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Jacob Canter is an attorney in the San Francisco office of Crowell & Moring. He is a member of the Litigation and Privacy & Cybersecurity groups. Jacob’s areas of emphasis include technology-related litigation, involving competition, cybersecurity and digital crimes, copyright, trademark, and patent, as well as general complex commercial matters.

Jacob graduated from the University California, Berkeley School of Law in 2018, where he launched Berkeley’s election law outreach program and pro bono project. He joins the firm after a year of practice at an international law firm in Washington, D.C., and a year clerking in the Southern District of New York for the Hon. Lorna G. Schofield. Jacob was exposed to and provided support in a variety of complex substantive and procedural legal topics during the clerkship, including trade secrets, insurance/reinsurance, contracts, class actions, privacy, intellectual property, and arbitrability.

On June 23, 2023, a coalition of companies, including venture capital firms like Kleiner Perkins, General Catalyst and Founders Fund, and start-up defense technology companies, published an open letter to the Department of Defense (DoD), addressed to Secretary Lloyd J. Austin, petitioning DoD to consider procurement reform to help “overcome barriers to innovation.”  The group asserts these barriers create “antiquated methods for developing requirements and selecting technologies that have drastically limited” DoD’s access to “the best commercial innovation.”  In particular, the coalition endorsed adopting four recommendations pulled from a report by The Atlantic Council, a non-partisan international affairs think tank.

First, the letter suggests that DoD modernize to align with the 21stcentury industrial base.  The letter acknowledges that DoD has already taken a strong step in this direction by establishing the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), which reports directly to Secretary Austin and whose mission is to accelerate the adoption of commercial technology. The coalition also encouraged DoD to provide DIU with additional staffing and resources to tap into the non-traditional defense industrial base, reinforce “buy before build” commercial practices, and help DoD speed up validation and approval of needs and funding. Continue Reading Venture Capital Firms and Non-Traditional Defense Technology Contractors Push for DoD Procurement Reform and Defense Industrial Base Expansion

On March 2, 2023, the Biden Administration released the 35-page National Cybersecurity Strategy (the “Strategy”) with a goal “to secure the full benefits of a safe and secure digital ecosystem for all Americans.”

Summary and Analysis

The Strategy highlights the government’s commitment to investing in cybersecurity research and new technologies to protect the nation’s security and improve critical infrastructure defenses.  It outlines five pillars of action, each of which implicates critical infrastructure entities, from strengthening their cybersecurity processes, to receiving support from the federal government. For example, the Strategy highlights improving the security of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and expanding IoT cybersecurity labels, investing in quantum-resisting systems, developing a stronger cyber workforce, evolving privacy-enhancing platforms, and adopting security practices that are aligned with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) framework are some other suggested approaches that the private sector could take. Continue Reading Biden Administration Releases Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Strategy