Are We Legislating Away Our Scientific Future? The Database Debate

The ambiguity of the present copyright laws governing the protection of databases creates a situation where database owners, unsure of how IP laws safeguard their information, overprotect their data with oppressive licenses and technological mechanisms (condoned by the DMCA) that impede interoperation. Databases are fundamental to scientific research, yet the lack of interoperability between databases and limited access inhibits this research. The US Congress, spurred by the European Database Directive, and heavily lobbied by the commercial database industry, is presently considering ways to legislate database protections; most of the present suggestions for legislation will be detrimental to scientific progress. The author agrees that new legislation is necessary, but not to provide extra-copyright protections, as database owners would like, but to create an environment wherein data is easily accessible to academic research and interoperability is encouraged; yet simultaneously providing database owners with incentives to produce new databases. One possibility would be to introduce standardized compulsory licensing of databases to academics following an embargo period where databases could be sold at free-market prices (to recoup costs). Databases would be given some sort of intellectual property protection both during and after this embargo in return for a limiting of technical safeguards and conforming to interoperability standards

Is It Really Possible to Do the Kessel Run in Less than Twelve Parsecs and Should It Matter? Science and Film and its Policy Implications

The entertainment media influences our lives in a myriad of different ways--from the way we dress, to the language we use, to the products we buy. What might be less obvious are its influences on national policies. This Article, an introductory foray into the effects of media on policy, focuses on the effect that movies have on science policies in the United States and around the world. Through an analysis of both classic and recent blockbuster films and concurrent events involving science policies, this Article argues that Hollywood exerts an inordinate amount of influence on national science policies, and even extends beyond that to affect biotechnology markets. Acknowledging this important influence, the Article then examines why this may be the case. While a thorough analysis of related First Amendment jurisprudence suggests that some of the most radical solutions to tamp down Hollywood\u27s influences, including limited censorship, may not always run afoul of constitutional free speech rights, this Article nevertheless proposes that the scientific community should take proactive measures to either prevent or hamper Hollywood from promoting bad science policies

In Re Seagate: Did it Really Fix the Waiver Issue? A Short Review and Analysis of Waiver Resulting From the Use of a Counsel\u27s Opinion Letter as a Defense to Willful Infringement

The Federal Circuit, through its decision in Seagate, sought to clarify and definitively establish various consequences of an assertion of willful infringement by a patentee. This comment discusses the history and potential outcomes of the Seagate decision; first, by outlining basic issues of privilege and immunity and examining the history of uncertainty regarding waiver leading up to the Seagate decision. The remainder of the comment examines the potential outcomes of the decision, and presents possible resolutions to further resolve the issue and more fully repair attorney-client privilege and immunity

Direct Digital Engagement of Patients and Democratizing Health Care

Direct Digital Engagement of Patients and Democratizing Health Car

Research Fraud: Methods For Dealing With An Issue That Negatively Impacts Society's View Of Science

Like the legal and medical professions, the relatively insular academic scientific community has always preferred to deal with instances of misconduct quietly, without external intervention. Recent highly publicized instances of scientific misconduct have shocked the community, renewing calls for alternative approaches to address this growing threat to science's position of trust within society, and consequently the public's generous funding of academic research. Science's inability to effectively define the outer boundaries of misconduct, coupled with a lack of ethics education and enforcement, has led to the current situation. This article examines the current level of fraud and enforcement and suggests some policy alternatives to the status quo.This article first presents a novel tiered structure based on a simple analysis of two basic components of any instance of scientific misconduct, to provide a method to discriminate between different levels of misconduct. Next, this article looks to a number of authorities and institutions that could educate current and future scientists about the nature and effects of fraud in scientific research. Finally, this article explores options for enforcing and punishing instances of misconduct, including both civil and criminal, particularly mindful of the devastating career implications resulting from any association with an investigation of misconduct. In this vein, First Amendment and due process issues are highlighted and examined. This article concludes that, given the devastating repercussions to even exonerated scientists, a criminal code that takes into account the particular concerns of the scientific community would best provide protection for scientists and promote a more ethical scientific community

Call for Standardization in Patent Claim Drafting

Call for Standardization in Patent Claim Draftin

Genomics and Privacy: Implications of the New Reality of Closed Data for the Field

Open source and open data have been driving forces in bioinformatics in the past. However, privacy concerns may soon change the landscape, limiting future access to important data sets, including personal genomics data. Here we survey this situation in some detail, describing, in particular, how the large scale of the data from personal genomic sequencing makes it especially hard to share data, exacerbating the privacy problem. We also go over various aspects of genomic privacy: first, there is basic identifiability of subjects having their genome sequenced. However, even for individuals who have consented to be identified, there is the prospect of very detailed future characterization of their genotype, which, unanticipated at the time of their consent, may be more personal and invasive than the release of their medical records. We go over various computational strategies for dealing with the issue of genomic privacy. One can “slice” and reformat datasets to allow them to be partially shared while securing the most private variants. This is particularly applicable to functional genomics information, which can be largely processed without variant information. For handling the most private data there are a number of legal and technological approaches—for example, modifying the informed consent procedure to acknowledge that privacy cannot be guaranteed, and/or employing a secure cloud computing environment. Cloud computing in particular may allow access to the data in a more controlled fashion than the current practice of downloading and computing on large datasets. Furthermore, it may be particularly advantageous for small labs, given that the burden of many privacy issues falls disproportionately on them in comparison to large corporations and genome centers. Finally, we discuss how education of future genetics researchers will be important, with curriculums emphasizing privacy and data security. However, teaching personal genomics with identifiable subjects in the university setting will, in turn, create additional privacy issues and social conundrums