Law & Technology

If there was a theme for the summer past, it might well be “law and technology.” Second Circuit Judge Denny Chin and I were in Singapore for the Global Forum In IP, organized by the IP Office of Singapore. Judge Chin spoke on a judge’s panel discussing the “first sale doctrine” and digital goods, second medical use patents, and trademarks as a badge of origin v. association with a particular source. Copyright lawyers and academics will know Judge Chin for his influential opinion in the “Google Books” case.

I moderated a panel on the impact AI has on IP law and policies, and how innovators can leverage IP rights to protect AI innovations. The panelists were excellent: Jessie Zheng (Chief Risk Officer, Alibaba), Manny Schecter, (Chief Patent Counsel, IBM Corp.), Probir Mehta (Global Lead, IP & Trade Policy, Facebook) and Yeong Zee Kin (Assistant Chief Executive (Data Innovation and Protection), Infocomm Media Development Authority). Like tackling climate change, the challenges facing us in AI require stakeholders from the private and public sectors across the world to work together and understand each others’ views and interests. The panel was a good representation of what can be done together.

Finally but certainly not least, I had the privilege of calling on Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister-in-charge of the Smart Nation Programme Vivian Balakrishnan. His views, delivered in a speech earlier this year, on why mastering technology (including artificial intelligence) is such an existential issue for Singapore are well worth reading in full. http://bit.ly/2ZuHmIo