Setting the Floor: New FAR Rule Defines Minimum Contractor Information System Safeguarding
Client Alert | 1 min read | 05.17.16
Shifting approaches, on May 16, 2016, the FAR Council concluded a long-running rulemaking with a final rule and a new clause, FAR 52.204-21, that will establish minimum security controls pulled from NIST Special Publication 800-171 over contractor information systems that may process, store, or transmit “Federal contract information,” defined as information provided to or generated under any government contract (except for COTS) that is not intended for public release. Future rules will address more specific controls applicable to more sensitive information such as Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI), but this rule focuses instead on establishing those baseline controls the FAR Council believes any prudent business would implement in relation to its information systems and does not replace more stringent security requirements like those in the DFARS Safeguarding Rule.
Insights
Client Alert | 8 min read | 06.30.25
AI Companies Prevail in Path-Breaking Decisions on Fair Use
Last week, artificial intelligence companies won two significant copyright infringement lawsuits brought by copyright holders, marking an important milestone in the development of the law around AI. These decisions – Bartz v. Anthropic and Kadrey v. Meta (decided on June 23 and 25, 2025, respectively), along with a February 2025 decision in Thomson Reuters v. ROSS Intelligence – suggest that AI companies have plausible defenses to the intellectual property claims that have dogged them since generative AI technologies became widely available several years ago. Whether AI companies can, in all cases, successfully assert that their use of copyrighted content is “fair” will depend on their circumstances and further development of the law by the courts and Congress.
Client Alert | 3 min read | 06.30.25
Client Alert | 3 min read | 06.26.25
FDA Targets Gene Editing Clinical Trials in China and other “Hostile Countries”
Client Alert | 3 min read | 06.26.25