Sayoko Blodgett-Ford

Principal and GTC Artificial Intelligence Group Co-Leader
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 425.681.3795

Sayoko’s practice focuses on legal compliance and business growth strategies related to Artificial Intelligence (including Generative AI and traditional algorithmic/machine learning AI), privacy/data protection, intellectual property, mergers and acquisitions and contracts. Sayoko assists with AI audits, such as under the New York law regarding Automated Employment Decision Tools, together with data science teams. She has extensive expertise in connection with technology M&A transactions. Before returning to graduate school at Columbia University to study Philosophy with a focus on Artificial Intelligence (including Generative AI), Sayoko taught Artificial Intelligence and the Law as an Adjunct at Boston College Law School, as well as Privacy Law and Mobile Apps & Big Data-Legal Contributions, all of which included AI-related content. She has also been a Lecturer in Law at the University of Hawai’i law school, where she taught Internet Law & Policy, Intellectual Property, Contracts Drafting, High-Growth Entrepreneurship and Administrative Law, among other subjects. As a member of the Boston Bar Association Privacy, Cybersecurity and Digital Law Section, she led a working group providing advice to the Massachusetts legislature related to proposed regulation of facial recognition technology. She is rated AV Preeminent by Martindale-Hubbell. She served as a Court Appointed Arbitrator for the Hawai’i State District Court – First Circuit. She previously served as general counsel of Tetris Online, Inc. and as Senior Manager of the Intellectual Property Group at Nintendo of America Inc. in Redmond, Washington. At Nintendo, Sayoko was responsible for domestic and international intellectual property clearance, defense, registration and enforcement. Her particular areas of focus included patent, trademark, copyright, trade secret and advertising, as well as privacy law compliance and video game ratings compliance. Sayoko also taught advertising law in the University of Washington IP LLM program. Prior to Nintendo, Sayoko practiced at Foley Hoag LLP and was a law clerk for Judge Douglas P. Woodlock, U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Sayoko is admitted in the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New York and in the United States Patent and Trademark Office as a Registered Patent Attorney (Reg. No. 40,516). Sayoko holds a B.S. in Physics from the College of William and Mary, an M.S. in Physics from the University of Maryland, and a J.D. from Yale Law School. As part of her DARPA-funded research in theoretical quantum mechanics at the University of Maryland and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Sayoko programmed the Connection Machine (CM) massively parallel supercomputer from Thinking Machines (which was designed for AI research) as well as the Cray vector-based supercomputer.

Books:

Human Enhancement Technologies and Our Merger with Machines (Published June 2021) (co-editor with Woodrow Barfield), available at https://www.mdpi.com/books/pdfview/book/3859

Recent Publications:

Human Enhancements and Voting: Towards a Declaration of Rights and Responsibilities of Beings, in Philosophies journal Special Issue (January 2021) available at: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/philosophies/special_issues/human_enhancement_technologies

A Real Right to Privacy for Artificial Intelligence (book chapter) in Research Handbook on the Law of Artificial Intelligence (Publisher: Edward Elgar) (Woodrow Barfield and Ugo Pagallo, editors) (2018)
https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/research-handbook-on-the-law-of-artificial-intelligence

Advertising Legal Issues in Virtual and Augmented Reality (book chapter) in Research Handbook on the Law of Virtual and Augmented Reality (Publisher: Edward Elgar) (Woodrow Barfield and Marc Blitz, editors) (2018) (co-authors: Woodrow Barfield and Alexander Williams)

Data Privacy Legal Issues in Virtual and Augmented Reality (book chapter) in Research Handbook on the Law of Virtual and Augmented Reality (Publisher: Edward Elgar) (Woodrow Barfield and Marc Blitz, editors) (2018) (co-author Mirjam Supponen)
https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/research-handbook-on-the-law-of-virtual-and-augmented-reality

Additional Publications:

Intense-field multiphoton ionization of a two-electron atom, J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 29 (1996) L33–L42 (with Jonathan Parker, K T Taylor and Charles W Clark)

Sequential vs. simultaneous ionization of two-electron atoms by intense laser radiation, in Optical Society of America Annual Meeting, Technical Digest Series (Optica Publishing Group, 1992), paper PD29 (with J. Parker and C. Clark)

Integration of the Schrödinger Equation on a Massively Parallel Processor, in Short-Wavelength Coherent Radiation: Generation and Application, Technical Digest Series (Optica Publishing Group, 1991), paper TuA6 (with J. Parker and C. Clark)