Although the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) allows citizens to request agency records and thus keep a close eye on their government, proprietary information is exempt from disclosure under Exemption 4, which protects “trade secrets and commercial or financial information obtained from a person [that is] privileged or confidential.” A substantial body of case
October 2018
The Implications of the GDPR on Clinical Trials in Europe
On October 22, 2018, the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries in cooperation with the Future of Privacy Forum and the Center for Information Policy Leadership organized a workshop entitled “Can GDPR Work for Health Research.” In the first session, the workshop discussed the implications of the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) on clinical trials in…
UK Government publishes new policy paper outlining vision for digitizing health care and becoming a global leader in healthtech
By Daniel Pavin
On 17 October, the UK Government’s Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) published a policy paper entitled “The future of healthcare: our vision for digital, data and technology in health and care” (the Policy Paper). The Policy Paper outlines the DHSC’s vision to use technology across the health and care system, from…
AI Update: Europe Officially Joins the Race for the Next Generation of Supercomputers
On 28 September 2018 the EU reinforced its commitment to the development and deployment of high-performance computing by adopting a Regulation establishing the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (“EuroHPC Joint Undertaking”). This entity is set to coordinate and pool resources to create a pan-European state-of-the-art supercomputing infrastructure.
Aims of the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking
The…
Are You Ready For Your Congressional Investigation?
If the current polls and predictions are accurate, the Democratic party is poised to take control of the House of Representatives next year, for the first time since 2010. Congressional investigations thrive in divided government, and Democratic leaders in Congress are already promising a new wave of investigations.
My new article in Law360 examines the…
Understanding MongoDB’s New Copyleft Open Source License
By Suzanne Bell & Winslow Taub
MongoDB, the developer of a popular document-oriented distributed database server by the same name, has updated the open source license that applies to versions of its software published after October 16, 2018.
Previously, the MongoDB software was licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v.3 (“AGPLv3”), which is a “strong copyleft” license. Strong copyleft…
IoT Update: The UK publishes a final version of its Code of Practice for Consumer IoT Security
By Grace Kim and Siobhan Kahmann
Following an informal consultation earlier this year – as covered by our previous IoT Update here – the UK’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (“DCMS”) published the final version of its Code of Practice for Consumer IoT Security (“Code”) on October 14, 2018. This was developed by…
2018 Nobel Prize Recognizes Economic Importance of Strong Patent Rights
On October 8th, the 2018 Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to Paul Romer, an American economist who has produced foundational work on patent rights and the policies underlying sustainable economic growth.
Beginning with his Ph.D dissertation in 1983, Romer’s work has demonstrated that innovation is a product of strong intellectual property rights and investments…
IoT Update: BEREC launches public consultation on the ‘Data Economy’
On the 10th October 2018, BEREC (the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications) launched its public consultation on the ‘Data Economy’. This comes at a time when different regulators are increasingly discussing the importance of big data, including the opportunities and risks that it brings about, how these may evolve, and how (and increasingly…
AI Update: Medical Software and Preemption
By Emily Ullman
In light of the rapidly expanding field of medical software technology, and its recognition that traditional approval mechanisms for hardware-based medical devices may not be well suited to regulating such technology, FDA is piloting a new, streamlined regulatory approach for digital health technologies. The initiative, currently a “working model” and known as the Software Precertification…