Technology Driving Innovation: A New Age of Flying Robots: UAV Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Drone Law & Industry Info

We live in a complex era marked by the emergence of flying robots called drones, which in the USA and Europe, for example, have already led to pioneer regulatory legislation. See e.g. GleissLutz, Public Law: The German Government's Action Plan on Drone Regulation.

Drones are a rapidly developing industry and also a relatively new legal field.

"UA" means "Unmanned Vehicle", a UAV is an "Unmanned Aerial Vehicle" while a UAS is an "Unmanned Aerial System", such terms having a U.S. military reconnaissance origin, and still being used in the drafting of legislation applicable to "drones".

Especially as regards commercial products, UAV's are commonly called DRONES, a term applied increasingly to recreational-like "multicopters".

Additional terminology for drones can also be found, e.g. RPAS "Remotely Piloted Aircraft System", or MAV "Micro Air Vehicle". See Altigator. 

Essentially, drones are "flying robots". See Nesta.

Drones are being increasingly regulated by governments because of the growing recreational and commercial use of drones and drone technology, which use raises security issues. Moreover, the drone industry is moving toward becoming a powerful economic force and thus subject to more government regulation.

See a Master List of Drone Laws at UAVCoach.com by country or US state.

See Drone Industry Insights at Droneii.com.

The Wikipedia entry for Unmanned aerial vehicle currently states inter alia that:

"An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) (or uncrewed aerial vehicle, commonly known as a drone) is an aircraft without a human pilot on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS); which include a UAV, a ground-based controller, and a system of communications between the two. The flight of UAVs may operate with various degrees of autonomy: either under remote control by a human operator or autonomously by onboard computers referred to as an autopilot.

Compared to crewed aircraft, UAVs were originally used for missions too "dull, dirty or dangerous" for humans. While drones originated mostly in military applications, their use is rapidly finding many more applications including aerial photography, product deliveries, agriculture, policing and surveillance, infrastructure inspections, science, smuggling, and drone racing."

The drone industry is still young and growing, but it will likely become one of the world's major economic forces in the not so far future. See GoldmanSachs.com at "Technology Driving Innovation" in Drones: Reporting for Work.

 

It is an industry that began just a few years ago with the first generations of drones serving as recreational playthings and as aerial surveying tools.

 

Such uses will of course continue, while drone technology will gradually also greatly impact agriculture, health and medicine, and the global transportation of goods and services via "cargo drones" viz. "delivery drones". 

 

"Taxi drones" for human travel are also in the works.

We imagine that "personal flying vehicles" are also in the offing.

See The Conversation.

Paul, Weiss Wins Law360 "Practice Group of the Year" Awards in Capital Markets, Fund Formation, Private Equity and Securities

My former law firm, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, ("Paul, Weiss" viz. "Paul|Weiss" viz. "Paul, Weiss, et al.") headquartered in New York City, with law offices inter alia in Beijing, Hong Kong, London, Tokyo, & Toronto, just won four Law360 Practice Group of the Year awards for the firm’s achievements in Capital Markets, Fund Formation, Private Equity and Securities.

How does the firm -- even after nearly 150 years of existence -- continue to maintain its top standards of performance in so many varied areas of law practice, not just those mentioned above?

It is enlightening here to read the Paul, Weiss "Statement of Firm Principles", authored in 1963 by the 1995 deceased firm patriarch Judge Simon H. Rifkind, who in his day was regarded by many to be the finest trial lawyer in the country, including such celebrity clients as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. As written by Eric Pace in the New York Times obituary for Simon H. Rifkind, November 15, 1995:

"[Former Justice] William O. Douglas wrote after his retirement from the United States Supreme Court that Mr. Rifkind became "the most outstanding advocate of all" the lawyers who appeared before the Court between 1939 and 1975." [emphasis added]

Before I left the firm in the mid-1970's to do essential Baltic pre-USSR-dissolution research in Europe, Judge Rifkind called me in to his office for a man-to-man talk.

Rifkind was born in 1901 in Merkinė, Lithuania (then Meretz, Russian Empire) and his family emigrated to America and New York City in 1910. Similarly, my family emigrated to the USA from Latvia and Germany when I was a young lad, in 1950. Rifkind and I thus shared some elements of a common background and destiny.

Rifkind was sympathetic to my motivation to do legal work on the Baltics, but he tried to get me to stay with the law firm. Rifkind was a powerful advocate, and his arguments were excellent, so my decision fell hard. I recall particularly Rifkind's manifest ability to focus his sharp concentration on the subject at hand.

One could sense how Paul, Weiss had risen to the status of a legal powerhouse under his forceful leadership, and why it attracted so many gifted minds. As an example, as we have written elsewhere, before the passage of the iconic "RBG" i.e. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, all three of the lady Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court had been Paul, Weiss, et al. summer associates, as this writer was as well, in 1970. The law firm would seem to have an attraction for the best of the best, and part of that "draw" is surely Rifkind's professional "principled" legacy.

The law firm's pursuit and achievement of legal excellence has of course involved many talented men and women at all levels of the law firm's attorney partnership and working staff, both before, during, and after Rifkind. That is a given.

See the impressive HISTORY of the FIRM for an instructive read.

The Current General Challenge in the U.S. Supreme Court to the Constitutionality of Obamacare Will Surely Fail

Oral argument was held today on a Constitutional challenge to Obamacare.

A general Constitutional challenge to the validity of the entire Act will surely fail -- even if a specific clause -- viz. specific clauses -- is -- viz. are -- ruled to be flawed.

The U.S. Supreme Court consists of legally trained persons versed in the vagaries of "the law" who will not fall like nine-pins for obvious jurisprudential sophistry.

There may be legislative flaws in the Affordable Care Act, but it is up to Congress to iron out such shortcomings, and not the Supreme Court, which perhaps could sever flawed clauses, however leaving the balance of the Act itself intact.