About Me
I am a PhD student in law and technology
(history of science
and science studies) at the
University of California, San Diego.
My specific interests in law
and technology include intellectual property, especially copyright;
medicine, including vaccination and public health; and civil rights,
especially as related to the Internet and technology.
Last May, I graduated from law school after studying in Seattle and San Francisco. Formerly, I was a systems analyst, systems administrator, and IT manager for Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. I used to live in New Orleans (I started law school there first), but a certain hurricane chased me out. As a result, and including summers, I've attended five different law schools.
Constructing a Useful Theory of Knowledge
Studying law provided me a useful set of materials to think about. To make use of this hard-won experience, throughout this paper I am going to connect Science Studies to the legal world I so recently emerged from.
My point is not to say that any of these theoretical positions or approaches are the correct ones, but rather to explore the utility of forcing them to serve different ends. This is emblematic of how I approach theories: Not as the end of the inquiry, but rather as tools that can be used on many different kinds of materials.
Through unanticipated uses, both the tool and the material can be (to mix metaphors) illuminated in unique and interesting ways. Theory is not about finding final explanations, but rather about opening up new lines of inquiry and suggesting different approaches to problems. Theory must be applied to be useful, and usefulness is a theme of "Constructing a Useful Theory of Knowledge."
Transnational Wiretaps and the 4th Amendment
The Fourth Amendment protects Americans within the borders of the United States, but its applicability outside American territory is less clear. I maintain that Fourth Amendment protections should cover wiretap evidence seized abroad, not just that gathered domestically. These protections should apply whenever a prosecutor seeks to admit such evidence in criminal prosecutions in the United States. Such protections are fundamental whenever the government acts to gather or use evidence, whether that evidence was obtained outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States or not.
The practical application of these protections for evidence gathered abroad presents problems, however. For example, can the U.S. exercise any control over the methods used to gather evidence by foreign police agencies? Does the exclusionary rule, meant to inculcate a respect for the Fourth Amendment in domestic officials, have any positive role to play in impacting the behavior of non-U.S. agents? Should we judge admissibility based on another countries laws or should we insist our laws should apply abroad as well? Does it matter if the U.S. initiated the wiretap, or if the foreign country provided the information without direction from the United States? All of these are potentially difficult questions in the context of evidence gathered abroad for use in this country.
Open Source, Open Access, and Open Transfer
One of the most hotly contested issues in the field of intellectual property law concerns the existence, or non-existence, of patent thickets and the extent to which any such bottlenecks may be interfering with research. For decades, scholars warned that problems related to the over proliferation of patent rights would interfere with innovation. In contrast, a growing body of commentary argues that patent thickets are not a problem in modern industries. Either patent thickets do not exist, or if they do, patent thickets do not interfere with the progress of research.
The rhetoric is particularly heated these days because of dramatic changes underway in patent law. Research bottlenecks, or lack thereof, are invoked either in support of or in opposition to such changes, and it is difficult to have a rational discussion when so much seems to be at stake.
Stepping back from the rhetoric a bit, this piece suggests that one can sometimes indirectly observe effects, even if one cannot directly measure the extent of a phenomenon. With this in mind, the piece describes three approaches appearing in modern patent markets that are directed at mitigating the effects of patent thickets. These approaches can be described as Open Source, Open Access, and Open Transfer. From our vantage point, we may not be able to see or to measure the depth of the thicket. We can, however, observe the altered growth patterns that give us some indication of where the problems lie.
