IP & Innovation

Intellectual Property and Information Law Past Events

Intellectual Property Law [Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy]
 

Tenth Anniversary Open Hardware Summit
March 13, 2020
Event Page

The Open Hardware Summit is an annual conference held by the Open Source Hardware Association (OSHWA).  The Summit brings together the best of open source hardware for a day of demos, discussions, and more.

Public Interest Careers in Technology Panel
February 28, 2020
Event Page

Interested in a career in public interest law and technology? Join PILC and the Engelberg Center on Innovation Law and Technology for a panel discussion with alumni and others to learn more about this varied and important field. Our panel featured Alexia Ramirez ‘19 of the ACLU Speech, Privacy & Technology Project, Albert Fox Cahn of the Surveillance Oversight Technology Project (and an Engelberg Center Fellow), and Elizabeth Daniel Vasquez ’13 of Brooklyn Defender Services.

Careers in Tech (Limited to Current NYU Law Students)
January 29, 2020

This Careers in Tech networking event is a collaboration between the IPELS Tech Committee and the Engelberg Center.  Meet in-house employers that are offering 1L summer legal internships. 

Feeding a Baby Unicorn: What Startups Want From Their Lawyers
January 22, 2020
Event Page

Join the Engelberg Center, The Fourth Floor, and a panel of experienced startup attorneys as they discuss their experiences hiring, firing, and working with outside counsel. This is a rare opportunity for law firm lawyers, law students, and the tech community to hear directly from decision makers and understand the client view of startup law.

Tenth Annual Tri-State Region IP Workshop
January 10, 2020
Workshop Site

The one-day conference brought together intellectual property scholars from the tri-state region to present their works in progress for discussion in a workshop environment.

Legal Madness
November 18, 2019
LegalMadness.Party

Working in a tech company can be madness, and lawyers at those companies have a front row seat. In house attorneys have tales to tell, but confidentiality obligations have kept them silent. Until now....The Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy has collected anonymous stories from lawyers inside tech companies. Actors will play the role of tech lawyers at an open mic night in the Village.

IPNY: Andelka Phillips on Buying your Genetic Self Online
October 29, 2019
Event Page

This edition of the IPNY series featured a presentation from Andelka Phillips, Senior Lecturer at Te Piringa, Faculty of Law, the University of Waikato in New Zealand and Research Associate at the University of Oxford's Centre for Health, Law, and Emerging Technologies, UK.  Professor Phillips discussed her forthcoming book Buying Your Self on the Internet: Wrap Contracts and Personal Genomics. The IPNY series allows the NYC IP community to come together and connect. 

NYU Law & Tech: Impact of Innovation
October 15, 2019
Event Page

Legal tech is here. So is a lot of hype. What’s happening today that will actually have a meaningful impact on your practice? Come have a drink and meet NYU Law alumni who left biglaw to found leading legal technology companies as they discuss key trends with law firm, corporate and academic leaders, answering questions from NYU Law students with PhDs in Computer Science and Engineering.

Featuring: Allegory, Engelberg Center for Innovation Law & Policy, Kira Systems, Latham & Watkins, Nixon Peabody, NY Legal Tech Meetup, Rights Over Tech, Revantage, Reynen Court, PacerPro & Paladin

Engelberg Center Student Happy Hour and Book Launch Party
September 17, 2019
Event Page

Come meet and reconnect with other NYU Law students interested in IP, innovation, law, and technology at the Engelberg Center's fall happy hour. Engelberg Center Faculty Co-Directors and staff were on hand to talk about the upcoming year. We also celebrated the launch of the new open copyright casebook Copyright Law: Cases and Materials by Engelberg Center Co-Directors Professor Jeanne Fromer and Professor Christopher Sprigman.

IPNY: Rebecca Giblin on Moving Towards a New Copyright Bargain
September 10, 2019
Event Page

This edition of the IPNY series featured a presentation from Rebecca Giblin, ARC Future Fellow and Associate Professor at Monash University, Australia presenting "Moving Towards a New Copyright Bargain". The IPNY series allows the NYC IP community to come together and connect. 

Proving IP
May 16-17, 2019
Conference site
Event video

Proving IP examined the practicalities of establishing required elements in order to prove infringement or defend against allegations of infringement.  It brought together scholars, practitioners, and experts with firsthand experience translating legal theory into legal practice.

IPNY: New EU Rules for Content Platforms
April 23, 2019
Event Page

Giuseppe Mazziotti discussed the provisions contained in the new EU Copyright Directive, as well as provided critical context on the forces that lead to this legislative change.

Follow the Law/Break the Mold
(Restricted to NYU Law students and Alumni)
April 11, 2019
Event Page

Engelberg Center Fellow Sarah Feingold (former GC and first in-house attorney of Etsy and Vroom) introduced her nontraditional career path mentorship program for NYU students and recent graduates.

Race + IP
April 5-6, 2019
Conference site

Event Video

Race + IP explored how IP reflects and reinforces inequalities along lines of race, gender, sexual orientation, class and disability.

McCarthy Institute Symposium 2019 at NYU: Trademark Law and Its Challenges
February 1, 2019

The 10th annual McCarthy Institute Symposium covered a range of thought provoking topics intersecting trademark issues, consumer behavior, and marketing. Industry-leading practitioners and scholars presented original research, including case law updates, and moderate panels covering dynamic IP and branding issues like: non-traditional trademark applications, empirical consumer survey evidence, digital marketing and search optimization, and the cultural, linguistic, and behavioral shifts affecting trademarks and brand recognition.

Ninth Annual NYU Tri-State Region IP Workshop
January 18, 2019

The 2019 Tri-State Region IP Workshop brought together intellectual property scholars (including professors, fellows, visitors, graduate students, and practitioners) from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Philadelphia to present their works in progress for commentary in a workshop environment. The papers examined issues concerning patent law, IP law, access, and speech, IP science and knowledge transfer, and IP’s purposes and values.

Limitations on Trademark Rights from Comparative and Interdisciplinary Perspectives
January 7-8, 2019
The University of Hong Kong
Conference Website

The Engelberg Center and the Law and the Law and Technology Center at the University of Hong Kong co-sponsor a conference on the limitations on trademark rights.  The conference brought together scholars from around the world to explore the nature and scope of those limitations from comparative and interdisciplinary perspectives.

FTC Hearing on Competition and Consumer Protection in the 21st Century
December 6, 2018
FTC Event Website

The Engelberg Center on Innovation Law and Policy hosted the Federal Trade Commission's eighth session of its Hearings Initiative.  The day's panels examined concerns that acquisitions and holdings of non-controlling ownership interests in competing companies, for example by institutional investors, may have anticompetitive effects.

2018 IP Institute
November 29, 2018

The 2018 IP Institute, co-hosted by the Engelberg Center and Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, brought together leading judges, scholars, business people, and lawyers in the field to discuss developments across a range of intellectual property topics. Professor Rochelle Dreyfuss and David J. Kappos, Partner, Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, organized the program. The day-long event, which began with introductory remarks by the Honorable Colleen McMahon (U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York) and featured panels on blockchain and a judicial perspectives panel.

Conference on Trade Secrets and Algorithmic Systems
November 16-17, 2018
Conference website

The Information Law Institute and Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy co-sponsored a Conference on Trade Secrets and Algorithmic Systems on November 16-17, 2018.  A cross-disciplinary group of scholars and experts examined trade secrecy's implications for data-driven decision making. 

This conference explored the increasingly important issues raised by trade secrecy protection of data-driven decisionmaking algorithms.  Its distinctive contribution was to bring innovation policy and intellectual property law expertise to the emerging debate about these tools.  Participants:

  • Examined the extent to which trade secrecy is a necessary and desirable means for promoting socially desirable innovation in decisionmaking algorithms and consider possible alternatives. 
  • Considered the potential implications of trade secrecy for competition among developers of decisionmaking algorithms.
  • Discussed the implications of trade secrecy for the ongoing validation, error correction and updating of these tools. 
  • Analyzed the intersection between these innovation policy issues and the concerns about accountability, transparency, privacy and fairness that have so far dominated the debate about data-driven decisionmaking algorithms.

NYU Law & Tech: Impact of Innovation
October 22, 2018

Sponsored by NYU Law Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy; NYU Law Office of Career Services; and PacerPro.

The pace of legal innovation, largely driven by technology, is accelerating rapidly. That brings significant opportunities—and challenges—for how lawyers can, and should, be serving their clients. During this one hour panel, experts will discuss key areas of innovation and the implications of technological change. Noah Waisberg (CEO, Kira Systems), Chris Martin (Lead Innovation and Technology Solutions Attorney, Latham & Watkins), Ron Friedmann (Partner, Fireman & Company), Alma Asay (Chief Innovation Officer, Legal Solutions, Integreon), Anna McGrane (COO, PacerPro).

16th International Open and User Innovation Conference
August 6-8, 2018

The International Open and User Innovation Conference (OUI) is the leading academic conference on Open and User Innovation. Around 250 top researchers from various disciplines (such as innovation management, strategic management, organization design, marketing, intellectual property and innovation policy and entrepreneurship) meet annually, in order to exchange recent research findings and plans related to Open and User Innovation. Professor Katherine Strandburg and the Engelberg Center are co-organizing this conference along with NYU Stern School of Business and Fubon Center for Technology, Business and Innovation.

2018 Summit on Global Dispute Resolution
April 26, 2018

Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP and the Engelberg Center co-sponsored a one-day program on current issues and significant developments in the field of global dispute resolution. Program speakers included: Dr. Henry Kissinger, former U.S. Secretary of State; Judge Bernardo Sepúlveda, Mexico’s former Secretary of Foreign Affairs; the Honorable Richard Berman (S.D.N.Y.); the Honorable William G. Young (D. Mass.); scholars from Columbia Law, Fordham Law, Georgetown Law, NYU Law and Yale Law; senior in-house counsel from Fortune 500 and other multinational companies; and lawyers from some of the world’s leading law firms and arbitral organizations.

Patent Law Essentials: What Scientists, Engineers & Entrepreneurs Need to Know
April 14, 2018

Patent protection for inventions is a valuable component of business strategy for startups and established companies. This workshop covered the basics of US patent law, including the patent application process, prosecution, litigation, and licensing. We discussed what recent developments in patent law mean for inventors, and drew examples ranging from the computer software to the pharmaceutical industries. The Engelberg Center sponsored this workshop.

Taking Stock: The Impact and Implications for the Music Industry of the Web IV, Phonorecords III, and the SDARS III Proceedings
March 23, 2018

This half-day conference brought together industry representatives, policy experts, and distinguished academics to discuss the ramifications of the rates recently set by the Copyright Royalty Board in the Web IV, Phonorecords III, and SDARS III proceedings. Jointly hosted by The Brattle Group, the Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy, and the NYU Steinhardt Music Business Program, in collaboration with the Music Industry Research Association (MIRA).

Eighth Annual Tri-State Region IP Workshop
January 12, 2018

The 2018 Tri-State Region IP Workshop brought together intellectual property scholars (including professors, fellows, visitors, graduate students, and practitioners) from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Philadelphia to present their works in progress for commentary in a workshop environment. The papers examined issues concerning patent law, copyright law, teaching intellectual property, and intellectual property theory.

2017 IP Institute
November 30, 2017

The 2017 IP Institute, co-hosted by the Engelberg Center and Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, brought together leading judges, scholars, business people, and lawyers in the field to discuss developments across a range of intellectual property topics. The day-long event, which began with introductory remarks by the Honorable Katherine B. Forrest (U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York) and featured a demonstration of IBM’s Watson technology.

Book Talk: Governing Medical Knowledge Commons
October 26, 2017

The Engelberg Center celebrated the launch of Governing Medical Knowledge Commons, a book edited by Katherine Strandburg, Brett Frischmann, and Michael Madison (Cambridge University Press).  Michael Burstein ’04, Professor of Law at Cardozo Law, provided commentary.  Building on the editors’ prior work, Governing Medical Knowledge Commons provides 15 new case studies of knowledge commons in which researchers, medical professionals, and patients generate, improve, and share innovations, offering readers a practical introduction to the knowledge commons framework and a synthesis of conclusions and lessons.

United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit Session at NYU Law
October 4, 2017

The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit was at the Law School on to hear Oral Arguments in four cases: In Re Openings (16-2307), Securiforce International v. Microdea, Inc. (16-2589), R+L Carriers, Inc. v. Microdea, Inc. (16-2688), and Industrial Models, Inc. v. SNF, Inc. (17-1172).  Katherine Strandburg, Alfred B. Engelberg Professor of Law and Faculty Co-Director of the Engelberg Center on Innovation Law and Policy, moderated a question and answer session with the judges after arguments conclude. The judges were: Timothy Dyk, Kathleen O’Malley, and Evan Wallach.

The Patentability of the Life Sciences Inventions in Europe versus the United States
September 28, 2017

The U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Mayo and Alice have spurred uncertainty concerning the patentability of life sciences inventions in the United States.  A growing perception is that the European Patent Office is treating more favorably European equivalents of life sciences inventions which are unable to secure patent protection in the United States.  Such an outcome would undermine the global integration of patent standards and would increase the cost and complexity of obtaining global patent family protection in the life sciences. This state of affairs calls for assessing patentability requirements at an international level. Our panel compared and contrasted the standards applied to life sciences invention at the European Patent Office and the United States Patent and Trademark Office, and explained, for hypothetical inventions, how the result could differ under each regime.

NYU Microsoft IP Academic Roundtable
September 15, 2017

In an invitation-only session, thought leaders at Microsoft and select academics met for a day of discussion on cutting-edge issues in intellectual property and innovation law and policy.  Among the topics of the day were the Patent Trial and Appeal Board and district court litigation, the interplay of courts and Congress in evolving patent policy, design patents, and artificial intelligence.

Design2 Conference
May 11, 2017

A day-long gathering where innovation and intellectual property scholars presented their works in progress for commentary in a workshop environment. The papers for review examined issues on a variety of topics relating to innovation and intellectual property protection in design. The program included keynote talks by design experts Judy Yee (Microsoft) and Michael Bierut (Pentagram). The conference concluded with a paper slam in which authors shared information and invited commentary on their works in early stages of development.

International Intellectual Property Law Roundtable
April 7-8, 2017

This year, the Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy at NYU School of Law hosted the annual International Intellectual Property Law Roundtable. Members of the Roundtable presented works in progress in a variety of fields, including international trademark law, trade secrecy law, and enforcement, as well as papers at intersection of intellectual property and development, human rights, and trade.

The End of Ownership: Personal Property in the Digital Economy
April 4, 2017

If you buy a book at the bookstore, you own it. You can take it home, scribble in the margins, put in on the shelf, lend it to a friend, sell it at a garage sale. But is the same thing true for the ebooks or other digital goods you buy? Retailers and copyright holders argue that you don’t own those purchases, you merely license them. That means your ebook vendor can delete the book from your device without warning or explanation—as Amazon deleted Orwell’s 1984 from the Kindles of surprised readers several years ago. These readers thought they owned their copies of 1984. Until, it turned out, they didn’t. In The End of Ownership, Aaron Perzanowski and Jason Schultz explored how notions of ownership have shifted in the digital marketplace, and make an argument for the benefits of personal property. Of course, ebooks, cloud storage, streaming, and other digital goods offer users convenience and flexibility. But, Perzanowski and Schultz warn, consumers should be aware of the tradeoffs involving user constraints, permanence, and privacy. The rights of private property are clear, but few people manage to read their end user agreements. Perzanowski and Schultz argued that introducing aspects of private property and ownership into the digital marketplace would offer both legal and economic benefits. But, most important, it would affirm our sense of self-direction and autonomy. If we own our purchases, we are free to make whatever lawful use of them we please. Technology need not constrain our freedom; it can also empower us.

Oracle v. Google and the Rise of the API© Dead
March 28, 2017

An entertaining multimedia presentation by Peter S. Menell (UC Berkeley Law, Koret Professor of Law and Co-Director, Berkeley Center for Law & Technology) concerning the long-running IP litigation between Oracle and Google pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.  At issue in Oracle v. Google is whether Oracle can claim a copyright on Java APIs (software) and, if so, whether Google infringes these copyrights.  Christopher Sprigman (NYU School of Law and Engelberg Center Faculty Co-Director) provided commentary.

The CRISPR Patent Battle:  Implications for Downstream Innovation and Commercialization in Gene Editing
March 21, 2017

A presentation on the recent litigation between two universities (the MIT- and Harvard-affiliated Broad Institute versus UC Berkeley) concerning their respective patent claims to the gene editing technology CRISPRCas9.  Our expert panelists discussed the CRISPR technology, which was developed via federal research grants, and the patent litigation issues.  In particular, they offered their perspectives on how the recent ruling may affect the short-term strategy of companies seeking to innovate using the CRISPR platform, and the longer-term implications of these universities’ CRISPR licensing strategies for downstream innovation using the CRISPR platform.

Seventh Annual Tri-State Region IP Workshop
January 13, 2017
Agenda

The 2017 Tri-State Region IP Workshop brought together intellectual property scholars (including professors, fellows, visitors, graduate students, and practitioners) from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Philadelphia to present their works in progress for commentary in a workshop environment. The papers examined issues concerning patent law, copyright law, teaching intellectual property, and intellectual property theory.

2016 IP Institute
December 1, 2016
Agenda

The 2016 IP Institute, co-hosted by the Engelberg Center and Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, brought together leading judges, scholars, business people, and lawyers in the field to discuss developments across a range of intellectual property topics. The speakers included: The Honorable Raymond T. Chen (U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit); The Honorable Paul R. Michel (U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit) (Retired); The Honorable Leonard P. Stark (U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware); The Honorable Joseph J. Farnan, Jr. (U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware) (Retired); The Honorable Faith Hochberg (U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey) (Retired); The Honorable Denise L. Cote (U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York); The Honorable Colleen McMahon (U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York); Professor Scott Hemphill (NYU School of Law); and a demonstration of IBM Watson (The Platform for Cognitive Business).

Trial by Jury of Patent Cases
September 30, 2016
Agenda
Judicial Roundtable Stream
Academics Roundtable Stream
Practitioners Roundtable Stream
Update on Rush to Judgment
Patent Jury Trial Statistics

This conference assembled distinguished federal jurists, academics, and practitioners to discuss whether the 7th Amendment guarantees a right to a jury trial in patent cases and to analyze, in a series of presentations and roundtable discussions, current issues and trends in how patent jury trials are conducted.  The Honorable Kathleen O’Malley delivered the keynote addressMark Lemley presented an update to his 2013 paper Rush to Judgment? Trial Length and Outcomes in Patent Cases.  Engelberg Center Student Research Fellow Margaret Diamond discussed data on current trends in patent trials.  The conference was hosted by NYU School of Law’s Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy and the Civil Jury Project at NYU School of Law.

Music Licensing: Innovations for Modern Times
June 17, 2016
Agenda
Speakers
Stream the roundtables here.

The conference brought together distinguished academics, industry representatives, and policy experts to discuss how the music licensing ecosystem can compensate the right people more transparently, fairly, and efficiently.  Roundtable discussions included: How do we structure a modern digital music distribution music-licensing ecosystem to be more competitive and work efficiently and fairly for all stakeholders?; Deep Dive into Digital Databases; What Changes to the Current System Are Feasible that Would Facilitate a Transition to a More Competitive Market? The conference was jointly organized by the Technology Policy Institute and New York University School of Law’s Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy. 

A Copyright Office for the 21st Century
March 18, 2016
Agenda

The conference brought together experts from academia, industry, and government to discuss how to modernize the U.S. Copyright Office to best serve the needs of content creators, distributors, users, and the general public in the digital era. Speakers included Sandra Aistars, George Mason University Law School; Stuart Benjamin, Duke Law School; Troy Dow, Disney; Dave Green, Microsoft; Joseph Liu, Boston University Law School; Bill Raduchel, independent director and investor; Arti Rai, Duke Law School; Mary Rasenberger, The Authors Guild; Pam Samuelson, Berkeley Law School; Matt Schruers, Computer & Communications Industry Association and Georgetown Law School; and Chris Sprigman, New York University School of Law. The conference was jointly organized by the Duke Law School Center for Innovation Policy and the New York University Law School’s Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy.

IPNY: Whose Knowledge Is It Anyway? Innovations in Traditional Knowledge Protection.
March 3, 2016

Whose Knowledge Is It Anyway? focused on the project entitled  Local Contexts and its application from both tribal and institutional perspectives.  Local Contexts, www.localcontexts.org, is an online platform that was developed to address the intellectual property needs of Native, First Nations, Aboriginal and Indigenous peoples in relation to the extensive collections of cultural heritage materials currently held within museums, archives, libraries and private collections.  This project addresses the unique problem of public domain materials and third party owned content that is divorced from local communities and missing important information about use and circulation. One of the key devices for engaging this curatorial challenge is the suite of Traditional Knowledge (TK) Labels. Professor Jason Schultz (Professor of Clinical Law) NYU School of Law, moderated the discussion along with panelists Professor Jane Anderson, NYU, James Francis, Sr., Penobscot Nation, and Dr. Elizabeth Peterson, American Folklife Center.

Innovation Clusters
February 26, 2016
Agenda and Speakers
Stream the roundtables here.

Innovation experts from industry, government, and academia discussed the rise of successful technology clusters in Silicon Valley, Israel and elsewhere, and whether there’s a “special sauce” that others can copy to develop their local regional innovation centers. The conference was jointly organized by Teva Pharmaceuticals, AIPLA, Goodwin Procter LLP, and NYU School of Law Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy.

Hot Topics in IP Law
February 24, 2016

A discussion with the Honorable Pauline Newman and the Honorable Timothy B. Dyk, United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, as they fielded questions from Professor Rochelle C. Dreyfuss, NYU School of Law, and Anne Hassett, Engelberg Center Executive Director, regarding their perspectives on Supreme Court review of important issues in intellectual property law.  

National Policies on Secondary Pharmaceutical Patents: Their Effectiveness and Implications for Innovation and Access to Medicines
January 23, 2016
Agenda
List of speakers

Over the past two decades the number of secondary pharmaceutical patents has grown in developed countries, together with concern about the diffusion of this practice to developing countries.  Some developing countries have enacted policies restricting their grant on the view that such patents are not sufficiently innovative inventive and can raise prices and create barriers to access to medicines. The conference brought together academics and practitioners to examine (1) the restrictions that exist in developed and developing countries on obtaining and enforcing secondary patents, and their effectiveness; (2) whether and how secondary pharmaceutical patents affect prices and access to medicines, and their impact, if any, on innovation incentives.  This conference was sponsored by NYU School of Law’s Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy and The London School of Economics and Political Science.

Sixth Annual Tri-State Region IP Workshop
January 15, 2016

The Workshop brought together intellectual property scholars (including professors, fellows, visitors, graduate students, and practitioners) from the tri-state region (broadly defined to include Philadelphia also) to present their works in progress for commentary in a workshop environment.

2015 IP Institute
November 19, 2015
Agenda

This conference, presented jointly by the Engelberg Center and Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, assembled thought leaders in the field of IP for a day of discussion focused on cutting-edge issues affecting innovation, intellectual property law and practice, and competition in the domestic and international arenas.  The keynote speaker was The Honorable Diane P. Wood, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

Net Neutrality and Beyond
November 16, 2015
Agenda

The Engelberg Center co-hosted with Engine a panel discussion of the implications of the litigation challenging the FCC’s Order implementing net neutrality (United States Telecom Association v. Federal Communications Commission, et al.) in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which will be argued on December 4, 2015.  The discussion also considered the impact on Internet businesses if the Court upholds only portions of the order. Panelists included: Michael Cheah, Vimeo, Jameson Dempsey, Kelley Drye & Warren LLP, Julie Samuels, Engine, and Professor Christopher Sprigman, NYU School of Law.

“1099 economy” Meeting with NY AG Office
September 17, 2015

The meeting was an off-the-record conversation about labor and employment issues for NY Tech startups with the NY Attorney General’s Internet bureau.

Testing Whether a Patented Feature Drives Customer Demand
September 10, 2015

Proving patent infringement damages is more challenging now that Federal Circuit law requires proof that the patented feature drives demand for the accused product.  Professor Jacob Jacoby, a renowned expert in the use of surveys in trademark infringement cases, discussed his new survey method designed for use in assessing damages for patent infringement. Following Professor Jacoby’s presentation, Professor Barton Beebe moderated a panel discussion of the survey method and its ramifications

ETH/NYU Transatlantic Innovation Scholarship Conference: Design Protection → Design Innovation?
June 10-12, 2015

The Engelberg Center co-hosted with ETH a conference examining how design innovation is influenced by design protection, including whether the nature of design protection differs among industries, whether the various forms of design protection actually provide incentives for firms or individual designers to create new designs, and how the U.S. examination-based design patent system compares with the EU registration-based design protection regime, in terms of use, effectiveness, provision of incentives, and effect on competition.  Professor Christopher Sprigman was a co-organizer of the conference.  He and Professors Barton Beebe and Jeanne Fromer participated.

IPRs at the PTAB: Should They Be District Court Lite or a Second Bite at the Prosecution Apple?
June 2, 2015

Engelberg Center Executive Director Anne Hassett moderated a panel discussion among industry representatives, including the pharmaceutical and high tech industries, on whether innovation is better supported by having the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) apply in inter partes review (IPR) proceedings the same legal standards that U.S. District Courts apply in patent litigation or the standards which the USPTO applies in patent prosecution.  Panelists included: Matthew Levy, Computer and Communications Industry Association; Hans Sauer, Biotechnology Industry Organization; Jaime A. Siegel, ACACIA Research Group LLC; Marian Underweiser, IP Policy & Strategy, IBM; Jane Wasman, Acorda Therapeutics, Inc.

Will Fee Shifting Help or Hinder Patent Enforcement?
March 2, 2015

Professor Jason Schultz moderated a discussion on whether fee shifting as proposed in Congress is needed in view of the relaxed standard for exceptional case recovery since the SCOTUS decisions in Octane and Highmark. Panelists included: Eric Cohen, Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP; John Desmarais, Desmarais LLP; Professor Rochelle Dreyfuss, NYU Law; Theresa Gillis, Mayer Brown LLP; David Kappos, Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP; John Pegram, Fish & Richardson.

Fifth Annual Tri-State Region IP Workshop
January 9, 2015

The Annual Tri-State Region IP Workshop brought together intellectual property scholars (including professors, fellows, visitors, graduate students, and practitioners) from the tri-state region to present their works in progress for commentary in a workshop environment.  The papers examined issues concerning patent litigation, patentability, downstream market effects of intellectual property, intellectual property in the high-tech sector, and copyright law.

2014 IP Institute
December 4, 2014
Agenda

This conference, presented jointly by the Engelberg Center and Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, assembled thought leaders in the field of IP for a day of discussion focused on cutting-edge issues affecting innovation, intellectual property law and practice, and competition in the domestic and international arenas.  The keynote speaker was The Rt. Hon. Professor Sir Robin Jacob, University College London, who presented a European perspective on the U.S. IP system.  The various panels examined the issues from the perspectives of industry, the judiciary, academia, and federal and state agencies.  Together with the Honorable Faith S. Hochberg (U.S. D.N.J.) and Micky Minhas, Microsoft Corporation, Professor Dreyfuss participated in a panel discussion on “What Litigators Need to Know About U.S. PTO Post-Grant Processes.”  Professor Dreyfuss and David J. Kappos were co-organizers of the IP Institute.

Post-mortem Panel on Authors Guild v. Google Hearing
December 3, 2014 

The Authors Guild lawsuits against Google and its library partners (brought separately as Authors Guild, Inc. v. HathiTrust) have set much of the stage for how U.S. copyright law impacts efforts to mass digitize book collections. On December 3, 2014 at 2 p.m., the Second Circuit heard argument in the appeal of Authors Guild v. Google, where Judge Denny Chin granted judgment in favor of Google, finding that its book digitizing activities were fair use under Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act. This panel focused on the contents of the appeal, including the questions presented, the briefing, the argument, and the implications for any certiorari petition to the Supreme Court. Featured speakers included: Greg Cram, Associate Director of Copyright and Information Policy, New York Public Library; Jeremy Goldman, Frankfurt Kurnit Klein + Selz PC, Counsel for the Authors Guild; Joseph Gratz, Durie Tangri LLP (Counsel for Google); Corynne McSherry, Intellectual Property Director, Electronic Frontier Foundation; Professor Jason Schultz, Director, Technology Law & Policy Clinic and Co-Director of the Engelberg Center on Innovation Law and Policy; and Fred von Lohmann, Legal Director for Copyright, Google. Co-sponsored by the New York Public Library.

IPNY: Google on U.S. Patent Quality
November 20, 2014
Stream the panel discussion here.

Laura Sheridan, Patent Counsel at Google, discussed ideas for improving the quality of U.S. patents, focusing both on institutional reforms that could make the PTO better at turning away low-quality patent applications, and changes in the patent law that could also help us reach that goal. The Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy faculty also shared their insights.

Warrant Canary Workshop
November 3, 2014

Discussion of the political, legal, and technological questions raised by the increasing use of “warrant canaries” by technology companies to inform the public about government surveillance.

Empirical IP Research Conference
October 24-25, 2014

This conference launched the Engelberg Center's Empirical Initiative for empirical research related to intellectual property law and other legal rules that affect innovation.  The goal for the Initiative is to provide a foundation for data-driven consideration of whether, and how, to reform these areas of law.  The conference brought together leaders in the empirical study of intellectual property and innovation, as well as scholars and researchers in related areas, to discuss existing research on intellectual property, assess where progress has been made toward producing policy-relevant evidence, identify key policy-relevant questions that are in need of further study, and consider the directions and methods for future research.   Colleen V. Chien (Senior Advisor to the CTO, Intellectual Property and Innovation White House Office of Science and Technology Policy) delivered the keynote address.  Each of the three plenary panels (Copyright, Patent, and Trademark) discussed a specific empirical question of importance to IP policy.   Professors Jeanne Fromer, Christopher Sprigman, and Katherine Strandburg organized the conference.

Copyright vs. Creativity: Is Intellectual Property Reserved for the 1%?
September 23, 2014

Coinciding with the US launch of the graphic novel, Ricky Rouse Has a Gun, this panel asked whether copyright has lost one of its principle functions: to protect authors and original ideas. In the digital age, does copyright have a purpose beyond protecting corporations from illegal copying and file sharing? Panelists include Jörg Tittel, Author, Ricky Rouse Has a Gun; Charles Brownstein, Executive Director, Comic Book Legal Defence Fund; Professors Christopher Sprigman and Barton Beebe, NYU School of Law.

2nd Thematic Conference on Knowledge Commons
September 5-6, 2014 

This interdisciplinary conference, co-sponsored with the International Association for the Study of the Commons, convened an international group of researchers studying cooperative arrangements for sharing intellectual resources, or “knowledge commons.”  Focusing on the fields of medicine and the environment, presenters considered how knowledge commons work, what contributes to their durability and effectiveness, and what undermines them.  Professor Katherine Strandburg was co-chair of the conference.

Engelberg Center 20th Anniversary Celebration
July 7-11, 2014

In honor of the Engelberg Center’s 20th anniversary, faculty co-directors Barton Beebe, Rochelle Dreyfuss, Jeanne Fromer, Jason Schultz, Christopher Sprigman, and Katherine Strandburg joined benefactor and trustee Alfred Engelberg ’65, Dean Trevor Morrison, and others for a celebration at NYU’s La Pietra campus near Florence, Italy.  The participants discussed a diverse range of topics, including IP’s role in fashion, patents in the life sciences, software development’s uneasy relationship to IP, and privacy in the age of “big data.”

Workshop on Medical User Innovation and Medical Commons
May 15-16-17, 2014

This focused interdisciplinary workshop brought together researchers studying medical and health innovation from the user innovation and knowledge commons governance approaches; explored potential synergies between these two groups of researchers, who brought different backgrounds, methodologies, and expertise to these issues; and interrogated and critiqued the role of intellectual property in medical research and innovation in light of the potential for user innovation and knowledge commons approaches.

IPNY: The Role of Geographical Indications
April 17, 2014

The inaugural IPNY event; a new series of public lectures from experts on contemporary issues of IP and innovation law and policy. For the first installment of IPNY, Richard Mendelson and Professor Sprigman had a lively debate on the role of geographical indications.

50 Years Later: The New York Times v. Sullivan
April 2, 2014

March 9, 2014 marked the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark decision on the freedom of the press in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan.  In the decision, the Supreme Court held that the First Amendment protects reports about public officials -- even false ones -- unless they have been made with actual malice (with knowledge that they are false or in reckless disregard of their truth or falsity).  This case allowed much of the press reports on civil rights in the South to move forward.  Fifty years later, we convened to consider the implications and lasting significance of the Supreme Court's decision.

Innovation Law & Policy Edit-a-Thon
March 8, 2014 
Details about the program

The inaugural Innovation Law & Policy Edit-a-thon, co-sponsored by the Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy and the Wikimedia Foundation, brought together a coalition of experienced editors, as well as law professors, activists, and other professionals, to create and improve Wikipedia articles at the intersection of law and policy.

Fourth Annual Tri-State Region IP Workshop
January 10, 2014

The Annual Tri-State Region IP Workshop brought together intellectual property scholars (including professors, fellows, visitors, graduate students, and practitioners) from the tri-state region to present their works in progress for commentary in a workshop environment.

Drones & Aerial Robotics Conference
October 11-13, 2013
Stream the keynote speech here.

The Drones & Aerial Robotics Conference was a multidisciplinary conference about UAVs and drones—with a special emphasis on civilian applications. DARC broadens the public conversation beyond the privacy and targeted killing debates. We delved deep into the impact of unmanned systems on society and advance knowledge in legal and practical domains.

Rob Reid Year Zero Book Talk
April 30, 2013

The entire cosmos has been hopelessly hooked on humanity's music ever since "Year Zero" (1977 to us), when American pop songs first reached alien ears. This addiction has driven a vast intergalactic society to commit the biggest copyright violation since the Big Bang. The resulting fines and penalties have bankrupted the whole universe. We humans suddenly own everything-and the aliens are not amused. Join author and entrepreneur Rob Reid for a unique look at the institution of copyright law, followed by a conversation with David Pashman (General Counsel, Meetup) and a Year Zero book signing.

The Relationship between the Federal Circuit and the Supreme Court in the Development of Patent Law
March 13, 2013

An informal discussion between Judges Timothy Dyk and Pauline Newman.  The interchange was lively as both are judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit with very different ideas about intellectual property policy and theories of adjudication. 

Defensive Patent License Project
February 1, 2013

The Defensive Patent License (DPL) is a new legal mechanism to protect innovators by networking patents into powerful, mutually-beneficial legal shields that are 100% committed to defending innovation – no bullies, trolls, or other leeches allowed.  It is designed to address the most broken parts of the patent system.  The DPL also helps prevent adversaries from patenting open technologies and pulling them out of the public domain.  It is an open source-style patent license that seeks to promote the use of patents to encourage freedom to innovate & to operate instead of using them to shut down competition, for rent-seeking, or to inhibit access to knowledge. This approach offers several potential benefits, especially to open innovation communities and/or start-ups: 1) A way to legally bind companies/patents to exclusive defensive use; 2) A way to allow those who are skeptical/critical of the patent system to participate without worry that their innovations will be offensively weaponized; 3) A way to improve prior art by filing defense-oriented patent applications that will preempt future offensive applications; 4) A way to prevent patent trolls from exploiting patents by preemptively committing them to defensive-only use; and 5) A way to provide access to a clear collection of patents that anyone can use for free as long as they are also committed to defensive uses.

Third Annual Tri-State Region IP Workshop
January 11, 2013

Professors, fellows, visitors, graduate students, and practitioners from the tri-state region presented their works in progress for commentary in a workshop environment. Topics were related to intellectual property or information law. The format involved a series of plenary sessions chaired by a senior commentator.  This annual workshop will make it possible for IP and information law scholars located in the tri-state region to get together on a more regular basis to share and discuss each other’s work. 

Life as a New IP Associate
October 4, 2012

A panel discussion on how to transition from law school to private practice.

Second Annual Tri-State Region IP Workshop
January 2012

Professors, fellows, visitors, graduate students, and practitioners from the tri-state region presented their works in progress for commentary in a workshop environment. Topics were related to intellectual property or information law. The format involved a series of plenary sessions chaired by a senior commentator. This annual workshop will make it possible for IP and information law scholars located in the tri-state region to get together on a more regular basis to share and discuss each other’s work.

Convening Cultural Commons
September 23-24, 2011

The purpose of this workshop was to gather scholars from a variety of disciplines who share interests in the study of commons as governance regimes in information, knowledge, and other cultural contexts. The focus was on institutional analysis of commons, common pool resources, and related institutions for governance of knowledge and information and rights in knowledge and information.  Relevant disciplines included law, political science, economics, sociology, organizational science, information science, Science and Technology Studies (STS), and the history of science and technology, among others.

Cultural Protocols Workshop
August 19, 2011

This workshop brought together a small group of legal and cultural scholars to explore the concept and the utility of cultural protocols in relation to Indigenous and local knowledge management issues. The focus of the workshop was predominately legal – and this is quite deliberate. In thinking about the possibilities of protocols and how they can be used as a useful strategy as well as a tool of leverage for Native American communities in the United States, as well as elsewhere, it is critical that there is an inter-linked and robust legal framework that can work in support of the further development of cultural protocols. This will not only contribute to the ability for communities to make informed decisions about how cultural protocols can be effectively utilized, but also provide significant background work in the instances where specific cultural protocols are undermined or delegitimized by third parties.

Balancing Wealth and Health: Access to Medicines in Latin America as a Case Study of the Global Administration of Intellectual Property Law
May 25-26, 2011

This Workshop considered the draft report of a project undertaken as part of NYU’s Global Administrative Law (GAL) Network, sponsored by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada and jointly coordinated by the University of the Andes (Colombia) and NYU.  The project was aimed at examining, through a series of case studies, the processes and administrative mechanisms that states use internally to negotiate the balance between intellectual property rights and other policy and human rights considerations.  

First Annual Tri-State Region IP Workshop
January 2011

Professors, fellows, visitors, graduate students, and practitioners from the tri-state region presented their works in progress for commentary in a workshop environment. Topics were related to intellectual property or information law. The format involved a series of plenary sessions chaired by a senior commentator. This annual workshop will make it possible for IP and information law scholars located in the tri-state region to get together on a more regular basis to share and discuss each other’s work.

User and Open Innovation: How Should Intellectual Property Law Respond?
May 28-29, 2010

The NYU’s Engelberg Center and the UC Berkeley Center for Law & Technology co-sponsored a workshop to consider the implications of user and open innovation for intellectual property doctrine.  The importance of these creative paradigms relative to centralized innovation by manufacturers and mass media producers is increasingly recognized in the business community, yet has not been systematically addressed by intellectual property law.  The workshop brought together an interdisciplinary group of scholars of law, management, and economics to consider whether and in what specific ways intellectual property law should be modified to accommodate the increasing importance of innovation by users for their own use and of collaborative and open processes of innovation.

Enough is Enough!: Ceilings on Intellectual Property Rights Workshop
May 1-2, 2009

The Engelberg Center at NYU School of Law and the Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property, Competition and Tax Law [MPI] held a two-day workshop to consider whether Enough is Enough: whether it is time to consider limits on the expansion of intellectual property rights within the international framework. The intent is to talk about existing limits within, and outside, intellectual property law (including human rights and competition law). Also considered were existing proposals for mandatory limits imposed through international intellectual property law.

Workshop on Trade Secrecy
February 20-21, 2009

A workshop for the authors of the Trade Secrecy book in the hope of making the final volume better integrated and giving the authors the opportunity to benefit from one another’s feedback.

Digital Convergence and Copyright
April 7, 2008

The Intellectual Property and Entertainment Law Society of NYU School of Law hosted a symposium on digital convergence and copyright. The Symposium was held under the aegis of Engelberg Center on Innovation Law and Policy. The Symposium addressed copyright issues associated with emerging media services, from both a business as well as legal perspective, discussing digital distribution of entertainment and phenomenon that blurs the boundaries between different media and copyrightable subject matters.

Working Within the Boundaries of Intellectual Property – Conference of the Engelberg Center on Innovation Law and Policy
June 5-6, 2007

In June, 1998, The Engelberg Center convened a conference at La Pietra to examine the expanding boundaries of intellectual property protection. Various proposals were made for cabining the trend. Subsequent experience has demonstrated, however, that cabining is politically unfeasible and administratively difficult. In the face of increasing concern that strong rights could hinder innovation and slow dynamic competitiveness, this conference was organized to investigate approaches to working within the expanding intellectual property paradigm.

Anti-Dilution: The Theory and Reality of Extended Trade Mark Protection in the US and EU
December 8, 2006

This workshop explored the case for expanding trademark protection beyond its traditional realm, examined its implementation in practice, and considered countervailing considerations.

Information Law [Information Law Institute]

Privacy Research Group Talks
2012-2013; 2013-2014; 2014-2015; 2015-2016; 2016-2017 Academic Years

The Privacy Research Group is a weekly meeting of students, professors, and industry professionals who are passionate about exploring, protecting, and understanding privacy in the digital age.

Algorithms and Explainability Symposium
April 27-28, 2017

Explanation has long been deemed a crucial aspect of accountability.  By requiring that powerful actors explain the bases of their decisions — the logic goes — we reduce the risks of error, abuse, and arbitrariness, thus producing more socially desirable decisions.  Decisionmaking processes employing machine learning algorithms and similar data-driven approaches complicate this equation.  Such approaches promise to refine and improve the accuracy and efficiency of decisionmaking processes, but the logic and rationale behind each decision remains opaque to human understanding.  The symposium grappled with the question of when and to what extent decisionmakers should be legally or ethically obligated to provide humanly meaningful explanations of individual decisions to those who are affected or to society at large.

International Workshop on Obfuscation: Science, Technology, and Theory
April 7-8, 2017

Obfuscation strategies offer creative ways to evade surveillance, protect privacy, and improve security by adding, rather than concealing, data to make it more ambiguous and difficult to exploit. This interdisciplinary workshop convened researchers, scientists, developers, and artists to discuss a broad range of technical, theoretical, and policy approaches to obfuscation, from tools that anonymize users’ social media data to new methods for writing code itself. The workshop surveyed some of the existing and emerging applications and technologies, threat models and scenarios for which obfuscation offers solutions, tests and tools for studying the strengths and weaknesses of obfuscation approaches, new challenges and applications (such as authentication, intellectual property, and security), benchmarks and approaches to formalizing obfuscation strategies, and general best practices for design, implementation, and evaluation of obfuscating systems.

At the Intersection of Privacy and Property
May 6, 2016

This workshop provided a forum for work that explores the benefits and drawbacks of thinking about privacy—legally, practically, and conceptually—in terms of property. Given our common law heritage, the association between privacy and property is reflexive and ingrained. Nevertheless, significant problems arise in trying to make property norms “do the work” for privacy, particularly with respect to issues of data privacy. At the same time, it would also be wrong to dismiss property norms as wholly irrelevant to privacy. The right question, ultimately, is how property concepts and doctrines can be profitably incorporated into discussions of privacy—and likewise, to what extent we should wary about leaning too much on property-privacy analogy, in lieu of theorizing privacy independently.

Conference on Responsible Use of Open Data: Government and the Private Sector
November 19-20, 2015 

The Conference, co-organized by NYU Department of Media, Culture and Communication, and BCLT, addressed two related issues. The first is a set of normative challenges associated with the open data movement, including e.g. privacy and other civil liberties, equitable access to data, and what counts a public interest. The second addressed obligations of private/commercial holders of data to make their holdings available for public and research purposes. Panels included leading thinkers and actors representing a range of perspectives and positions. The conference kicked off with a keynote address by Dr. Amen Ra Mashariki, City of New York's Chief Analytics Officer in charge of the Mayor's Office of Data Analytics.

Talk by FTC Commissioner Julie Brill
June 11, 2015

The Information Law Institute hosted an informal meeting with FTC Commissioner Julie Brill to discuss consumer privacy and other topics of mutual interest.  

Symposium on Government Access to Data in the Cloud
May 26-27, 2015

This Symposium, co-hosted by the Center on Law and Security, presented cutting-edge research on domestic, international and transnational legal approaches to regulating government access to data stored in the cloud. The Symposium brought legal scholars together with participants who bring law enforcement, industry, privacy advocacy and human rights perspectives to bear on the important and often contentious debate about this rapidly evolving issue.

Privacy in the Modern Age The Search for Solutions Book Talk
April 29, 2015

The threats to privacy are well known: the NSA tracks our phone calls, Google records where we go online, companies constantly lose our personal information, and our children are fingerprinted and their test scores saved for posterity. Professors Helen Nissenbaum, Frank Pasquale, and Katherine Strandburg; policy experts Sheila Kaplan and Faiza Patel; and contributing editor, Jeramie Scott celebrated the publication of Privacy in the Modern Age The Search for Solutions. The discussion was moderated by contributing editor, Professor Katherine Strandburg. Opening remarks by contributing editor, Jeramie Scott. Sponsored by NYU Information Law Institute and Electronic Privacy Information Center.

Cloud Data Access: A Transnational Perspective
March 13, 2015

More than ever before, people today rely on cloud computing services for email, online storage and backup, social media, video services, and gaming. However, the laws governing data privacy obligations were written long before anyone dreamed up the cloud. This makes regulatory issues very complicated at the purely domestic level, but even more so when cross-jurisdictional issues come into play as users, their data, and technology providers can all reside in different physical locations. In fact, government and industry are grappling with these issues on many fronts – in diplomatic discussions between the U.S. and Europe, in legislation introduced in the U.S. Senate, and, most recently, in a legal case brought by Microsoft Corp. challenging a US government search warrant for customer communications stored in a company datacenter in Dublin, Ireland. This talk explored the specific legal questions raised by these jurisdictional issues, the laws involved, and arguments on how these issues should be resolved. Panelists included Ira Rubinstein, Senior Fellow, Information Law Institute, Zachary Goldman, Executive Director, Center on Law and Security, and Katherine Strandburg, Alfred B. Engelberg Professor of Law.

Algorithms and Accountability Conference
February 28, 2015

Scholars, stakeholders, and policymakers question the adequacy of existing mechanisms governing algorithmic decision-making and grapple with new challenges presented by the rise of algorithmic power in terms of transparency, fairness, and equal treatment. Algorithms increasingly shape our news, economic options, and educational trajectories. The centrality and concerns about algorithmic decision making have only increased since we hosted the Governing Algorithms conference in May 2013. This event built upon that conversation to address legal, policy and ethical challenges related to algorithmic power in three specific contexts: media production and consumption, commerce, and education. Organized by the Information Law Institute, NYU School of Law and cosponsored by NYU Steinhardt Department of Media, Culture and Communications, the Intel Science & Technology Center for Social Computing and Microsoft.

NYU Law Roundtable on Government Access to Cloud Data
December 10, 2014

The roundtable, co-hosted by the Center on Law and Security, addressed legal and policy issues related to government cloud access spurred by the Microsoft search warrant case.  It was a closed door/off-the-record session conducted according to Chatham House Rules. 

Symposium on Student Privacy
December 2, 2014

Together with the Microsoft Innovation and Policy Center, the Information Law Institute organized a symposium on student privacy in higher education entitled “Building Privacy into Data-Driven Education.” The event examined the new ethical concerns, legal questions and institutional challenges raised by the growth in use of data-driven platforms at higher education institutions.

Obfuscation Symposium
February 15, 2014

The Symposium on Obfuscation brought together experts from a variety of backgrounds who study, script and design technologies that either simulate, detect, or are susceptible to obfuscation. By obfuscation we mean the production of misleading, ambiguous and plausible but confusing information as an act of concealment or evasion. In the course of the day, we explored and assessed the use of obfuscation as a strategy for individuals, groups or communities to hide; to protect themselves; to protest or enact civil disobedience, especially in the context of monitoring, aggregated analysis, and profiling in (digital) space. 

NYU Security Research Seminar
Fall 2014 & Spring 2015

The Security Research Seminar at New York University, launched in January 2014, is a weekly meeting of students, faculty, policy makers and industry professionals interested in analyzing the ways in which advanced technologies are putting pressure on legal regimes and concepts of security. The seminar addresses a variety of perspectives on security in a digital age, including security of information and software, computer networks, cyber-physical systems and infrastructure and will include discussions about national as well as international cyber-security law and policy.

Governing Algorithms Conference
May 16-17, 2013

Algorithms are increasingly invoked as powerful entities that control, govern, sort, regulate, and shape everything from financial trades to news media. Nevertheless, the nature and implications of such orderings are far from clear. What exactly is it that algorithms “do”? What is the role attributed to “algorithms” in these arguments? How can we turn the “problem of algorithms” into an object of productive inquiry? This conference set out to explore the recent rise of algorithms as an object of interest in scholarship, policy, and practice.

Workshop on Personal Health Portfolios: Technology, Usability, and Policy
February 8, 2013

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology has defined the PHR as an “electronic record of health-related information on an individual that conforms to nationally recognized interoperability standards and that can be drawn from multiple sources while being managed, shared, and controlled by the individual” (2008:19). Introducing the term “portfolio,” we sought to broaden the initial conceptualization and explored parallels with similar initiatives in other social contexts.

Conference on Mobile and Location Privacy: A Technology and Policy Dialog
April 13, 2012

The age of ubiquitous computing is here. People routinely carry smartphones and other devices capable of recording and transmitting immense quantities of personal information and tracking their every move. Privacy has suffered in this new environment, with new reports every week of vulnerabilities and unintended disclosures of private information. The conference aimed to bring together the policy and technology communities to discuss the substantial privacy issues arising from the growth of mobile and location technologies.

Platforms and Power Roundtable
May 6, 2011

The Roundtable brought together an interdisciplinary group of scholars of privacy, intellectual property, and the digital society to debate and discuss issues revolving around the relationships between technological platforms and their users, with an eye toward the role that law might play in mediating or structuring these relationships. Roundtable Sessions approached the topic from a variety of angles: Platforms as Fiduciaries (should platform technologies have any duties toward their users?); Platforms as Co-Creators (the role of platforms in the creative activities of their users); Platforms as Regulators (the extent to which platforms should be instruments of regulation of user conduct, either at the behest of government or independently; Platforms as Social Spaces (the effects of technological platforms on social relationships).

Online Hate Speech and Cyber-Harassment Summit
April 12, 2010

Ann Bartow, Professor of Law, University of South Carolina School of Law - "Actual Misogyny in Virtual Space"; Danielle Citron, Professor of Law, The University of Maryland School of Law  - "Law's Expressive Value in Combating Cyber Gender Harassment"; Respondent: Jeremy Waldron, University Professor, NYU School of Law

A Workshop on Federal Privacy Legislation
October 2, 2009

Experts from academia, industry, government, and public interest advocacy organizations examined comprehensive federal privacy legislation under consideration by Congress. Panelists began the day by reviewing current bills and offering an informed analysis and debate concerning the more controversial issues such as preemption, remedies, access and choice, and safe harbors. The morning then continued with a discussion of whether fair information practices (FIPs) should remain the foundation of privacy legislation or need to be modified or abandoned. The afternoon panels then examined emerging issues such as social networking, collective privacy and behavioral advertising and assess how well any proposed bills address these new concerns. There was also keynote speeches by top FTC officials and participation in panels by key Congressional staffers. Our aim was to achieve meaningful progress toward a well-rounded understanding of pending legislation and perhaps even to resolve some outstanding issues.

Search Privacy Strategy Roundtable
November 8, 2007

This roundtable considered the important goals served by logging and storing search query data, such as improving and personalizing services, maximizing advertising effectiveness, improving general search performance and addressing click fraud and security threats. How can this be reconciled with privacy? To consider the growing importance of effective web search for users and related dependence on, and appreciation of, search service providers. At the same time consider potential vulnerabilities and anxieties about these vulnerabilities as user become increasingly aware of the insights third parties gain into their lives based on search. How can consumer trust be maintained, and what effects might self-protective actions by consumers have on the search space? To consider the general environment created by relevant external actors, such as government, on the one hand asserting claims on search information and on the other seeking to protect consumer privacy. To consider ways technical design of web search engines and their business models afford both logging and obfuscating user’s search activities. What design variables may come into play to help alleviate concerns over search privacy?

Identity and Identification in a Networked World: A Multidisciplinary Graduate Student Symposium
September 29-30, 2006

Increasingly, who we are is represented by key bits of information scattered throughout the data-intensive, networked world. Online and off, these core identifiers mediate our sense of self, social interactions, movements through space, and access to goods and services. There is much at stake in designing systems of identification and identity management, deciding who or what will be in control of them, and building in adequate protection for our bits of identity permeating the network. This symposium examined critical and controversial issues surrounding socio-technical systems of identity, identifiability and identification. It showcased emerging scholarship of graduate students at the cutting edge of humanities, social sciences, artists, systems design & engineering, philosophy, law, and policy to work towards a clearer understanding of these complex problems, and build foundations for future collaborative work. In addition to graduate student panels, a keynote talk was delivered by Professor Ian Kerr, University of Ottawa.

A Spyware Workshop
March 16-17, 2006

A workshop co-sponsored by the Information Law Institute, NYU and Center for Information Technology Policy, Princeton University where experts from academia, industry, government, and public interest advocacy organizations examined spyware in the broader context of computer security, governance of the information infrastructure, and the rights of individual computer-users in relation to public and commercial institutions with which they interact online.

Colloquium on Information Technology and Society
Spring 2002-Spring 2011