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Privacy, a Group Effort – Approaches to International Data Privacy Agreements

The modern, digital world has made the world smaller and faster, with information and data transferred within an instant, ignoring any and all physical borders. While this digital highway is an essential pillar for our Internet age, it is also not without its problems. One such area of concern rests with data protection and privacy enforcement laws.

Privacy in the Golden State

Are you a resident of California? Or are you a business owner whose business reaches consumers in California? If your answer to either of these questions is “yes,” then you should familiarize yourself with the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”).

The CRISPR War Drags On: How the Fight to Patent CRISPR-Cas9 Creates Uncertainty in the Biotechnology Sphere

On September 10, 2018, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals (“Federal Circuit”) affirmed the ruling of the United States Patent Trial and Appeals Board (“the Board”) in Regents of the University of California v. Broad Institute, finding that there was no interference-in-fact between competing patents that claimed methods of using CRISPR-Cas9 to modify cellular DNA. Rather than settling the patentability issue, however, exhaustive litigation has continued, as both parties seek to protect the results obtained from costly research.

The Rise and Fall of a Patent Boomtown

Plano, Texas used to be home to the third oldest Apple store ever built. This Dallas suburb’s median household income of $92,121 is 55% above the national average. The eventual construction of Apple’s 500 locations worldwide was in some ways a result of its early success in Plano.

The Future of Autonomous Vehicles and the Fourth Amendment

Level 4 autonomous vehicles, vehicles that do not require human interaction in most circumstances,  are predicted to be on the road as soon as 2021. Experts believe that as autonomous vehicles grow in popularity and availability, the prevalence of car ownership will dramatically decrease.

Why the “Right to be Forgotten” Won’t Make it to the United States

In 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) began to govern members of the European Union. The GDPR allows individuals the “right of erasure” — the ability to request erasure of personal data from the Internet. But the European Union’s top court recently stymied the regulation’s effect, ruling that search engine operators are not required to de-reference subjects globally. Thus, the potential spillover effects — i.e., the potential issue of whether a U.S. court ought to enforce a European de-referencing — won’t allow for a cascading privacy right debate to enter American discourse.

Don’t Bury your Bitcoin! Estate Planning for Cryptocurrencies

From the transferability of social media or email accounts to maintaining online accounts linked to a client’s virtual assets, estate planning issues regarding digital assets have existed for some time. But, now that blockchain based assets such as cryptocurrencies are more commonplace, there is an increased need to plan for the disposition of these digital assets. Estate planning for cryptocurrencies raises unique concerns and the blockchain technology behind cryptocurrencies might provide potential solutions.

Posts on the MTLR Blog are editorial opinion pieces written by student-editors of the Michigan Technology Law Review. The opinions expressed in these editorial posts are not espoused or endorsed by the University of Michigan or its Law School. To view scholarly Articles and Notes published by the Michigan Technology Law Review, please visit the MTLR home page.