November 16, 2018

Conference on Trade Secrets and Algorithmic Systems

This conference explored the increasingly important issues raised by trade secrecy protection of data-driven decisionmaking algorithms. Its distinctive contribution was to bring innovation policy and intellectual property law expertise to the emerging debate about these tools.

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Event Website

Participants at the event:

Examined the extent to which trade secrecy is a necessary and desirable means for promoting socially desirable innovation in decisionmaking algorithms and consider possible alternatives.
Considered the potential implications of trade secrecy for competition among developers of decisionmaking algorithms.
Discussed the implications of trade secrecy for the ongoing validation, error correction and updating of these tools.
Analyzed the intersection between these innovation policy issues and the concerns about accountability, transparency, privacy and fairness that have so far dominated the debate about data-driven decisionmaking algorithms.