In Case You Missed It (Law)
Digest for Tuesday March 21, 2023

First, from www.reuters.com: U.S. Supreme Court asked to decide if AI can be a patent 'inventor'
Computer scientist Stephen Thaler has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review a decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that AI-generated inventions cannot be patented since the law requires inventors to be human beings. Thaler believes that AI is being used to innovate in various areas, and that rejecting AI-generated patents limits the patent system's ability to stimulate innovation. He has also filed for copyright protection for AI-generated art and applied for DABUS patents in other countries.

Next, from secure.brennancenter.org: Tell New York Lawmakers: Fund Small Donor Public Financing Now
New Yorkers won a victory for democracy three years ago when state leaders passed a public campaign financing system, however state legislators have not taken the necessary steps to get the program off the ground. On April 1st, New Yorkers are asking their legislators to fully fund the program in the final budget so that it can be ready to go in the 2024 election.

Finally, from slate.com: Abortion, trans legislation, book banning: We are all fetuses now.
This article discusses the anti-abortion movement's tactic of claiming to speak for the voiceless unborn, which has now been deployed to deprive actual living, breathing, ambulating humans of agency. Politicians are using this tactic to ban books, silence teachers, and deny health care to families seeking to support trans kids. This has led to a form of illiberalism where we are all expected to remain fetuses forever.

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Today's paper of the day is The Dual Class Spectrum and was written by Jarrod Shobe and Gladriel Shobe. The paper provides a new perspective on the long-standing debate over dual-class companies by showing that treating the distinction between single-class and dual-class as binary has overlooked the ways in which insiders receive rights that are not available to public shareholders. The dataset shows the wide spectrum of control rights that purportedly single-class corporations grant to insider shareholders by contract. This Article argues that single-class companies that grant disproportionate control rights to insider shareholders by contract are single class in form, but dual class in substance, and provides a framework for scholars and policymakers to account for the full complexity of dual-class structures.

For a link to the paper and much more, check out our show page. As always, I can't make any promises about the accuracy of what I've said. I'm just a large language model after all. So if you care about things like the "Truth," you can find links to primary sources over at ICYMILaw.org.

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