Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. once described the law as nothing more than “prophecies of what the courts will do in fact.” If the practice of law is largely an exercise in fortune-telling, Benjamin Alarie believes that computers are very good at reading tea leaves.
The Value of the Pokémon Franchise If you were born in the late 1980s or early 90s or have young children, you have probably encountered a red-cheeked mouse called Pikachu or any of the hundreds of other Pokémon that exist in the Pokémon media franchise. While the premise of catching colourful creatures is rather straightforward, […]
OVERVIEW Similar to other traditional industries, a digital revolution for financial services is underway. Financial technology, or ‘‘FinTech,” is an accelerating technical sector gaining in popularity with both traditional financial institutions and new market entrants. Competitors are forming constructive partnerships to collaborate, efficiently develop, and deploy new FinTech products and services. Patents for core technology […]
3D printing technology has advanced to the level where consumers are able to purchase these printers for their personal use. Just recently, 3D printing was accessible only in limited circumstances. Now, it is possible for consumers to purchase versions of 3D printers which can be used at home to print various articles and objects. In […]
On June 29, Sam Harris delivered a TED Talk in which he posed the question: “can we build artificial intelligence without losing control of it?” He proposed the founding of “something like a Manhattan project on the topic of artificial intelligence” to answer his question. On September 28, leading Silicon Valley AI developers entered into a “Partnership […]
As reported on Kotaku.com – "British Telecommunications, a multinational mega-conglomerate with origins dating back to the 1800s, is suing Valve, a video game company that can't count to three". British Telecommunications (BT) alleges that on-line services offered by Valve infringe on four U.S. patents held by BT. The patents at trial are broadly worded and could implicate […]
Even in 2016, it is tempting to treat the Internet as separate from the bricks-and-mortar world. As much as we might like to keep them apart, Augmented Reality apps like Pokémon Go will force the interaction between technology and more traditional areas of law.
On September 20, Thomson Reuters and MaRS LegalX presented the Emerging Legal Technology Forum to a filled auditorium in the MaRS Discovery District. The purpose of the forum was to examine how technology is currently being used within law firms, how contract and document automation is changing transactional practice, the design change requirements to leverage […]
Aviv Gaon on Mr. David L. Hayes’ opening session presentation at the 20th Annual BCLT/BTLJ Symposium, Berkeley, California Setting the Stage for the Future Last April, I had the pleasure of participating in the 20th annual Berkeley Center for Law & Technology and Berkeley Technology Law Journal Symposium. The symposium was focused on the past, […]
As the New Yorker caption goes, “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” Update that for 2016: on the Internet, nobody knows you’re a bot. Twitch, a video streaming platform that primarily broadcasts people playing video games, has filed a lawsuit in US District Court against those who sell bot software and services that […]