Cyberlaw Clinic files Petition on Behalf of Medical Device Researchers at the Copyright Office

Via the Cyberlaw Clinic

The Cyberlaw Clinic has filed a petition on behalf of a coalition of medical device researchers as part of the Copyright Office and Library of Congress’ rulemaking for exemptions to copyright’s anti-circumvention law. Every three years the Librarian of Congress, at the recommendation of the Register of Copyrights, considers exemptions to the general law against circumventing technological measures that prevent the public from accessing copyrighted works. These exemptions are granted in cases where the law against circumventing technological measures around copyrighted works unduly impedes on lawful uses of those works. (For more on anti-circumvention law, see the Chilling Effects FAQ.)

This petition (PDF) is filed on the behalf of researchers who study the security and effectiveness of implantable medical devices, including Hugo Campos, Jay Radcliffe, Karen Sandler, and Benjamin West. Each of these researchers studies the security and effectiveness of implantable medical devices, including pacemakers, implantable cardioverter defibrillators, insulin pumps, and continuous glucose monitors. This research sometimes requires researchers to reverse engineer these devices in order to study their source code and outputs, and the petition here seeks to make sure these researchers are allowed to do this even when the device manufacturers encrypt, password-protect, or require proprietary tools in order to access this information.

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