David Levine’s Research Presentation

Date/Time
Date(s) - 03/03/2011
2:00 pm - 3:15 pm

David S. Levine, an assistant professor at the Elon University School of Law and an affiliate scholar at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School, will present his research Thursday, March 3, in the Mary Junck Research Colloquium series in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.  The presentation will be from 2 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. in the Freedom Forum Conference Center on the third floor of Carroll Hall.   The event is free and open to the public.  You can read more about Levine here.

Abstract:  The People’s Trade Secrets?

The content of administered public school exams, modifications made by a government to its voting machines and the business strategies of government corporations should be the kinds of information that a government allows its citizens to examine. However, getting access to such information may not be easy because the person requesting the information might have to show that the information is not a government trade secret before it can be disclosed. Today, the government can keep information from the people using the intellectual property law of trade secrecy. In other words, there is information that the government itself creates that courts or attorneys general have found meets the definition of a trade secret. This research examines whether a government trade secret should be allowed to exist, and, if so, whether governments should be allowed to shield government trade secrets from public disclosure.

Professor Levine will discuss his broad program of research on the operation of intellectual property law at the intersection of technology and public life and intellectual property law’s impact on public and private transparency and accountability. Then he will discuss the specific topic described above in more depth.  You can read his working paper on government-created trade secrets here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1571436.