Before policymakers regulate AI, they need to understand a fundamental technology: neural networks.
Congress needs to act on child care challenges
The video game industry is concentrated in a handful of locations, leaving incredible talent in underserved areas frequently overlooked. Ben Kvalo started Midwest Games to change that narrative, supporting underrepresented game developers because increasing diversity in game development leads to better products and bigger markets. Ben recently joined us to talk about Midwest Games, the challenges of raising capital in the Midwest, the importance of small developers in maintaining a healthy video game ecosystem, and the potential benefits of AI for the industry.
Engine statement on SCOTUS Decision in Moody v. NetChoice and NetChoice v. Paxton
Consumer weather models are too coarse for farms and conservancies that are large enough to occupy their own microclimates. Dr. Carlos Gaitan started Benchmark Labs to solve this problem, leveraging artificial intelligence to create custom weather models for farmers and conservators—helping them increase their crop yield and better manage their land. Carlos recently sat down with us to discuss Benchmark Labs, his experience as an immigrant founder, the value of government funding for startups, and how policymakers should approach AI policy.
Fee shifting, or "loser pays," is already in the Patent Act but the current wording -- only in “exceptional cases” can the court award attorney fees to the prevailing party -- left the door open for the Federal Circuit to define exceptional so narrowly that fees are only granted in a fraction of cases.
This piece was originally published in Venture Beat
The law that governs our interactions with the Internet was passed in 1986. Yes, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act — ECPA — became law before the Internet was widely used and at a time when most people did not have computers in their homes.
ECPA is out of date and out of its depth. But changing a law that touches as many industries and interactions as ECPA does takes a lot of political appetite and will. So why should you care?
Despite original intentions, ECPA is the touchstone privacy law protecting and governing our information and interactions online. So, among other things, it has been used by the government to argue that anything stored online for longer than 180 days has been“discarded” and therefore does not qualify for Fourth Amendment protection — the freedom from unwarranted search and seizure, and the right to privacy.
In other words, all those emails and Dropbox documents you’ve had for over six months can be obtained by law enforcement without a probable cause warrant. This includes the IRS, FBI, and DEA, as well as state and local law enforcement agencies.
So there’s the personal problem of having our online data unprotected by the Fourth Amendment — but that’s just the beginning. Since ECPA is being used to tackle questions outside of its original scope, and is therefore interpreted at will and applied unevenly, the ensuing uncertainty has an adverse impact on startups (read: small, fast-growing companies that are creating economic value and jobs).
Since data plays an increasingly important role for many technology startups, any uncertainty over compliance increases the burden of time and resources needed to unravel the issue. In addition, laws like this that disempower businesses and consumers place an added strain on user trust. Under ECPA, a complex legal request from law enforcement would force businesses to chose between facing fines and legal action while protecting their users, or complying with the government at the cost of alienating users. During the Occupy Wall Street protests last year, Twitter was caught up in all this while trying to protect a user’s Fourth Amendment rights against the unwarranted seizure of tweets over 180 days old. In the end, however, Twitter surrendered the data to avoid hefty fines.
This obvious disparity between the statute books and reality of how we use the Internet to communicate has already led to a bi-partisan push for reform, championed by the original ECPA author — Senator Patrick Leahy. Senator Leahy is joined by co-sponsor Senator Lee who explained that “when ECPA was enacted, email was primarily a means of communicating information, not storing it. Today, we use our email accounts as digital filing cabinets, where we store many of the personal documents and sensitive information that the Fourth Amendment was meant to protect. This bill takes an essential step toward ensuring that the private life of Americans remains private.”
There is also a reform bill in the House sponsored by Representative Kevin Yoder. The Email Privacy Act has 137 co-sponsors, but if it’s actually going to pass this do-nothing Congress, we need to take action. It’s worth noting here that the 113th Congress is on course to pass less legislation than any Congress in history. So far, it’s passed only 49 laws. The original “Do Nothing’’ Congress denounced by President Harry Truman in 1947, however, passed 906 laws.
And if that’s not a big enough hurdle, all reform legislation is now being blocked by the Securities and Exchange Commission in the hope of a special carve-out so regulatory agencies can continue to access our online documents without a warrant. Clearly, any such exception would undercut the purpose of reform.
So what can you do?
1. Sign the White House petition. Call on the White House to break its silence and stand up for ECPA reform. We need President Obama to tell the SEC to back down in its demands and make clear that the time for ECPA reform is now. The petition needs 100,000 signatures by December 12th. That’s next Thursday!
2. Join the TechFreedom Thunderclap to show your support and raise awareness about the need for reform.
3. Do your own evangelizing on social media using #ECPA and #GetAWarrant. You can also share these infographics from the ACLU and TechFreedom to educate others.
The right to privacy and the freedom from unwarranted search and seizure are not to be taken lightly. And as we live more of our lives online, it is essential that the law catches up.
Engine Advocacy, and our nationwide network of startups, entrepreneurs, investors and allies, welcome this action taken by the House as yet another step in neutralizing the threat of patent trolls and the daily harm they cause to our economy. We commend leaders from both sides of the aisle including House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) among others in moving this bipartisan legislation through committee, onto the floor and ultimately working to ensure a sweeping majority in favor.
This Thursday, the House of Representatives will vote on the Innovation Act -- the best bill yet that aims to remedy the growing patent trolling problem. We cannot wait to enact meaningful patent reform, and this is our opportunity. We need you to call your Congressional Representative to urge a yes vote on this bill.
If you’ve been following the patent troll epidemic in the news at all, you’ve probably also heard of the company I work for. Six months ago, I started working at FindTheBest. Two days after I started, we were served with our first demand letter from Lumen View Technology LLC. The next A day, Lumen View Technology filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
In the name of “individual rights and free expression,” WikiLeaks has released the draft text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. Negotiations over this trade agreement began in secret between 12 Pacific Rim countries in December 2012, and despite the secrecy, we know (from a previous leak) that discussions have covered intellectual property, competition and State-owned enterprises, environmental policy, services and investment, and government procurement, among other issues. But how will this impact startups?
Today, 39 prominent venture capitalists sent a letter to Congress urging comprehensive legislation to address the patent troll problem. Together, the signatories have aided the success of companies such as Netflix, Twitter, and Kickstarter, and they invest upwards of $1 billion annually to ensure that even more young, high-tech companies continue to grow and fuel job creation in the United States.
America's low ranking is alarming, especially given the US's assumed dominance in the global political economy and its role as a cross-border cultural arbiter. When you consider that the domestic technology industry is a major exporter of inventions and ideas, the concern over this country’s poor performance on gender equality should become only more acute.
To date I have been operating on a rather simple premise. If democracy equals freedom and freedom equals privacy then - by the transitive property of mathematics - democracy and privacy must be intricately linked. Like all constitutional queries, the discussions we are having about privacy - and those yet to be had - are centered around a single question: what kind of country do we want to live in?
We use the internet every day to work, read, watch and play. But for residents of low-income neighborhoods, internet access can be useful for more than solving “first world problems”. It can mean a plan during disasters, better health, safer streets, a stronger community, and economic opportunity. The Red Hook Initiative is helping one community in Brooklyn turn things around.
Entrepreneurs, young businesses, and emerging, high-growth technologies are powering what resurgence there is in the American economy. But these businesses are subject to an arcane, onerous system of patent regulation that leaves them vulnerable, and that vulnerability is abused by patent assertion entities and their allies to leverage that system against innovators. With this reality, we are faced with two options: a broken system, or the chance of a reformed system that champions innovation and growth.
California Governor Jerry Brown signed a new law that amounts to a big victory for startups and their investors. Assembly Bill No. 1412 reverses a 2012 adjustment that would have resulted in massive retroactive taxes on investors and small business owners. Engine’s estimate on the new rule's impact on startups empowered advocates looking to overturn the adjustment with a data-rich perspective on future investment, business, and employment growth.
Here’s what we know about the Affordable Care Act: 32 million Americans who would otherwise be uninsured will now have coverage. What you might not know is that Obamacare could also boost entrepreneurship by decoupling healthcare from employment. The pressure to be employed by a larger company is loosening as the Affordable Care Act makes it easier and less expensive to purchase individual coverage.
Despite the current government shutdown, the march towards immigration reform is continuing. Last week, House Democrats released a comprehensive reform bill, and House Republicans too are working on solutions behind the scenes.Amidst signs of poor economic performance that will only get worse with the current shutdown and looming debt-ceiling debates, a comprehensive solution to immigration reform makes economic sense.
On Friday afternoon, the Federal Trade Commission announced its intention to launch a study of Patent Assertion Entities, commonly referred to as “patent trolls.” While a host of interesting research on the patent system has surfaced over the summer, the FTC’s involvement could lead to the evaluation of brand new information that will aid legislative efforts.
A new study from the Progressive Policy Institute puts the economic cost of patent trolls at $83 billion. Patent trolls are capitalizing on a system which, as currently constituted, does not adequately service our growing economy. It is a system within our power to reconstruct, and while that work is underway, we need this community to continue to support those efforts to bring them to fruition.
Your privacy is important to us. To better protect your privacy we provide this notice explaining our online information practices and the choices you can make about the way your information is collected and used.
