November 6, 2018
Articles
Putting the Reins on Autonomous Vehicle Liability: Why Horse Accidents Are the Best Common Law Analogy
Autonomous vehicles raise new liability questions on the road because the vehicles themselves can act negligently, independent of the human driver’s intentions. For now, these liability questions are expected to be answered through the incremental common law system, rather than by legislation. This means courts will draw analogies and distinctions between autonomous vehicle accidents and
David King, Putting the Reins on Autonomous Vehicle Liability: Why Horse Accidents Are the Best Common Law Analogy, 19 N.C.J.L. & Tech. 127 (2018), available at http://ncjolt.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/King_Final.pdf.
Leveraging Blockchain Technology in Property Records: Establishing Trust in a Risk-Filled Market
Blockchain technology has the potential to impact systems and processes across a broad spectrum of industries, including government functions. Several countries are currently exploring the application of blockchain technology to real property record management to take advantage of the security and ease that the platform can foster. Benefits may include lowered transaction costs, more secured
Maksymilian Ewendt, Leveraging Blockchain Technology in Property Records: Establishing Trust in a Risk-Filled Market, 19 N.C.J.L. & Tech. 99 (2018), available at http://ncjolt.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Ewendt_Final.pdf.
Political Machines: The Role of Software in Enabling and Detecting Partisan Gerrymandering Under the Whitford Standard
Partisan gerrymandering, the practice of shaping district lines to the advantage of one political party, has haunted American politics for centuries. Innovations in districting software have sharpened the effects of partisan gerrymanders by increasing their advantages while concealing their creation. In response, courts are reevaluating the judicial manageability of partisan gerrymandering. Any standard arising from
Graeme Earle, Political Machines: The Role of Software in Enabling and Detecting Partisan Gerrymandering Under the Whitford Standard, 19 N.C.J.L. & Tech. 67 (2018), available at http://ncjolt.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Earle_Final.pdf.
The Battle of the Verbs: The Ninth Circuit’s Reconciliation of “Verbing” with Trademark Law and Practices
In its recent decision in Elliot v. Google, the Ninth Circuit reinforced Google’s trademark significance against claims that the mark “google” should be canceled under the Lanham Act due to the public’s verb usage of the trademark. The public’s “verbing” of popular marks has become a particularly onerous problem for internet and technology trademark owners
Taylor Carrere, The Battle of the Verbs: The Ninth Circuit's Reconciliation of "Verbing" with Trademark Law and Practices, 19 N.C.J.L. & Tech. 33 (2018), available at http://ncjolt.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Carrere_Final.pdf.
The Missing Link Between Blockchain and Copyright: How Companies Are Using New Technology to Misinform Creators and Violate Federal Law
Blockchain technology has been hailed as a world-altering breakthrough that will change the ways information is stored, contracts are executed, and transactions are made. Blockchains are being integrated into a myriad of industries, but the law has been slow to respond to these implementations. However, this has not stopped supemerging companies, like Ascribe,1 from trumpeting
Sarah Anderson, The Missing Link Between Blockchain and Copyright: How Companies Are Using New Technology to Misinform Creators and Violate Federal Law, 19 N.C.J.L. & Tech. 1 (2018), available at http://ncjolt.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Anderson_Final.pdf.
Health Privacy and (Lack Of) Legal Protections In a Technology-Driven Economy
Applying the perspectives of law, technology, and economics, this article explores the privacy concerns arising from the ability of search engines and web domain owners to indiscriminately track an individual’s health-related internet searches. Using the hypothetical example of a forty-year-old woman diagnosed with high cholesterol who turns to Google to begin gathering data about her
Mystica M. Alexander, Cheryl Kirschner, Patrick A. Scholten & David J. Yates, Health Privacy and (Lack Of) Legal Protections In a Technology-Driven Economy, 19 N.C.J.L. & Tech. 1 (2017), available at http://ncjolt.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/ALEXANDER_Final-.pdf.
Taming The Golem: Challenges of Ethical Algorithmic Decision-Making
The prospect of digital manipulation on major online platforms reached fever pitch in the last election cycle in the United States. Jonathan Zittrain’s concern about “digital gerrymandering” found resonance in reports, which were resoundingly denied by Facebook, of the company’s alleged editing of content to tone down conservative voices. At the start of the last
Omer Tene & Jules Polonetsky, Taming The Golem: Challenges of Ethical Algorithmic Decision-Making, 19 N.C.J.L. & Tech. 125 (2017), available at http://ncjolt.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/TENE_Final.pdf.
The Tower of Babel Revisited: Global Governance as a Problematic Solution to Existential Threats
The Biblical story of the Tower of Babel illuminates contemporary efforts to secure ourselves from global catastrophic threats. Our advancing knowledge has allowed us to specify with greater clarity the Floods that we face (asteroids, supervolcanoes, gamma-ray bursts, etc.); our galloping powers of technology have spawned a new class of human-generated dangers (climate change, nuclear
Craig S. Lerner, The Tower of Babel Revisited: Global Governance as a Problematic Solution to Existential Threats, 19 N.C.J.L & Tech. 69 (2017), available at http://ncjolt.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/LERNER_Final-copy.pdf.
CRISPR GMOs
A genome editing revolution of unprecedented magnitude— spearheaded by a scientific breakthrough called CRISPR—is underway. This powerful technology has enabled scientists to precisely edit genes and is challenging long-held conventions of how humans view life. The incipient power to control and alter the genetic destiny of living organisms, including plants and animals intended for human
Paul Enríquez, CRISPR GMOs, 18 N.C.J.L. & Tech. 432 (2017), http://ncjolt.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/CRISPR-GMOs_Enríquez_Final_copy.pdf.
Grid Modernization and Energy Poverty
Grid modernization holds the alluring promise of rationalizing electricity pricing, saving consumers money, and improving environmental quality all at the same time. Yet, we have seen only limited and patchwork regulatory initiatives towards significant grid modernization in the United States. Outside of a few leading states, state energy regulators appear loath to embrace full- throated
Shelley Welton, Grid Modernization and Energy Poverty, 18 N.C.J.L. & Tech. 565 (2017), http://ncjolt.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Welton_copy.pdf.
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