Using Artificial Intelligence in the Law Review Submissions Process

The use of artificial intelligence to help editors examine law review submissions may provide a way to improve an overburdened system. This Article is the first to explore the promise and pitfalls of using artificial intelligence in the law review submissions process. Technology-assisted review of submissions offers many possible benefits. It can simplify preemption checks, prevent plagiarism, detect failure to comply with formatting requirements, and identify missing citations. These efficiencies may allow editors to address serious flaws in the current selection process, including the use of heuristics that may result in discriminatory outcomes and dependence on lower-ranked journals to conduct the initial review of submissions. Although editors should not rely on a score assigned by an algorithm to decide whether to accept an article, technology-assisted review could increase the efficiency of initial screening and provide feedback to editors on their selection decisions. Uncovering potential human bias in the existing selection process may encourage editors to develop ways to minimize its harmful effects. Despite these benefits, using artificial intelligence to streamline the submissions process raises significant concerns. Technology-assisted review may enable efficient implementation of existing biases into the selection process, rather than correcting them. Artificial intelligence systems may rely on considerations that result in discriminatory effects and negatively impact groups that are not adequately represented during development. The tendency to defer to seemingly neutral and often opaque algorithms can increase the risk of adverse outcomes. With careful oversight, however, some of these concerns can be addressed. Even an imperfect system may be worth using in limited situations where the benefits substantially outweigh the potential harms. With appropriate supervision, circumscribed application, and ongoing refinement, artificial intelligence may provide a more efficient and fairer submissions experience for both editors and authors

Preserving the Fruits of Labor: Impediments to University Inventor Mobility

Academic inventors must overcome numerous obstacles when they seek to leave their parent universities. The results of their work are often intertwined in what I call innovation-essential components, which are important aspects of the. innovative process that create strong ties to the parent university, such as data, patents, trade secrets, grants, contracts, materials, and other agreements and restrictions. Innovation-essential components effectively bind university inventors to their parent institutions, making departure unworkable without the university\u27s approval. Universities sometimes further complicate inventor mobility by entering into unlawful agreements with other academic institutions in their efforts to prevent inventor movement or by engaging in questionable practices in the process of poaching an inventor. Impediments to mobility for academic inventors raise several issues. The unique knowledge university inventors gain about their nascent inventions is often essential to bring their ideas to market. Unduly burdening inventor use of their inventions may inhibit the full realization of their unique and valuable knowledge. Further, community norms and philosophical principles about inventors\u27 ability to use their inventions may conflict with legal doctrine, creating tensions when limitations prevent inventors from using the technology they created. Inhibitions on inventor mobility may also contradict the foundational objectives of educational institutions. This Article discusses issues that may arise when academic inventors seek to leave their parent universities, providing a case study from the largely-overlooked strawberry industry. It concludes by evaluating mechanisms to mitigate potential harms caused by such conflicts

Data-Generating Patents

Patents and trade secrets are often considered economic substitutes. Under this view, inventors can decide either to maintain an invention as a trade secret or to seek a patent and disclose to the public the details of the invention. However, a handful of scholars have recognized that because the patent disclosure requirements are not always rigorous, inventors may sometimes be able to keep certain aspects of an invention secret, yet still receive a patent to the invention as a whole. Here, we provide further insight into how trade secrets and patents may act as complements. Specifically, we introduce the concept of “data-generating patents,” which refer to patents on inventions involving technologies that by design generate valuable data through their operation or use. For instance, genetic tests and medical devices produce data about patients. Internet search engines and social networking websites generate data about the interests of consumers. When data-generating inventions are patented, and the patentee enjoys market power over the invention, by implication, the patentee also effectively enjoys market power over the data generated by the invention. Trade secret law further protects the patentee’s market power over the data, even where that data is in a market distinct from the patented invention and especially after the patent expires or is invalidated. We contend that the use of patents and trade secrets as complements in this manner may sometimes yield socially harmful results. We identify the conditions under which such results occur and make several recommendations to mitigate their effects

Patents, Information, and Innovation

Inventors and commercialization partners often rely on patents to facilitate the exchange of sensitive information. Most scholarship in this area has focused on the areas of software and biotechnology. To provide a richer description of the role of patents in the innovative process, this project evaluates the existing literature and sets forth examples drawn from a series of interviews with professionals from the largely-overlooked medical device industry. The limited analysis of the medical device industry has focused on the largest few dozen firms—as publicly-traded entities, a great deal of data about them is readily available. Small medical device companies are typically privately held, so information about them is more difficult to obtain. The description and analysis set forth in this Article begins to fill that gap. I found that emerging medical device companies often depend on patent protection to help foster communication with investors and negotiate the alliances necessary to develop their inventions. Understanding the role of patents in the medical device industry can serve as a barometer of how well the patent system in general is functioning in accordance with its historic purpose of promoting progress

Patents, Information, and Innovation

Inventors and commercialization partners often rely on patents to facilitate the exchange of sensitive information. Most scholarship in this area has focused on the areas of software and biotechnology. To provide a richer description of the role of patents in the innovative process, this project evaluates the existing literature and sets forth examples drawn from a series of interviews with professionals from the largely-overlooked medical device industry. The limited analysis of the medical device industry has focused on the largest few dozen firms—as publicly-traded entities, a great deal of data about them is readily available. Small medical device companies are typically privately held, so information about them is more difficult to obtain. The description and analysis set forth in this Article begins to fill that gap. I found that emerging medical device companies often depend on patent protection to help foster communication with investors and negotiate the alliances necessary to develop their inventions. Understanding the role of patents in the medical device industry can serve as a barometer of how well the patent system in general is functioning in accordance with its historic purpose of promoting progress

Glial cells are functionally impaired in juvenile neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis and detrimental to neurons.

The neuronal ceroid lipofuscinoses (NCLs or Batten disease) are a group of inherited, fatal neurodegenerative disorders of childhood. In these disorders, glial (microglial and astrocyte) activation typically occurs early in disease progression and predicts where neuron loss subsequently occurs. We have found that in the most common juvenile form of NCL (CLN3 disease or JNCL) this glial response is less pronounced in both mouse models and human autopsy material, with the morphological transformation of both astrocytes and microglia severely attenuated or delayed. To investigate their properties, we isolated glia and neurons from Cln3-deficient mice and studied their basic biology in culture. Upon stimulation, both Cln3-deficient astrocytes and microglia also showed an attenuated ability to transform morphologically, and an altered protein secretion profile. These defects were more pronounced in astrocytes, including the reduced secretion of a range of neuroprotective factors, mitogens, chemokines and cytokines, in addition to impaired calcium signalling and glutamate clearance. Cln3-deficient neurons also displayed an abnormal organization of their neurites. Most importantly, using a co-culture system, Cln3-deficient astrocytes and microglia had a negative impact on the survival and morphology of both Cln3-deficient and wildtype neurons, but these effects were largely reversed by growing mutant neurons with healthy glia. These data provide evidence that CLN3 disease astrocytes are functionally compromised. Together with microglia, they may play an active role in neuron loss in this disorder and can be considered as potential targets for therapeutic interventions

The World According To GARP

This technical report consists of two papers describing the GARP concurrent programming system. Garp: Graph Abstractions for Concurrent Programming investigates construction of dynamic process topologies in parallel processing languages. It proposes the use of a graph-grammar based formalism to control the complexities arising from trying to program such dynamic networks. Garp: A Graphical Language for Concurrent Programming describes the GARP system, a programming environment that implements this graph-grammar approach, and gives solutions to example problems in which the topologies of concurrent systems dynamically change

Misuse made plain: Evaluating concerns about neuroscience in national security

In this open peer commentary, we categorize the possible “neuroscience in national security” definitions of misuse of science and identify which, if any, are uniquely presented by advances in neuroscience. To define misuse, we first define what we would consider appropriate use: the application of reasonably safe and effective technology, based on valid and reliable scientific research, to serve a legitimate end. This definition presents distinct opportunities for assessing misuse: misuse is the application of invalid or unreliable science, or is the use of reliable scientific methods to serve illegitimate ends. Ultimately, we conclude that while national security is often a politicized issue, assessing the state of scientific progress should not be

Dynamic optimal taxation with human capital.

This paper revisits the dynamic optimal taxation results of Jones, Manuelli, and Rossi (1993, 1997). They use a growth model with human capital and find that optimal taxes on both capital income and labor income converge to zero in steady state. For one of the models under consideration, I show that the representative household's problem does not have an interior solution. This raises concerns since these corners are inconsistent with aggregate data. Interiority is restored if preferences are modified so that human capital augments the value of leisure time. With this change, the optimal tax problem is analyzed and, reassuringly, the Jones, Manuelli, and Rossi results are confirmed: neither capital income nor labor income should be taxed in steady state