Hi

1. Solving legal problems that arose from the use of computers often requires some legal principles that are rarely encountered in the practice of law. For example:
1. Disputes about e-mail and web pages on the Internet extend across state lines, and may even extend across national borders. For example, there are technical issues in personal jurisdiction and which state's law should be applied to the resolution of the dispute. To solve these legal problems, one must understand principles of an abstruse area of law, called Conflicts of Law. Few attorneys took a class in this subject when they were in law school. Instead of relatively firm rules with predictable results, as in most other areas of law, conflicts analysis can be characterized as choosing from a menu of possibilities.

2. Information stored on computers (e.g., software, data, trade secrets, confidential personal information) is generally much more valuable than the computer hardware. In order to protect this information, many of the concepts in the practice of computer law involve the specialized area of Intellectual Property Law, which includes copyrights, trademarks, and patents. Again, few attorneys took classes in copyrights, trademarks, and patents when they were in law school. In order to practice before the U.S. Patent Office, an attorney must have at least a bachelor's degree in some area of science or engineering, a requirement that excludes nearly all attorneys.

2. Traditional concepts in law are being expanded by events in the area of computer law. For example:
1. Computer software is legally considered a "good". Unlike other goods, the "purchaser" only owns the floppy diskette or compact disk that contains the software, plus a license to use the software. The Uniform Commercial Code was amended by including Article 2B to cover licensing of computer software.

2. Computer databases that contain erroneous information (e.g., false credit reports) can be harmful to people, which may give rise to a new class of torts, called infotorts.

3. Hackers who use a modem to enter a computer without authorization and either (1) use its services or (2) alter records are committing a crime similar to burglary, but the traditional notion of burglary requires the criminal personally to enter the victim's premises, which is not satisfied in the case of entry via data to/from a modem. Therefore, new laws were enacted to define computer crimes. (Personally, I think it would have been preferable to change the definitions in existing concepts, instead of create new concepts, but no one would accuse the legal profession of honoring simplicity and economy.)

4. Authentication of evidence contained in files on a computer presents some new problems, because of the ease with which data in the file can be altered, and also because it is easy to alter the operating system's date and time stamp in the directory.

5. Searches of computer databases provide access to information that was difficult to locate in the pre-computer age, which makes computer databases a major new threat to privacy of individuals.

Thanks