Intellectual Property Law

Theory or Theorizing

Posted on February 08, 2007
Law and Technology TheoryI would like to extend a warm thank-you to Gaia for her introduction and also to Gaia, Frank and Jim for organising this forum. I would also like to thank my virtual colleagues who have contributed. In preparing for my posts I have had the pleasure reviewing earlier contributions and have again been struck with the thoughtfulness and thought provoking nature of what has gone before...

Introducing Kieran Tranter

Posted on February 07, 2007
First, I would like to extend many thanks to Peter Yu for his interesting posts and for instigating a great discussion.It is now my pleasure to introduce Kieran Tranter who is a Senior Lecturer at Griffith Law School in Australia. Kieran worked in museums and poverty law practice, before beginning teaching at the College of Law, University of Notre Dame Australia as a Lecturer and Social Justice Coordinator...

Three Observations on a General Theory of Law and Technology

Posted on February 05, 2007
This final post will offer some of my thoughts about what a general theory of law and technology should (and should not) be about. "Taking the technology out" seems to be a point that the symposium participants have raised repeatedly in both their posts and comments...

Why Was the Internet Different?

Posted on February 03, 2007
In this second post, I will discuss why the Court treated the Internet differently from motion pictures? As Michael Risch pointed out, there are at least two responses. First, the Internet is a "different animal." Second, the First Amendment landscape in the mid-1990s was very different from what it was at the turn of the twentieth century...

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New Media at the Turn of the Century

Posted on January 31, 2007
Thank you, Frank, for the very kind introduction, and Gaia, for inviting me to participate in this symposium. In an earlier article, I discussed how the encounter of the Church, medieval scribes and Venetian printers with the Gutenberg press had provided interesting insights into our current response to the "digital dilemma" created by the Internet and new media technologies...

Introducing Peter Yu

Posted on January 29, 2007
Thanks very much for those fascinating posts, Arthur. I look forward to offering some comments once the infamous "March window" of American law review publication passes.This week, I'm honored to welcome Peter K. Yu (???) to Law and Technology Theory...

A Synthetic Theory of Law and Technology

Posted on January 25, 2007
I?d like to start my last post by thanking Gaia, Frank and Jim for putting this blog together. I also now see my link to ?digital biosphere? in yesterday's post was wrong, should be okay now.Today?s post will discuss a forthcoming co-authored work (with Jason Pridmore) ?A Synthetic Theory of Law and Technology, Minnesota Journal of Science and Technology (forthcoming 2007)? where we discuss how a synthetic theory of law and technology could inform law and tech analysis?I don?t have a copy posted anywhere but I?d be happy to email you a copy of the draft, if interested...

Promoting Conversations among Different Tech Law Analysts

Posted on January 24, 2007
Can the regulation of cars tell us something about proposed Internet laws? Can the approval process for new biotech drugs help us to understand copyright law? Does legal analysis share common attributes when faced with situations involving technological change? Is it worth studying technology change and its broad interplay with law? If a tree falls in the forest does it make a sound? The hope is that working toward a law and technology theory could help us to answer at least some of these questions (although the last one is tricky)...

On The Potential for a Law and Technology Theory

Posted on January 22, 2007
Thanks for the kind introduction Gaia. I thought I?d start off with a boosterish post on the potential for a law and technology theory.What could such a theory accomplish? Could it ensure world peace? Solve ongoing scientific attempts to generate a unified field theory? Provide every hungry child with a bowl of steaming porridge? Well, maybe or maybe not ?Here?s the real potential: law and technology theory could help us to organize and make sense of the various areas of law with law and technology themes (copyright, biotech, cyberlaw, new media, etc...

Introducing Arthur Cockfield

Posted on January 22, 2007
Thank you to Greg Mandel for a week of very interesting posts! It is my great pleasure to introduce Arthur Cockfield. Art is Associate Dean and Associate Professor at Queen?s University Faculty of Law in Canada. He received his J.S.D. and J.S.M. from Stanford Law School, his LL...

Guideline III: The Types of New Technology Disputes are Unforeseeable

Posted on January 19, 2007
The final guideline that I offer here for a general theory of law and technology is that decision-makers must remain cognizant of the limits of their knowledge about new technology and the unforeseeability of what new issues will arise in the future. Particularly in initial stages of technological development, it is inevitable that legal disputes concerning a new technology will be handled under preexisting legal schemes...

Guideline II: Do Not be Blinded by the Technology

Posted on January 18, 2007
A second guideline for law and technology is that decision-makers must look through the technology involved in a dispute to focus on the legal issues in question. Sometimes decision-makers have a tendency to be blinded by spectacular technological achievement...

Guideline I: Examine the Basis for Legal Constructs

Posted on January 17, 2007
The first guideline for a general theory of law and technology I propose is that one must examine the basis for preexisting existing legal categories before extending them to new technology issues. Examples of the invention of the telegraph 150 years ago and the development of the Internet today help to elucidate this point...

History Lessons for a General Theory of Law and Technology

Posted on January 16, 2007
Thank you for the introduction Frank, and thank you Gaia and Frank for organizing this discussion. I am excited to take part in it.I want to elaborate on a theme that has been touched on in several posts and comments: whether certain legal issues that arise as a result of technological change are recurring...

Welcome Gregory Mandel

Posted on January 16, 2007
It is my great pleasure to introduce Professor Gregory Mandel to Law & Technology Theory. I found Mandel's Technology Wars: The Failure of Democratic Discourse to be one of those rare monographs indispensable to understanding current technology policy...

Many Thanks to Andrea Matwyshyn

Posted on January 16, 2007
Thanks very much to Andrea for a week of fascinating posts. I'm afraid I was in the midst of writing a technology self-study for my law school, so didn't have much time to comment at the time, but hope to later. One of the nice things about this format is that the opportunity for comment that disappears at the end of "real-space" conference panels is always available in cyberspace.

Casestudy in Legal Linearity: The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)

Posted on January 12, 2007
As discussed previously, developmental psychology has moved toward a nonlinear paradigm driven by studying individuals in social context. The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act framework, however, presents a static framework that does not take into account the nonlinear nature of development...

Crafting Nonlinear Technology Regulation

Posted on January 12, 2007
Nonlinear developmental theory offers five concrete lessons for crafting successful technology regulation.First, nonlinear developmental theory instructs us that human development and learning is always situated; the proximate zone of development varies across individuals...

Humans + Technology = Emergent Behaviors, part II

Posted on January 10, 2007
Albert Bandura?s Social Learning Theory presents an analysis consonant with Vygotsky and Bronfenbrenner. Bandura's theory views the person-environment interaction as a three way exchange in which the person, an entity with unique characteristics, performs a behavior in an environment which responds to the person and the behavior in a process of reciprocal determinism; it is an idiosyncratic interaction...

Humans + Technology = Emergent Behaviors, part I

Posted on January 10, 2007
A group of other developmental theorists, however, developed decidedly nonlinear approaches that hold important contrary insights to the approach of Piaget and other linear developmental theorists. The works of these theorists argues that development and identity are inherently dialectical and interactionist joint constructions...

Humans + Technology = A Straight Line?

Posted on January 10, 2007
Linear and nonlinear developmental psychology differ in key assumptions about the manner humans interact with the world around them, in particular with "tools" like technology.Linear developmental psychology theory, as demonstrated by the work of Jean Piaget, creates an age-contingent, lock-step trajectory for human development...

The Most Volatile Technology: The User

Posted on January 09, 2007
Thank you for the introduction and for including me in this project.Perhaps the first steps in generating a successful broader theory of technology and law include identifying defining characteristics of such a theory. One of these defining characteristics is the ability of the theory to co-evolve with the particular incarnations of technologies we seek to govern...

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