of innovation on the internet, concluding that it is sequential, with each creator improving on the work of the previous product. Unlike other areas of innovation, there are not high development costs associated with this process. Hence, giving the inventor a monopoly through intellectual property rights is not needed to encourage innovation. The public has benefited from the weak protection given to intellectual property rights on the internet so that it is not in the public interest to strengthen that protection. Doing so will only give more power to software companies which are big enough to seek and enforce patent protection and will reduce rather than increase innovation

Data Mines and Battlefields: Looking at Financial Aggregators to Understand the Legal Boundaries and Ownership Rights in the Use of Personal Data, 19 J. Marshall J. Computer & Info. L. 313 (2001)

Financial Web aggregation is a service that allows the customer to view all data from various accounts including financial institutions, stockbrokers, airline frequent flyer and other reward programs. Financial Web aggregation services may be offered on a stand-alone basis but the trend is to offer them in conjunction with other financial services, most commonly bill payment. HyperText Markup Language (“HTML”) technology is used to obtain the account information, this is most often done without the permission of the provider. The alternative to HTML connection is direct feed aggregation…the aggregator requires the implementation of specific software, i.e. Open Financial Exchange software. This article examines two major federal statutes that will most influence the development of the financial aggregation service industry, namely the Electronic Fund Transfer Act(“EFTA”) and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (“GLBA”). The personal information belongs to the consumer, and the consumer has a fundamental right to privacy in this data that is best protected when it is treated as a property right

Data Mines and Battlefields: Looking at Financial Aggregators to Understand the Legal Boundries and Ownership Rights in the Use of Personal Rights

Financial Web aggregation is a service that allows the customer to view all data from various accounts including financial institutions, stockbrokers, airline frequent flyer and other reward programs. Financial Web aggregation services may be offered on a stand-alone basis but the trend is to offer them in conjunction with other financial services, most commonly bill payment. HyperText Markup Language (“HTML”) technology is used to obtain the account information, this is most often done without the permission of the provider. The alternative to HTML connection is direct feed aggregation…the aggregator requires the implementation of specific software, i.e. Open Financial Exchange software. This article examines two major federal statutes that will most influence the development of the financial aggregation service industry, namely the Electronic Fund Transfer Act(“EFTA”) and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (“GLBA”). The personal information belongs to the consumer, and the consumer has a fundamental right to privacy in this data that is best protected when it is treated as a property right

Exploring the Key Informational, Ethical and Legal Concerns to the Development of Population Genomic Databases for Pharmacogenomic Research

The completion of a high quality comprehensive sequence of the human genome has lead to the discovery of genetic links to complex diseases and the development of target drugs. Population genetic databases (PGDs) are a powerful resource to the systematic study of the genetic component of disease; in the quest to understand the impact of genetic factors on drug response data from laboratory experiments, computational methods and clinical studies must be integrated. The establishment of a pharmacogenomics knowledge base entails complex information management balanced with the appropriate legal and ethical standards. This article reviews some of the ontology development challenges and examines the need to establish a legal structure which creates the proper intellectual property incentives to develop PGDs and the ethical standards that must be upheld so that the terms of informed consent are legitimate

Why Patenting Information Technology and Business Methods is not Sound Policy: Lessons from History and Prophecies for the Future

... The Internet infrastructure that fuels the transmission of data and has created a several billion-dollar e-commerce industry has developed at an unprecedented rate. ... The surge in applications for business method patents that can be applied on the Internet has been significant. ... Internet business method patent applications call upon two areas of patent law, namely algorithms and business methods, neither of which falls within the statutory definition of patents as defined under current United States patent law..