Recent Technology Articles

Articles related to our Technology Practice. We help clients understand, investigate, clear, protect, transfer and license their intellectual property rights, and we draft, review and negotiate related legal agreements.

Iot Security / Privacy: Behind The Tech Curve – Update

The IoT’s growing range of services and functionalities pose new security and privacy threats.  Laws are being adopted, “best” practices updated.  But AI data inference and facial recognition technologies using freely available information sidestep network security measures and anonymized data, making “consent” and willful disclosure beside the point.  It is up to the public to decide what to do. But first it must exercise its right to know. Can it?

The FTC’s New Data Breach Response Guide; A Tech Perspective; Hacked! Disclose It?

Takeaway Before a data breach occurs, businesses should have in place: Operations and forensics plans Communications strategy; and If disclosure not mandated, think twice before going public Data Breach Laws With some important exceptions, there is no federal law which requires that data breaches be publicly disclosed. Breaches involving health information are covered by a… Read more »

Sales Due Diligence, Big Data And Bad Apples

When you check a stockbroker’s background, his co-workers’ records may tell as much about his potential for future misconduct as his own history. Does this have any relevance to business transactions… What’s behind the sales numbers of the company you just bought? Social network analytics identifies hidden networks and traces unknown links among individuals and… Read more »

Cyber Threat Information Sharing

The Cybersecurity Information Act of 2015 The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 (CISA)[1] was adopted to encourage voluntary sharing: (i) among private sector businesses; and (ii) between businesses and public entities, and the federal government, of information about cybersecurity threats, and the development of defensive measures. Information sharing by companies conflicts with the goal of… Read more »

Hr Software – Screening For Bias

Many small and middle market companies, and virtually all large enterprises use “intelligent” software to screen resumes, search publicly available information, social media postings and Internet histories to compile profiles of potential job candidates. Best Practices for HR software use currently include: Retaining a third party HR firm to screen ethnic,  sex, age, disability, religious… Read more »

Blockchain Technology – Smart Contracts

Blockchain is best known as the technology which underlies the virtual currency, bitcoin. But Blockchain, a distributed database ledger, has potential applications well beyond virtual currencies. Blockchain technology may be thought of as a type of operating system for transactions carried out over the internet. It is a means for storing, tracking, trading and verifying… Read more »