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Articles 1 - 11 of 11

Full-Text Articles in Law

Quibbles'n Bits: Making A Digital First Sale Doctrine Feasible, Victor F. Calaba Oct 2002

Quibbles'n Bits: Making A Digital First Sale Doctrine Feasible, Victor F. Calaba

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Whereas the first sale doctrine historically permitted the transfer and resale of copyrighted works, license agreements used by software companies and the DMCA's strict rules prohibiting tampering with access control devices frustrate exercise of the first sale doctrine with respect to many forms of digital works[...] This article explores the first sale doctrine as it pertains to digital works and proposes ways to make a digital first sale doctrine feasible. Part II describes the first sale doctrine as it has traditionally been applied to non-digital works. Part III discusses modern technology's impact on the distribution and use of copyrighted material. …


Best Mode: A Plea To Repair Or Sacrifice This Broken Requirement Of United States Patent Law, Steven B. Walmsley Oct 2002

Best Mode: A Plea To Repair Or Sacrifice This Broken Requirement Of United States Patent Law, Steven B. Walmsley

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

An inventor's obligation to disclose the best mode of her invention is strong consideration in the U.S. patent bargain, but the courts paradoxically define the scope of that obligation, thus rendering the enforcement of U.S. patents unreasonably unpredictable. If an inventor cannot reasonably foresee the scope of her obligation to disclose invention details, then she is subjected to the costs and risks of either overcompliance or undercompliance with the best mode requirement. The scope of the best mode requirement should either be reliably defined by an en banc ruling of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, or the …


Carte Blanche For Cruelty: The Non-Enforcement Of The Animal Welfare Act, Katharine M. Swanson Jun 2002

Carte Blanche For Cruelty: The Non-Enforcement Of The Animal Welfare Act, Katharine M. Swanson

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note explores both the judicial and administrative underenforcement of the Animal Welfare Act in protecting the welfare of laboratory animals used for purposes of experimentation. Specifically, the Note suggests that judicial underenforcement is borne as a result of the difficulties of lodging a private cause of action under the Act or gaining standing under the alternative statutory scheme of the Administrative Procedure Act. It further suggests administrative underenforcement in describing the promulgated regulations of the Act as inadequate and the lack of self-policing mechanisms. Finally, the Note suggests some ways that enforcement can be made more effective in these …


Paradigm Shifts And Access Controls: An Economic Analysis Of The Anticircumvention Provisions Of The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Melissa A. Kern Jun 2002

Paradigm Shifts And Access Controls: An Economic Analysis Of The Anticircumvention Provisions Of The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Melissa A. Kern

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note addresses the broadened scope of protection granted to copyright holders under the anticircumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA). This broadened scope extends to copyright holders the right to control access to their works, diminishing the consumer's 'fair use" of those works that previously served as a defense to alleged copyright infringements. While access controls are supported by economists who believe they are useful in correcting market inefficiencies and excluding free riders, this Note suggests that access controls cannot correct all market inefficiencies. Furthermore, such access controls deny access and use of copyrighted material …


The Once And Future Labor Act: Myths And Realities, Theodore J. St. Antoine Jan 2002

The Once And Future Labor Act: Myths And Realities, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Other Publications

In this provocative article Professor St. Antoine laments, "I cannot believe that a private-sector workforce that is only one-tenth organized is ultimately good for labor, for management, or for the whole of our society." His speech to the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers outlines the original purposes of the National Labor Relations Act, the reasons for the drastic decline in the percentage of the workforce that is unionized, and his suggestions for changes in the law that would encourage and promote collective bargaining.


Whatever Happened To G.I. Jane?: Citizenship, Gender, And Social Policy In The Postwar Era, Melissa E. Murray Jan 2002

Whatever Happened To G.I. Jane?: Citizenship, Gender, And Social Policy In The Postwar Era, Melissa E. Murray

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

In this Article, it is argued that the GI Bill is consistent with the social welfare policies of the New Deal period, in particular the Social Security Act of 1935, and so should be examined within the analytical framework established by scholars like Linda Gordon and Theda Skocpol in their studies of the Social Security Act's social welfare programs. Although the Bill is gender-neutral on its face, it was framed by normative assumptions about military participation and work that ensured that it was socially understood to benefit male veterans.


Using Immigration Law To Protect Human Rights: A Critique Of Recent Legislative Proposals, William J. Aceves, Paul L. Hoffman Jan 2002

Using Immigration Law To Protect Human Rights: A Critique Of Recent Legislative Proposals, William J. Aceves, Paul L. Hoffman

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Article critiques several legislative proposals that sought to impose immigration restrictions on serious human rights abusers. Part I provides a brief overview of the international restrictions on immigration relief. In particular, it focuses on those restrictions that limit immigration relief available to individuals who have committed serious human rights abuses. Part II then reviews the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and its restrictions on immigration relief. It also examines the federal agencies charged with investigating cases of serious human rights abusers in the United States. Part III describes recent legislative proposals that have sought to deny immigration relief to …


Federal Class Action Reform In The United States: Past And Future And Where Next?, Edward H. Cooper Jan 2002

Federal Class Action Reform In The United States: Past And Future And Where Next?, Edward H. Cooper

Articles

Predicting the likely future developments in class action practice in the federal courts of the United States must begin in the past.


The Bill For Rights, Carl E. Schneider Jan 2002

The Bill For Rights, Carl E. Schneider

Articles

Where today is legislative ingenuity lavished more bountiully than on the titles of statutes? And where has that ingenuity been better exercised than in the name "patients' bill of rights"? Do not our dearest liberties flow from the Bill of Rights? And who more deserves similar protection than patients in the hands of an angry Managed Care Organization? And behold, both Democrats and Republicans, both President Clinton and President Bush, have summoned us to arms. The patients' bill of rights is an idea whose time has seemed to have come for several years, and only conflicts among the numerous proposals …


Statutes With Multiple Personality Disorders: The Value Of Ambiguity In Statutory Design And Interpretation, Joseph A. Grundfest, Adam C. Pritchard Jan 2002

Statutes With Multiple Personality Disorders: The Value Of Ambiguity In Statutory Design And Interpretation, Joseph A. Grundfest, Adam C. Pritchard

Articles

Ambiguity serves a legislative purpose. When legislators perceive a need to compromise they can, among other strategies, "obscur[e] the particular meaning of a statute, allowing different legislators to read the obscured provisions the way they wish." Legislative ambiguity reaches its peak when a statute is so elegantly crafted that it credibly supports multiple inconsistent interpretations by legislators and judges. Legislators with opposing views can then claim that they have prevailed in the legislative arena, and, as long as courts continue to issue conflicting interpretations, these competing claims of legislative victory remain credible. Formal legal doctrine, in contrast, frames legislative ambiguity …


Toward A "New Deal" For Copyright In The Information Age, Pamela Samuelson Jan 2002

Toward A "New Deal" For Copyright In The Information Age, Pamela Samuelson

Michigan Law Review

Jessica Litman believes the public needs a very good copyright lawyer, and if I have not mistaken her intentions, she is volunteering for the job (pp. 70-73). A century of Congressional deference to industry-negotiated compromises has produced, she argues, a copyright law that is both incomprehensible and unfair. This incomprehensibility might be tolerable if copyright law governed only commercial relations among industry participants, all of whom have copyright counsel. To the extent that copyright law applies to the conduct of ordinary persons, its incomprehensibility presents serious difficulties. Moreover, to the extent that copyright law makes illegal many ordinary activities of …