Law Commons^™

Bio-Banks As A Tissue And Information Semi-Commons: Balancing Interests For Personalized Medicine, Tissue Donors And The Public Health, Ken Gatter

Ken Gatter

Tissue biobanks are critical to realizing the promise of personalized medicine. Unlike tissue repositories of the past, biobanks combine tissue with clinical and tissue derived molecular information. They are searchable, organized data-rich entities that can make lending decisions to qualified researchers. Biobanks have a green light and are growing in number, size, complexity and investment money, but forge ahead with many ethical and legal issues unsettled. The current approach has excessive redundancy, overlap and waste because tissue is often collected for a single purpose and information proprietary.

This essay will examine the advantages and shortcomings of current law describing human …

Cyberthreats And The Limits Of Bureaucratic Control, Susan Brenner

Susan Brenner

Cyber-Threats and the Limits of Bureaucratic Control By Susan W. Brenner This article argues that the approach the United States, like other countries, uses to control threats in real-space is ill-suited for controlling cyberthreats, i.e., cybercrime, cyberterrorism and cyberwar. It explains that because this approach evolved to deal with threat activity in a physical environment, it is predicated on a bureaucratically organized response structure. It explains why this is not an effective way of approaching cyber-threat control and examines the two federal initiatives that are intended to improve the U.S. cybersecurity: legislative proposals put forward by four U.S. Senators and …

Checking The Staats: How Long Is Too Long To Give Adequate Public Notice In Broadening Reissue Patent Applications?, David M. Longo

David M. Longo

No abstract provided.

Social Networking And Student Safety: Balancing Student First Amendment Rights And Disciplining Threatening Speech, John Hughes

John L Hughes III

As the use of social media increases and becomes an integral part of nearly every student’s life, problems arise when student expression on these sites turns into threats against the school or other students, implicating both student safety and the speaker’s right to free speech. Facing a lack of Supreme Court precedent, school officials need guidance on whether and how to take action when a student makes threats on a social network—how to prevent any danger at school while respecting the student’s right to free speech. This Article provides that guidance. It develops an approach that combines the Supreme Court’s …

Electromagnetic Pulse And The U.S. Food Security Paradigm: Assumptions, Risks, And Recommendations, Maximilian Leeds

Maximilian Leeds

This paper analyzes the systemic dangers posed to the U.S. economy by an electromagnetic pulse (EMP), either naturally occurring or maliciously generated, from a food security perspective. Section I examines the modern structure of the U.S. food supply chain, analyzing the just-in-time international distribution model and criticizing it as vulnerable to systemic shock and cascade failure. Section II examines the function and history of the electromagnetic pulse, assesses its potential to serve as a catalyst for systemic breakdown in the domestic food supply chain, and explores the current state of food security planning in the United States pertaining to this …

Paying It Forward: The Case For A Specific Statutory Limitation On Exclusive Rights For User-Generated Content Under Copyright Law, Warren Bartholomew Chik Asst. Prof. Of Law

Warren Bartholomew CHIK

This article examines the User-Generated Content (UGC) phenomena and the significance of re-inventions in the context of an increasingly user-centric Internet environment and an information sharing society. It will explain the need to provide a statutory limitation in the form of an exception or exemption for socially beneficial UGC on the exclusive rights under copyright law. This will also have the effect of protecting the Internet intermediary that hosts and shares UGC. Nascent but abortive attempts have been made by Canada to introduce just such a provision into her copyright legislation, while some principles and rules have also emerged from …

Face-Recognition Surveillance: A Moment Of Truth For Fourth Amendment Rights In Public Places, Douglas Fretty

Douglas A Fretty

Americans are increasingly monitored with face-recognition technology (FRT), a surveillance tool that allows the state to identify a pedestrian based on a pre-existing database of facial photographs. This Article argues that FRT embodies the fundamental Fourth Amendment dilemmas raised by contemporary digital surveillance and will serve as harbinger for the Amendment’s future. FRT cases will test whether people retain a reasonable expectation of privacy in their identities when they move in public, and whether the aggregation of information about a person’s movements amounts to an unreasonable search. Further, the suspicionless identification of pedestrians will test whether a seizure can occur …

Quo Vadis Wto? The Threat Of Trips And The Biodiversity Convention To Human Health And Food Security, Kojo Yelpaala

Kojo Yelpaala

Abstract Just a few years following the coming into force of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreements, the risks they posed to human health and food security became self-evident. This problem has been acknowledged by the WTO in the Doha Declaration, by other United Nations Organs and commentators. Joined at the hip the WTO and TRIPS system, as implemented, seems to have aggravated the severe and debilitating disease burden and food insecurity of many of its member developing countries that existed prior to TRIPS. Although the WTO and its Council …

Patent Assignments By Employees Demand Better Protections, C. David Ai

Chuan D Ai

In the decision of Stanford v. Roche, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit focused on the assignment clause in two contracts signed by the same inventor, and compared the language of “I will assign and do hereby assign” (in Cetus/Roche’s contract) against “I agree to assign” (in Stanford’s contract). The Federal Circuit failed to examine the completely different contexts of the two contracts -- Roche’s Visitor’s Confidentiality Agreement versus Stanford’s Employment Invention Assignment Agreement -- thus suggesting that an assignment clause in any contract carries the same weight. Increasingly, IP assignment language appears in a variety of contracts, …

Multidimensional Governance And The Bp Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Hari Osofsky

Hari Osofsky

This Article explores the governance challenges posed by the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and proposes strategies for developing more inclusive, responsive institutions to help meet them. It begins by analyzing the incident through five core dimensions—vertical, horizontal, direction of hierarchy, cooperativeness, and public-private—to demonstrate the multi-level, multi-actor interactions taking place in offshore drilling and oil spill regulation. It then explains the ways in which the complex interactions in these dimensions translate into four core governance challenges: scientific and legal uncertainty, simultaneous overlap and fragmentation, the difficulties of balancing efficiency and inclusion, and inequality and resulting injustice. The Article next …

The Accession Insight And Patent Infringement Remedies, Peter Lee

Peter Lee

How should property rights be allocated when one party, without authorization, substantially improves the property of another? According to the doctrine of accession, a good-faith improver may take title to such improved property, subject to compensating the original owner for the value of the source materials. While shifting title to a converter seems like a remarkable remedy, this merely highlights the equitable nature of accession, which aims for fair allocation of property rights and compensation between two parties who both have plausible claims to an improved asset.

This Article draws on accession—a physical property doctrine with roots in Roman civil …

Gene Probes As Unpatentable Printed Matter, Andrew Chin

Andrew Chin

In this Article, I argue that the most problematic kind of gene patents — those claiming short DNA molecules used to probe for longer gene sequences — should be held invalid as directed to unpatentable printed matter. This argument, which emerges from recent developments in biotechnology and information technology, is grounded in the printed matter doctrine’s structural role of obviating patentability inquiries directed to inapposite information-management considerations. Where the inventive contribution in a claimed gene probe subsists solely in stored sequence information, these inapposite considerations lead the novelty and nonobviousness analyses to anomalous results that the printed matter doctrine was …

Getting Divorced Online: Procedural And Outcome Justice In Online Divorce Mediation, Martin Gramatikov, Laura Klaming

Martin Gramatikov

In this paper we discuss a study of the experiences of 126 individuals who participated in online divorce mediation in The Netherlands. Divorce is a dispute in which the parties have to distribute a large pool of assets and responsibilities. The distributive dimension of divorce substantiates the expectation that one of the parties may be more content with the outcome than the other. The results of the study show that the divorcees do not differ substantially in how they perceive the quality of the procedure and the quality of the outcome. Both parties assigned relatively high scores to both the …

Conflicts At The Intersection Of Acta & Human Rights: How The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement Violates The Right To Take Part In Cultural Life, Robert Ellis

Robert Ellis

The human rights implications of intellectual property rights have received growing attention over recent years. Regardless of the approach taken, it is clear that both human rights doctrines and intellectual property rights intersect and often conflict. The goal sought after by human rights advocates is to find reconciliation when competing interests collide, while keeping in mind the principle of human rights primacy. Intellectual property rights advocates, on the other hand, prescribe to utilitarianism and economic theories to weigh the benefits and protections attributable to authors and intellectual property creators. Recent international developments have resulted in the drafting and completion of …

Invasion Of The Social Networks: Blurring The Line Between Personal Life And The Employment Relationship, Robert Sprague

Robert Sprague

Over one-half billion people worldwide have registered accounts with Facebook, the most popular online social network. This article addresses some of the more significant employment-related legal issues arising from the growing popularity of online social networks. First, the need for employers to investigate the background of prospective employees is examined from the context of employers using online social networks to conduct those investigations. In particular, this article analyzes the degree to which job applicants have privacy rights in the information they post online. This article then examines the interrelationship between online social networks and employees, focusing on limitations faced by …

Cyberclinics: Law Schools, Technology And Justice, Ronald W. Staudt

Ronald W Staudt

No abstract provided.

The Eavesdropping Employer: A Twenty-First Century Framework For Employee Monitoring, Corey A. Ciocchetti

Corey A Ciocchetti

The twenty-first century continues to usher in new and increasingly-powerful technology. This technology is both a blessing and a curse in the employment arena. Sophisticated monitoring software and hardware allow businesses to conduct basic business transactions, avoid liability, conduct investigations and, ultimately, achieve success in a competitive global environment. Employees can also benefit when monitoring provides immediate feedback, keeps the workforce efficient and focused and discourages unethical/illegal behavior. The same technology, however, allows employers to monitor every detail of their employees’ actions, communications and whereabouts both inside and outside the workplace. As more and more employers conduct some form of …

The Implications Of A Jeopardy! Computer Named Watson: Beating Corporate Boards Of Directors At Fiduciary Duties?, Roger M. Groves

Roger M. Groves

Millions of documents, including five million messages, termed electronically stored information (“ESI”) from the Enron litigation have provided an opportunity for software developers to create software that analyzes ESI for behaviors of computer users in more provocative and innovative ways than previously encountered. The law is struggling to clarify e-discovery rules, but the ambiguities provide an opportunity for counsel to manipulate or take advantage of forensic investigations. In this article, the author examines the potential exploitation of e-discovery forensic tools by shareholders of a corporation that suspect a breach of fiduciary duties by members of the board of directors.

The Virtual Construction Of Legality: 'Griefing' & Normative Order In Second Life, Eric M. Fink

Eric M Fink

This article examines the construction of legality in a virtual world, seeking to under-stand how informal social order emerges as residents construct meaning around interpersonal conflicts and interact on the basis of such meaning. ‘Griefing’, a form of disruptive behavior common to virtual worlds, provides a lens through which to investigate emergent social norms and boundaries in the virtual world of Second Life. Identifying and distinguishing rhetorical frames in Second Life residents’ understandings of and responses to griefing, the study aims to elucidate the social meaning of griefing and its place in the construction and maintenance of social order.

Workplace Consequences Of Electronic Exhibitionism And Voyeurism, William A. Herbert

William A. Herbert

The popularity of email, blogging and social networking raises important issues for employers, employees and labor unions. This article will explore contemporary workplace issues resulting from the related social phenomena of electronic exhibitionism and voyeurism. It will begin with a discussion of the international social phenomenon of individuals electronically distributing their personal thoughts, opinions, and activities to a potential worldwide audience while at the same time retaining a subjective sense of privacy. The temptation toward such exhibitionism has been substantially enhanced by the advent of Web 2.0. The article then turns to the legal implications of electronic voyeurism including employer …

Some Think Of The Future: Internet, Electronic And Telephonic Labor Representation Elections, Sara Slinn, William A. Herbert

William A. Herbert

Amid the scholarly dialogue regarding amending labor certification procedures, there have been calls for the adoption of internet, electronic and/or telephonic representation voting (IETV) procedures in representation elections. To date, most labor relations agencies in the United States and Canada have not implemented IETV. Three notable exceptions are the National Mediation Board (NMB) and the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) in the United States, and the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB). This article explores the strengths and weaknesses of IETV and the potential for wider adoption of this technology in the representation election context. The article examines NMB’s rationale in …