Pictured, from left, are Lisa Ellman of Hogan Lovells and Michael Fitzpatrick, General Electric's head of regulatory advocacy, global law and policy. Courtesy photos.

Michael Fitzpatrick is a senior regulatory lawyer at General Electric, but rather than be buried in briefs and bureaucracy all day, Fitzpatrick's work at the Boston-based company is the stuff of science fiction.

Fitzpatrick's job—officially GE's head of regulatory advocacy—is to help clear the way for GE innovations in such areas as the Internet of things. He often works closely with outside counsel, Lisa Ellman, a partner at Hogan Lovells. Both are based in Washington, D.C.

Corporate Counsel recently talked with Fitzpatrick and Ellman about the brave new world of technology they are helping to shape. They talked about four of the most rapidly evolving areas in tech that are likely to affect businesses and their in-house counsel in the next five years.

1. 3-D printing.

Fitzpatrick explained when industries do it, it's called “additive manufacturing.” And GE is making a “radical departure” from traditional manufacturing while setting a “significant milestone” in 3-D printing technology, according to the March/April issue of the MIT Technology Review.

The article explains how GE, the world's largest supplier of jet engines, is using additive manufacturing to produce a metal-alloy fuel nozzle for a new aircraft engine by printing the part layer by layer with lasers.

Fitzpatrick said the technique “can build parts used in sophisticated machinery faster and cheaper, and the parts are lighter and more durable” than plain metal. For aviation, both of those factors are critical.

He said GE is also planning printed parts for giant gas and wind turbines. And GE Healthcare has already produced printed probes used in ultrasound machines.

He added that such new technology creates a host of issues for the GE legal team to tackle—intellectual property, workplace safety, certification and assuring the free flow of data across borders. 

2. Artificial intelligence and the internet of things.

Fitzpatrick said GE wants to use AI and the data it generates “to automate transportation systems, and to optimize performance of machines, whether power turbines, jet engines or health care equipment.”

AI leads to similar legal issues as additive manufacturing, he said.

Ellman added, “Automation. It's all about data, whether we are talking drones or transportation, it's about the data. Using it to make safer and more efficient processes for companies.” She said she works with companies of all sizes to help them automate their systems and safely collect data.

Among the legal questions, Fitzpatrick said, are who owns the data, and where the liability flows when an incident occurs. “Does GE, which is running the predictive analytics platform, ingesting data from one or more customers, have control over [the data], and some level of liability?” he asked. “Or do the customers and the machines that are producing the data?”

Fitzpatrick said GE grapples every day with questions about where regulators belong when it comes to data. The key, he said, is arriving at a flexible regulation that can evolve quickly as technologies change.

“Also, the world of industrial IOT is different from consumer IOT,” he noted. “With consumer IOT, you are dealing with individuals and their PII [personally identifiable information]. With industrial IOT, you are dealing with machine data, say the flow of fossil fuel through a pipeline or wind through a turbine for maximum efficiency.”

“Those zeroes and ones [machine computer data] we argue deserve a different approach from policymakers than somebody's PII, maybe even a lighter regulatory touch,” he said.

Both lawyers think many issues, including liability, might best be resolved through contracts between equally sophisticated parties, rather than by government regulation.

3. Spectrum for its own industrial LTE network, for high-speed wireless communication.

“Another area of emerging importance for GE and all industrial companies is access to spectrum. It is the lifeblood of the industrial internet of things; spectrum is the blood that flows between the organs and allows them to operate,” said Fitzpatrick.

He said GE moves huge quantities of data, and “it's not always been the case that we have the ability to access this kind of spectrum from commercial cellular carriers. They are focused on consumers. We have different needs, for long-term, interference-free, secure spectrum. Unless we have our own, we are going to be hobbled.”

Fitzpatrick said GE Digital has been working with Nokia, Qualcomm Technologies Inc. and others, including GE's industrial customers, meshing their technologies to create a private LTE network for the industrial IOT.

Changing internet policies at the Federal Communications Commission could eliminate the ability of industrials to purchase the right size bandwidth, Fitzpatrick said.

“From the perspective of the in-house lawyer, the question of spectrum as a policy issue has emerged dramatically over [the] last few years, and will only get more important over [the] next 10,” he predicted.

4. Unmanned aircraft systems, or drones.

“As someone in regulatory policy space for 25 years, this is one of the most exciting and important areas of regulatory policy right now,” Fitzpatrick said. “It will yield great social benefit, and is coming on [the] scene quickly and shaking things up.”

He said GE is using drones “to affect really precise and safe inspections of critical infrastructure.” For example, drones can inspect hundreds of miles of pipelines for defects and leaks, transmission lines, oil and gas fields, refineries, and maritime facilities such as ports and deep-water oil rigs.

“Drones can do it faster, more accurately and efficiently, and more safely than sending [a human] inspector into those situations,” Fitzpatrick said. “GE is going hard into the automated inspection business. We call it Avitas.”

The next big concept, he said, is designing an unmanned traffic management system using big data to manage the millions of drones that will be in the air in the next decade.

Again the biggest hurdle for drones is regulatory.

Ellman explained that from the beginning the Federal Aviation Administration has treated drones as though they were manned aircraft. To do the kind of inspections GE does with drones, for example, requires the company to obtain waivers from the FAA.

“This is all I do all day, every day, is help general counsel and their teams on these issues,” she added. Ellman heads her firm's unmanned aircraft systems practice group, and co-founded the Commercial Drone Alliance, a nonprofit group that advocates for drone technology.

“There is broad acknowledgement that we need a regulatory framework to operate drones,” Fitzpatrick said. “People have concerns, but there are so many benefits that it's imperative that policymakers get it right, and get it done pretty quickly.”