Final Flashcards
Patent Definition
A patent is a property right granted by the Government of the United States of America to an inventor “to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention throughout the United States or importing the invention into the United States” for a limited time in exchange for public disclosure of the invention when the patent is granted.”
Ex.
18th century: Thomas Jefferson
19th century: Louis Pasteur
20th century: William O. Douglas
21st century: George W. Bush
Patent Law
- written by Thomas Jefferson, -
- stipulates “any new and useful art, machine, manufacture or composition of matter and any new and useful improvement on any art, machine, manufacture or composition of matter.”
Funk Bros. Seed Co. v. Kalo Inoculant Co.333 U.S. 127 (1948)
The Supreme Court … [found] that respondent’s product claims were not patentable because they were merely a discovery of the laws of nature in action and therefore lacked invention.
AMP v. Myraid ruling
U.S. Federal District Court declares that genes are “products of nature” ineligible for patent protection.
The issue before the Court was whether or not a company’s patents on the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes could be upheld.
AMP v Myriad
Criteria for judging gene patents
- Moral
- The person should not be treated as a commodity for sale to the highest bidder - Pragmatic
- Innovation v patent strength graph - Poltical Economy/Interest Group
-in the context of commercial drug development academic biologists would enjoy ‘the protection and rewards that patents provide’ for doing genetic engineering—rewards which otherwise would go only to drug companies.
mRNA Vaccines lawsuits
- The success of mRNA vaccines in clinical trials highlights the potential of mRNA technology to be the future of medicine.
- Technological advancements were invented in academic labs or small biotech companies and then licensed to larger companies for product development
Why does Privacy matter?
-A loss of privacy restricts our agency and free will – it removes options.
- need privacy for well-being and development and autonomy
we need freedom from scrutiny to learn and grow
Privacy aspects
- aggregation
- exclusion
- secondary use
- distortion
Privacy: Aggregation
data points reveal more about you when they are combined together, sometimes in surprising ways
Privacy: exclusion
being prevented from knowing how information about you is used or who it is given to
Privacy: Secondary Use
for how long will data be stored and what purposes will it be used for
Privacy: distortion
data don’t reflect the real “you”
Types of harms from loss of privacy
-Informational harm: harm can come to us if others know our private information, like identity theft, judgments that can affect our opportunities and life choices
-Informational inequality: our data resides in databases that we don’t have the ability to access or to change
-Informational injustice: inadequate privacy protections can enable injustices, when people or institutions in a position of power use information against you that you might not have wanted to reveal
Technology and Privacy
- the real problem with technology and privacy is, “the inappropriateness of the flow of information due to the mediation of technology.”
- Technology makes information vulnerable to public influence
Is privacy a universal right?
No, but is embodied in several constitutional amendments
Notice and Choice Model
-Instagram privacy policy
-The model for privacy self-management relies on two assumptions:
1. Consumers will only choose to use products or platforms that have acceptable privacy policies
2. Companies will not violate their privacy policies because the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) can bring action for unfair and deceptive practices
-reinforces the idea that it is YOUR fault if something harmful happens to you. (After all, you chose to accept the terms, right?)
Private/Public Data Partnerships
- the government and law enforcement buys data from data brokers and companies
Value level of Technology
net neutral
T>S
-Science today deeply technological
-Science’s public status rests upon the promises of technology
-The intellectual authority of science today rests essentially on technology
T>E
-Environmental degradation consequent to technology
-Responses to environmental problems largely technological
-The very idea of the environment IS technological
T>PP
-Techno-fixes
-Technology drives and determines legal and political responses
-Politics no-longer ‘in charge’
‘The Tyranny of Convenience’: hidden costs
“Convenience has the ability to make other options unthinkable. Once you have used a washing machine, laundering clothes by hand seems irrational, even if it might be cheaper.
The Tyranny of Convenience’: the aggregate effect
“As task after task becomes easier, the growing expectation of convenience exerts a pressure on everything else to be easy or get left behind.
The optional becomes compulsory when it becomes ‘the way things are done’
Individual decision become aggregate when its the norm
‘The Tyranny of Convenience’: monopoly techno-capitalism
“Americans say they prize competition, a proliferation of choices, the little guy. Yet our taste for convenience begets more convenience, through a combination of the economics of scale and the power of habit. The easier it is to use Amazon, the more powerful Amazon becomes — and thus the easier it becomes to use Amazon. Convenience and monopoly seem to be natural bedfellows.”
Tyranny of Convenience: Punchline
Convenience has a dark side. With its promise of smooth, effortless efficiency, it threatens to erase the sort of struggles and challenges that help give meaning to life.
Created to free us, it can become a constraint on what we are willing to do, and thus in a subtle way it can enslave us.”
