The Berkman Klein Center’s Cyberlaw Clinic, which provides pro-bono legal services to clients on issues relating to the internet, technology and intellectual property, has written in support of a number of technology cases in recent weeks.
In December, the Clinic filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Privacy Joseph Cannataci in the case United States v. Microsoft, Case No. 17-2. The case—commonly known as the “Microsoft Ireland case”—presents the question of whether a search warrant can compel Microsoft to produce to the US government the contents of an email account stored on Microsoft servers in Ireland.
Also in December they filed an opening comment on behalf of the Software Preservation Network and the Library Copyright Alliance, asking the Library of Congress to grant an exemption for libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural heritage institutions to circumvent technology protection measures in order to preserve software and software-dependent materials (digital files that require on software access to be readable).
Last week they helped file an amicus brief with Professor Bernard Chao of the University of Denver Sturm College of Law on behalf of eighteen intellectual property law professors, supporting petitioners’ request that the Supreme Court review a decision of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. That decision—Mentor Graphics v. Eve-USA, (Fed. Cir. March 16, 2017)—awarded patent damages against petitioners. But, as amici argue in the brief, the Federal Circuit failed to properly apportion those damages when assessing respondent’s lost profits.
For more information on these and other Cyberlaw Clinic endeavors, visit their blog.