The intersection of law and information technology (IT) holds profound implications for healthcare, one of the great social policy subjects of our time. As an unacceptably high rate of medical errors continues unabated and double-digit increases in costs make healthcare affordability increasingly problematic, old and new forces are combining to create an imperative for a national-level system of medical information connectivity that would improve healthcare quality and reduce medical malpractice costs. These forces and the opportunities and obstacles they create have spawned a growing national debate, a key but insufficiently discussed facet of which pertains to the enormous potential of information technology to reduce medical errors and their attendant malpractice costs. This article examines the potential just noted and considers the need to modify or eliminate legal barriers to the full realization of that potential.

This Article maintains that meaningful malpractice reform requires a new direction--treating the disease rather than its symptoms. Instead of tinkering with malpractice-related legal rules through largely ineffective measure such as caps on damages, malpractice reform should focus on a fundamental underlying concern: the need to reduce the number and frequency of medical errors. Reduction of medical errors is a direction to be pursued in malpractice reform because if errors are reduced, less litigation would be triggered and fewer damage awards and settlements of huge magnitude would be expected. If malpractice litigation is the premium-raising culprit physicians and insurance companies assert it is, a reduction in litigation volume should lead to decreases in premiums.

This Article contends not only that medical error reduction should be the focus of a new type of malpractice reform, but also that increased use of healthcare information technology (IT) should be the primary method of implementing this error-reduction focus. Recent advancements in IT furnish considerable potential for reducing medical errors, and thus could play key roles in meaningful malpractice reform and in lessening malpractice costs. Appropriate use of electronic medical records (EMRs) has been shown to reduce significantly the number and frequency of medical errors by providing healthcare professionals superior information to that afforded by traditional, often incomplete, and less accessible charting. Evidence also suggests that reduction in medical errors results from the use of IT prompting tools that aid physicians in diagnosing health problems and selecting appropriate courses of treatment. This Article also examines the need for a national healthcare information network (NHIN), its characteristics, and its potential benefits. In Section VII, we address legal barriers to implementation of a NHIN and provide recommendations for a legal environment that would be necessary for the maximum success of a NHIH.

Although not every technology generates litigation and legal scholarship, technological change is often the occasion for legal problems. Metaphors of law’s struggle to keep up with technology reflect the law’s failure to cope with technological change. These metaphors have been used in contexts as diverse as railroads, in vitro fertilization, computers, and the Internet. This article seeks to understand why technological change poses such difficulties for the law. It describes four common types of legal problems that arise from technological change: (1) the potential need for laws to ban, restrict or, alternatively, encourage a new technology; (2) uncertainty in the application of existing legal rules to new practices; (3) the possible over-inclusiveness or under-inclusiveness of existing legal rules as applied to new practices; and (4) alleged obsolescence of existing legal rules.

Using this classification, the Article considers the problem of designing a legal system able to cope in a rapidly changing technological environment. It analyzes the idea of “technological neutrality" as a technique of statutory drafting designed to ensure that statutes are able to operate fairly and effectively in diverse technological contexts. It demonstrates that, while such techniques might ensure proper treatment of existing technologies, they are ineffective in a changing technological environment. Instead of focusing on drafting techniques, a broader institutional context is required. The goal should not be technology-neutral legislation, but rather a legal system that continues to treat different technologies fairly and effectively as technology evolves.

This article argues for pharmaceutical patents exemption right on crucial drugs and vaccines for bioterrorism-induced diseases. The proposal is hinged on bioterrorism’s expected high casualties, and the concomitant extraordinary public health crises, in the context of the bureaucracy-prone, long-winded compulsory licensure, and access to medicine paradigms of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), as reflected in most national patent laws. While there is a plethora of literature on the interface between pharmaceutical patents and access to medicine for resource-poor countries, critical analyses of pharmaceutical patent as a potent obstacle to biodefense strategies is rather underdeveloped in the burgeoning bioterrorism legal preparedness literature.

Using plausible worse case scenarios of bioterrorism attacks, the paper argues that vast swathes of the population could become simultaneously vulnerable to deadly bioweapons, exposing millions of people to inevitable deaths, in a comparatively shorter time span than naturally occurring diseases like HIV/AIDS or tuberculosis. In the circumstance, time is of utmost essence in saving as many lives as possible. This makes it imperative for authorities to override crucial patented drugs or vaccines without prior patentees' consent, negotiations, or evidence of failed negotiations as envisaged by the contemporary patent regime. The article casts doubts on the propriety of the largely attenuated compulsory licensure and access to medicine paradigms, in international and domestic patent regimes, for the likely extraordinary public health crises that would result from large scale bioterrorism attacks. A fortiori, a case is made for the inclusion in the patent regime, a pharmaceutical patents appropriation clause for use in bioterrorism crises on ethical grounds, overriding public interest, and the tenets of fundamental human rights to health and life.

Sometimes, a trip down the information superhighway can be just as infuriating as a drive through downtown during rush hour. Spammers, phishers, pop-ups, spyware, people who believe "c u l8r" is acceptably spelled, and a plethora of computer viruses join forces to test the Internet user's mettle at every turn. These "contaminants" provide no useful information to the user and can negatively affect the value of a network as a whole, counter to the conventional wisdom that an information network's value increases in proportion to its population of users. This is not to say, however, that the Internet has completely degenerated into a wasteland devoid of useful content. In addition to remaining an avenue of commerce and a vast pool of research, the Internet has rapidly become a stage on which anyone can perform, and a rostrum open to every debate. Although the majority of this content can be politely described as amateur, a great deal of professional quality work is produced as well, especially in the arenas of political and legal commentary. The problem then becomes filtering out the contaminants that abuse the free flow of communication, while maintaining the valuable elements of a full and robust debate. Some commentators worry that the "solution" would threaten those who create annoying content over the Internet with significant criminal penalties, regardless of whether that content is legitimate speech.

The law distressing commentators is the 2006 Amendment to the Communications Decency Act. The relevant language is that "Whoever . . . utilizes a telecommunications device . . . without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy . . . shall be fined under Title 18, or imprisoned not more than two years, or both." The most recent amendment expands the definition of telecommunications device to apply to "any device or software that can be used to originate telecommunications or other types of communications that are transmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet." What makes this new law potentially troubling is that the Internet is a uniquely anonymous medium. Users are accustomed to communicating under assumed "screen names" or via e-mail addresses. While such a moniker identifies the user to others in cyberspace, it may or may not have any correlation to the user's actual identity, and thus it is no better than a completely fabricated name. Therefore, an Internet user, following accepted customs and identifying himself by screen name or e-mail address, could face disproportionate criminal charges and even imprisonment for sending a vexing message. The concern that many common Internet users could be labeled criminals quickly sparked considerable confusion and debate among legal scholars, both in terms of its constitutionality, and, at a more basic level, its interpretation. The intention of this Note is to analyze both past and present debates concerning the Communications Decency Act, and to determine what effect, if any, the recent amendment has on speech through e-mail, weblogs, and other Internet-based media. In the absence of an additional amendment, this Note recommends the use of sound prosecutorial discretion to prevent unconstitutional or unreasonable charges.

On July 19th, 2006, President Bush used his veto power for the first time since taking office, rejecting Congress' attempt to lift funding restrictions on human embryonic stem cell research. This thwarted the United States' ("U.S.'s") chance to reverse its policy, established by the President in 2001, that severely restricts federal funding for stem cell research and only allows funding for research on stem cell lines created before the ban. The news killed the hopes of millions of Americans suffering from debilitating diseases and hoping for a cure derived from stem cell research. The veto was good news for other countries attempting to overtake the U.S.'s leadership role in the biotechnology industry.

This Note compares the U.S.'s restrictive policy on stem cell research with the moderate but well-functioning regulation of this same research in the United Kingdom ("U.K.") and the permissive policy for stem cell research in China. The general policies of the European Union ("E.U.") and Latin America are also considered, and the United Nations' ("U.N.'s") failed attempt to create a unified international treaty regarding stem cell research is discussed. The Note then describes the economic importance of stem cell research in the U.S. and advocates a more flexible federal policy as well as international guidelines. Finally, the note proposes using the U.N. as a platform for the creation of an international treaty on stem cell research and insists that the U.S. play an active role in the formation of this legislation.

The emergence of point-to-point television ("P2PTV") technology is a good example of "convergence" in telecommunication law, the phenomenon that various types of media services can now be delivered over a single platform?the Internet. Traditionally, telecommunication law differed depending on the type of media, creating different sets of regulations and subject matter jurisdictions, and even varying levels of First Amendment protection in terms of content regulation. As the Internet and digital technology continue to grow, different media like telephone services, music and video distribution, and real-time streaming of music or video, would "converge" and become available on the Internet. This phenomenon would pose significant challenges to current regulatory schemes of communication, as well as copyright law. If copyright law is the appropriate law governing the convergence of media on the Internet, what problems are exposed by the rise of P2PTV technology? First, what is the right balance between protecting creative expressions and fostering technological advances? Second, what should be the appropriate compensatory scheme--how should the authors of creative expressions be compensated? Finally, is there need for international collaboration to set a more universal standard?

The purpose of this Note is to sketch some viable ways of preserving the future prospect of technologies like P2PTV, while striking a balance between public interests and copyright holders. Part II of this Note will provide background information on the history of peer-to-peer file sharing technology, describe the current development of P2PTV services, and discuss the economics of broadcasting professional sports games. Part III will analyze the current United States law on the balance between different types of interests--namely, how to strike a proper balance among the protection of creative expressions, the advancement of new technology, and the public interest in wide dissemination of creative expressions. Part IV will discuss the application of United States copyright law on the legality of P2PTV. Because most P2PTV computer programs are developed in China and it is possible for future litigation regarding the legality of P2PTV to take place there, a brief glance on the current copyright law in China will be supplied in Part V. In Part VI, this Note will first argue that these P2PTV services have greater positive social and economic potential, and second, suggest some possible legal and business solutions of keeping P2PTV available to users.

Until recently, the patent examination process in the United States has largely been out of the purview of the general public, consisting of a relatively private interchange between assigned patent examiners from the United States Patent and Trademark Office ("USPTO") and the inventor seeking patent protection. In recent years, the USPTO has seen a marked increase in the number of patent applications, and as a result, there is growing concern that patent examiners are overworked to the point of approving many patent applications undeserving of patent protection. Consequently, both the USPTO and the general public are clamoring for reform of the patent system. In response to the apparent need for improvement, the United States Patent and Trademark Office teamed up with New York Law School's Community Patent Review Project ("CPRP") to create the Peer-to-Patent initiative, which is currently facilitating a year-long peer review pilot program. For the first time, the general public will be allowed to review and comment on patent applications.

The program, referred to as the "peer review pilot" or the "Community Patent Review Pilot," began on June 15, 2007, and allows the public to assist the USPTO in examining patent applications online during a limited public review period by submitting and commenting on relevant prior art, which refers to public information that speaks to the patentability of an invention seeking patent protection. Ultimately the pilot will help determine the extent to which public participation can uncover relevant prior art, and thus improve the quality of patents issued by the USPTO, specifically in the area of Computer Architecture, Software and Information Security. The peer review process essentially utilizes the public to search for and sift through prior art wherever it may be found, so that ultimately the USPTO can utilize the top results of the public's prior art search analysis in its own examination process. This Recent Development discusses peer review of patent applications, particularly focusing on the new peer review pilot program and the implications of peer review in general for patent systems such as that of the United States.