On Thursday, the day after World Intellectual Property Day, the European Commission—the self-proclaimed world regulatory superpower—officially proposed a massive regulatory regime of patents that will benefit China and undermine Western innovators in both Europe and the United States.

Led by the Gaullist technocrat Thierry Breton, head of the Internal Markets Ministry, the European Commission released a new regulatory program to impose rate-setting of patents on standardized technologies like Wi-Fi and 5G, called “standard essential patents” by policy wonks in the EU Intellectual Property Office.

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Four prominent horsemen of the Biden administration’s bureaucratic apocalypse—the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), U.S. Justice Department (DOJ) Civil Rights Division (DOJ), Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)—came together April 25 to issue a joint statement pledging vigorous enforcement against illegal activity perpetrated through the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and automated systems.

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It appears that the emergence of ChatGPT and other artificial-intelligence systems has complicated the European Union’s efforts to implement its AI Act, mostly by challenging its underlying assumptions. The proposed regulation seeks to govern a diverse and rapidly growing AI landscape. In reality, however, there is no single thing that can be called “AI.” Instead, the category comprises various software tools that employ different methods to achieve different objectives. The EU’s attempt to cover such a disparate array of subjects under a common regulatory framework is likely to be ill-fitted to achieve its intended goals.

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It’s been a moribund decade for the British economy, but there are bright spots in the darkness. The gaming industry, building on the success of classic UK-developed games such as Rare’s GoldenEye 007, has generated blockbuster series like Rockstar North’s Grand Theft Auto and perennial sellers like Sports Interactive’s Football Manager.

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Since taking the reins of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) almost two years ago, Chair Lina Khan has sketched an agenda that appears inevitably set for rebuke before the U.S. Supreme Court. And that eventual day of reckoning has drawn closer with the high court’s opinion in Axon Enterprise v. FTC earlier this month, which will allow litigants to bring constitutional challenges to the agency’s authority years earlier than would previously have been allowed.

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An unofficial version of the EU’s anticipated regulatory proposal on standard essential patents (SEPs), along with a related impact assessment, was leaked earlier this month, generating reactions that range from disquiet to disbelief (but mostly disbelief).

Our friend Igor Nikolic wrote about it here on Truth on the Market, and we share his his concern that…

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Abstract

COVID-19 required many professors to switch from in-person teaching to online instruction, allowing exploration of a pivotal question in education: are learning outcomes better when instruction takes place in-person or online? We compare student performance across two semesters of the same large introductory economics course—one taught in-person in 2019, the other taught online in 2020. We analyze test scores from over 2000 students for exam questions common to both instructional formats. At the aggregate level, we find no difference in student performance between online and in-person instruction. When dividing questions by required reasoning skills, we find that online instruction improves student performance on questions requiring knowledge of a definition or formula. Additionally, student course evaluations rated the online course over in-person pedagogy.

More, and not just about noncompetes, but first, yes (mea culpa/s’lach lanu), more about noncompetes.

Yesterday on Truth on the Market, I provided an overview of comments filed by the International Center for Law & Economics on the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) proposed noncompete rule. In addition to ICLE’s Geoffrey Manne, Dirk Auer, Brian Albrecht, Gus Hurwitz, and myself, we were joined in our comments by 25 other leading academics and former agency officials, including former chief economists at the U.S. Justice Department’s (DOJ) Antitrust Division and a former director of the FTC’s Bureau of Economics.

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While the impact of social media on the mental health of children and teens has rapidly emerged as a hot-button political debate, the federal government has largely stalled in passing any legislation on the issue.

Instead, the states have led the way, with Utah and Arkansas both passing laws intended to protect children’s online safety in recent weeks. Other states – including Florida, Texas and California – are also considering bills that would apply to social-media services used by minors.

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