Tech & Sourcing @ Morgan Lewis

The use of aggregated data by technology service providers is quite common in today’s landscape, and something that even traditionally cautious customers have become amenable to in the right circumstances and subject to proper limitations.

An annual survey found that the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has influenced decisions made by state chief information officers (CIOs) in 2020 in all areas addressed by the survey. The 2020 State CIO Survey (the Survey) released by the National Association of State Chief Information Officers, Grant Thornton Public Sector LLC and CompTIA (Sponsoring Organizations) was conducted several weeks after the start of COVID-19 and includes the responses from 47 state and territory CIOs.

In a recent post, we addressed the US Department of Justice’s recent recommendations to reform Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) to provide incentives for online platforms to address illicit material on their platforms, and the Platform Accountability and Consumer Transparency Act (PACT), legislation proposed by two US senators that is also aimed at reforming Section 230 of the CDA.

Information Services Group (ISG) reported that the global outsourcing industry is slowly recovering from the industry’s dip in performance during the second quarter of 2020 due to the coronavirus (COVID-19). Data measuring commercial outsourcing contracts with annual contract values (ACV) of $5 million or more show that third-quarter ACV for the global market rose 3% to $14.6 billion.

The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) recently released a report titled “Public Views on Artificial Intelligence and Intellectual Property Policy,” which addresses the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on various intellectual property (IP) regimes. Per the USPTO’s press release announcing the report, the report “represents the agency’s firm commitment to keeping pace with this rapidly changing and critical technology.”

We are kicking off our Tech & Sourcing webinar series on October 13 with our first event, Service Engagements and Business Continuity: A Fresh Look. Morgan Lewis partners Barbara Melby and Michael Pillion will address the evolving approaches in services engagements, including how to address and allocate responsibility for unanticipated business interruptions and business continuity requirements.

In December 2019, we published a blog post introducing open banking; here, we provide an update for 2020. To briefly summarize, open banking comprises a set of rules which permit third-party providers (TPPs) of financial services to access a customer’s financial data with their explicit consent.

On Monday 21 September, the UK High Court (Patents) delivered its judgment on the DABUS appeal, as previously reported here by Morgan Lewis.

On 7 September 2020, the UK government published a call for views on the future relationship between artificial intelligence (AI) and intellectual property (IP). Though the government called for views on all areas of intellectual property law, this article shall focus on patent law.

Bias issues in AI decisionmaking have become increasingly problematic in recent years, as many companies increase the use of AI systems across their operations. On one hand, AI can help reduce the impact of human biases in decisionmaking. On the other, AI can make the bias problem worse.