Law Commons^™

Coronavirus, Compulsory Licensing, And Collaboration: Analyzing The 2020 Global Vaccine Response With 20/20 Hindsight, Arjun Padmanabhan

Student Scholarship

In December 2019, COVID-19, a novel strain of the SARS-2 Virus, appeared in Wuhan, China. Within a year, over ninety million people had been infected, and two million had died. Amid all the death and desolation, humanity's ingenuity and willpower emerged in history's greatest vaccine race. The global community sought to find novel ways to protect innovation and intellectual property while still collaborating to roll out a vaccine in record time. Despite the presence of compulsory licensing provisions like 28 U.S.C. § 1498 and the Bayh-Dole Act in the U.S., and the TRIPS Agreement at the international level, the journey …

Enemy Of The People: The Ghost Of The F.C.C. Fairness Doctrine In The Age Of Alternative Facts, Ian Klein

Student Scholarship

The FCC Fairness Doctrine required that all major broadcasting outlets spend equal time covering both sides of all controversial issues of national importance. The Fairness Doctrine remained the standard for decades before it stopped being enforced during the Reagan administration, and was removed from the Federal Register during the Obama administration. Since the Fairness Doctrine’s disappearance, the perception by conservatives and progressives alike has been that major media outlets display overt biases towards one political affiliation or the other. As it becomes harder to determine real news from “fake news,” Americans’ trust in media is at an all-time low. An …

Good Initiative, Bad Judgement: The Unintended Consequences Of Title Ix's Proportionality Standard On Ncaa Men's Gymnastics And The Transgender Athlete, Jeffrey Shearer

Student Scholarship

Title IX fails to provide the tools or guidelines necessary to equalize opportunities for all student athletes in the collegiate setting despite the government’s continuous effort to explain the law. This failure is because judicial precedent has largely developed around the binary proportionality test of compliance. Title IX was originally intended to equalize educational opportunities for male and female students in order to remedy past discrimination in our society. However, the application of Title IX has frequently created fewer opportunities in athletics due to the unintended relationship between the proportionality standard and the social phenomenon that is the commercialization of …

Praxair And The Ptab's Shadow Over Biotechnology Patents, Nora J. Mcguffey

Student Scholarship

The biotechnology industry is one of the fastest growing fields in research and development. This may be attributed to the decision in Diamond v. Chakrabarty, where the Supreme Court held that a biotechnology invention was patent-eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101. However, recent Supreme Court rulings have left the boundaries of § 101 uncertain, unworkable, and difficult for biotechnology industries to gain patent protections for their inventions. Before Congress enacted the AIA in 2011, the courts were the biggest influence on shaping the doctrine of patent eligible subject matter under § 101. But now with the new AIA …

“Owning” What You “Buy”: How Itunes Uses Federal Copyright Law To Limit Inheritability Of Content, And The Need To Expand The First Sale Doctrine To Include Digital Assets, Anthony C. Eichler

Student Scholarship

This article will first discuss the background and history of digital assets, the question of inheritability, and the inherent problems with the iTunes user agreement. Next, this article poses an argument that the iTunes user agreement is an adhesion contract leaving the consumer no choice but to accept, and further that the agreement leads to an unconscionable result that robs people of property rights that they likely (and reasonably) believed they had. Then it will discuss the First Sale Doctrine's applicability to assets generally and how federal copyright law needs to be amended and expanded so that the First Sale …

Nsfw: An Empirical Study Of Scandalous Trademarks, Megan Carpenter, Mary Garner

Student Scholarship

This project is an empirical analysis of trademarks that have received rejections based on their “scandalous” nature. It is the first of its kind.

The Lanham Act bars registration for trademarks that are “scandalous” and “immoral.” While much has been written on the morality provisions in the Lanham Act, this piece is the first scholarly project that engages an empirical analysis of the Section 2(a) rejections based on scandalousness; it contains a look behind the scenes at how the morality provisions are applied throughout the trademark registration process. This study analyzes which marks are being rejected, what evidence is being …

Novelty Grace Periods: A National Law Survey, Frederik Struve

Student Scholarship

This survey includes all national law statutes (known to the author), conveying broader rights when compared with Article 55 of the European Patent Convention. The statutes provided in this survey have primarily been retrieved from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and from national patent offices where appropriate. Links to the materials used are provided after each statute.

Briefly, the survey documents that 72 countries offer broader rights to applicants, when compared with EPC Article 55. Of those countries, 46 include the right to claim priority under the Paris Convention. In all, 61 contracting states to the Patent Cooperation Treaty …