Exploring the Relation Between the Indegree Centrality and Authority Score of a Decision and the Reason for Which It Was Cited: A Case Study

Some of the recent network citation analyses that in continental legal settings have suggested that the most cited decisions (in terms of network citation analysis those with the highest indegree, or authority score) tend to be related to procedural issues, or issues of a more general nature, capable of being referred to in a more varied situations. While it may seem intuitive that decisions with the highest indegree centrality or authority score would settle issues of a more general nature, hence making them more widely applicable to various kinds of subsequent cases, we were wondering, whether this trend would be noticeable in less exposed decisions. To this end, we have conducted a case study within the boundaries of the Czech legal system. We have chosen five decisions containing a chosen keyword based on their indegree centrality in a corpus of Czech apex courts’ decisions. Subsequently, we have constructed eleven strings of decisions (connected to one another by a citation) leading to these five decisions, again paying attention to their indegree. We theorize that the decisions with higher indegree centrality as well as decisions with higher authority score will be cited in situations seeking a case-law argument for either procedural issue, or an issue of a more general nature, or an issue of principle, while the decisions with low indegree centrality or low authority score will be cited for their substantive law merit. This paper seeks to demonstrate how the network analysis in combination with a qualitative approach may serve as a useful approach in further exploring this hypothesis. We show that the actual citation environment in Czech legal setting might be more complex than this hypothesis suggests, but that this methodological approach may be further useful in exploring the normative nature of judicial decisions in non-precedential legal settings.

The Reference to ‘A Work or Software’ as the Factor Determining the Scope of the European Union Public Licence (EUPL) v. 1.2

Free and open source software (FOSS) has undoubtedly become an important element of intellectual property law. It is therefore not surprising that the European Commission developed its own non-proprietary licence, i.e. the European Union Public Licence (EUPL). The article examines the reference to ‘a work of software’ to determine the scope of the licence. For this purpose, the paper discusses the reasons for the creation of the EUPL, the relationship between a work and software as well as the structure of a computer program. The following considerations also include the compatible licences listed in the EUPL Appendix. The article concludes that the reference to a work or software is not accidental because it removes serious doubts arising from the concept of a computer program. Thus, this legal solution may facilitate the wider adoption of the licence.

Cyber Security: Lessons Learned From Cyber-Attacks on Hospitals in the COVID-19 Pandemic

The article deals with the issue of cyber security, specifically the security of medical facilities. The introduction summarizes and briefly analyzes the cyber attacks demonstrated on Czech health care facilities in the period from 12/2019 to 1/2021, together with the procedures adopted by the responsible authorities. The article also newly presents the current regulatory requirements for cyber security of hospitals. In the context of past attacks and based on analyzes of attacks, current legislation and events, the article will provide an opinion on whether the requirements for cyber security of hospitals are set sufficiently or whether this area should be revised. At the same time, measures will be recommended to strengthen the cyber security of hospitals.

Online Platforms and "Depending Work" After Uber

Digitalization is bringing new challenges, including the way how people used to work. The future of work is uncertain. Technology driven innovations are changing the way, how society react to such development by creating different types of jobs and workplaces. What is important today can be redundant tomorrow. Having said that the labour law and civil law will most probably need to react in certain way. The main aim of this paper is to focus on the specific types of activities – such as virtual work or crowd work as well as on relationships between digital platforms, workers, employers and clients while offering and providing services via online platforms. Further the paper will outline the responsibility of online platforms if considered to be in a position of an employer. Due to the lack of compliance with labour laws related duties the online platforms are gaining the unfair competition advantage comparing with "traditional" employer. When it comes to the virtual workers, they can potentially suffer from inadequate or limited access to the certain kind of protection (when compared to the "traditional" employees).

"A Robot Is Watching You”: Humanoid Robots And The Different Impacts On Privacy

Robots, particularly the ones that belong to a special type of robotic technologies designed and deployed for communicating and interacting with humans, slip into more and more domains of human life - from the research laboratories and operating rooms to our kitchens, bedrooms, and offices. They can interact with humans with facial expressions, gaze directions, and voices, mimicking the affective dynamics of human relationships. As a result, they create new opportunities, but also new challenges and risks to peoples’ privacy. The literature on privacy issues in the context of Social Companion Robots (SCRs) is poor and has a strong focus on information privacy and data protection. It has given, however, less attention to other dimensions of privacy, e.g. physical, emotional, or social privacy. This article argues for an “evolving” or “transformable” notion of privacy, as opposed to the “elusive” concept of privacy elaborated by leading privacy theorists such as Daniel J. Solove (2008) and Judith J. Thomson (1975). In other words, rather than assuming that privacy has a single core or definition (as defined, e.g., in Warren and Brandeis' 1890 paper), it maintains that it is important to conceptualize privacy as distinguishable into various aspects, including informational privacy, the privacy of thoughts and actions, and social privacy. This inductive approach makes it possible to identify new dimensions of privacy and therefore effectively respond to the rapid technological evolution in AI technologies which is constantly introducing new spheres of privacy intrusions.

AI-based Legal Technology: A Critical Assessment of the Current Use of Artificial Intelligence in Legal Practice

In recent years, disruptive legal technology has been on the rise. Currently, several AI-based tools are being deployed across the legal field, including the judiciary. Although many of these innovative tools claim to make the legal profession more efficient and justice more accessible, we could have seen several critical voices against their use and even attempts to ban these services. This article deals with the use of artificial intelligence in legal technology and offers a critical reflection on the current state of the art. As much as artificial intelligence proved that it could improve the legal profession, there are still some underlying risks connected to the technology itself, which may deem its use disturbing.

Standard Setting Organisations for the IoT: How To Ensure a Better Degree of Liability?

This early stage research article aims to outline an issue that, though not strictly connected to the cyber-sphere, is most likely going to affect it. Standard Setting/Developing Organisations (SSOs/SDOs) are getting more and more important in the electronics manufacturing field and also in the IP field by setting de facto mandatory rules for products to be safer but, most importantly, more efficient. Standards create trust in complex objects such as IoT devices, that are increasingly more available, especially the ones for the house. It is worth mentioning that the standards these organisations envision are not comparable to legislation but carry a significant ‘moral’ weight (soft law). However, these organisations are private in character and work on a voluntary basis. The problem lies in the creation of the standard when the essentiality of a patented innovation has to be assessed. These processes rely on the self-certification of businesses that their invention is truly essential to the development of a certain standard, which has led to a proliferation of new Standard Essential Patents (S.E.P.s). But in this case, there are no means to ensure some form of liability of these organisations when defects and shortcomings arise. It is argued that unless some form of liability is created for these organisations, IoT objects will never gain the trust of final users.

Seeking Compatibility in Preventing Crime with Artificial Intelligence and Ensuring a Fair Trial

The justice system is increasingly reliant on new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI). In the field of criminal law this also extends to the methods utilized by police for preventing crime. Though policing is not explicitly covered by Article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights, this article will demonstrate that there can be adverse effects of policing on fair trial rights and make the analogy to criminal investigations as a recognized pre-trial process. Specifically, it will argue that policing that relies on AI to predict crime has direct effects on fair trial processes such as the equality of arms, the presumption of innocence, and the right to confront the evidence produced against a defendant. It will conclude by challenging the notion that AI is always an appropriate tool for legal processes.

Everything is NOT Awesome. A Lego Brick as a 3D Trade Mark

This paper discusses the reasoning of the protection of the flagship Lego products – the rectangular brick and the Lego minifigure as the trade marks from the perspective of European Union trade mark system and the Polish legal system. The main part is dedicated to the most important absolute grounds for refusal of trade mark registration, i. e. the distinctive character and the shape of goods necessary to obtain a technical result. However, it is crucial to understand the history, especially the history of legal protection, of both the brick and the minifigure. In the end, the Lego case allows to draw general conclusions about the overlapping of different intellectual property protection regimes and the relation of public domain to the trade mark registration. All these considerations are presented with the use of both comparative and doctrinal method.

Sexting and Revenge Pornography. Legislative and Social Dimensions of a Modern Digital Phenomenon. Phippen, A.; Brennan, M.

Phippen, A.; Brennan, M. (2020) Sexting and Revenge Pornography. Legislative and Social Dimensions of a Modern Digital Phenomenon. Abingdon, New York: Routledge, 164 p.