Law Commons^™

Science As Speech, Natalie Ram

All Faculty Scholarship

In April 2015, researchers in China reported the successful genetic editing of human embryos using a new technology that promised to make gene editing easier and more effective than ever before. In the United States, the announcement drew immediate calls to regulate or prohibit
outright any use of this technology to alter human embryos, even for purely research purposes. The fervent response to the Chinese announcement was, in one respect, unexceptional. Proposals to regulate or prohibit scientific research following a new breakthrough occur with substantial frequency. Innovations in cloning technology and embryonic stem cell research have prompted similar outcries, and …

Dna By The Entirety, Natalie Ram

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The law fails to accommodate the inconvenient fact that an individual’s identifiable genetic information is involuntarily and immutably shared with her close genetic relatives. Legal institutions have established that individuals have a cognizable interest in controlling genetic information that is identifying to them. The Supreme Court recognized in Maryland v. King that the Fourth Amendment is implicated when arrestees’ DNA is analyzed, and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act protects individuals from genetic discrimination in the employment and health-insurance markets. But genetic information is not like other forms of private or personal information because it is shared — immutably and involuntarily …

Response To "Pervasive Sequence Patents Cover The Entire Human Genome", Shine Tu, Christopher M. Holman, Adam Mossoff, Ted M. Sichelman, Michael Risch, Jorge L. Contreras, Yaniv Heled, Gregory Dolin, Lee Petherbridge

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In a widely reported article by Jeffrey Rosenfeld and Christopher Mason published in Genome Medicine, significant misstatements were made, because the authors did not sufficiently review the claims – which define the legal scope of a patent – in the patents they analyzed. Specifically, the authors do not provide an adequate basis for their assertion that 41% of the genes in the human genome have been claimed.

Speaking Of Science: Introducing Notice And Comment Into The Legislative Process, Gregory Dolin

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Congress enacts, on a nearly continuous basis, a variety of laws that affect scientific research and progress. Some of these laws have an unquestionably positive effect. For instance, Congress's creation of the National Institutes of Health, the National Academy of Sciences, and NASA; its various appropriations to fund ground-breaking research; and a multitude of other laws have incalculably advanced human knowledge, and it is to Congress's great credit that these laws have been and are continuing to be enacted. However, not all laws that affect the progress of sciences are an unalloyed good. Quite the opposite, often the laws aim …

Exclusivity Without Patents: The New Frontier Of Fda Regulation For Genetic Materials, Gregory Dolin

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Over the last twenty years, the legal and scientific academic communities have been embroiled in a debate about the patent eligibility of genetic materials. The stakes for both sides could not be higher. On one hand are the potential multi-billion dollar profits on the fruits of research (from newly discovered genes), and on the other is scientists' ability to continue and expand research into the human genome to improve patients' access to affordable diagnostic and therapeutic modalities. This debate is currently pending before the Supreme Court, which is considering a petition for certiorari in Ass'n for Molecular Pathology v. U.S. …

Fortuity And Forensic Familial Identification, Natalie Ram

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On July 7, 2010, Los Angeles police announced the arrest of a suspect in the Grim Sleeper murders, so called because of a decade-long hiatus in killings. The break in the case came when California searched its state DNA database for a genetic profile similar, but not identical, to the killer’s. DNA is inherited in specific and predictable ways, so a source-excluding partial match might indicate that a close genetic relative of the matching offender was the Grim Sleeper. California’s apparent success in this case has intensified interest in policymaking for source-excluding partial matching. To date, however, little information about …

The Time And Place For "Technology-Shifting" Rights, Max Oppenheimer

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Intellectual property policy requires balance between the goal of motivating innovation and the need to prevent that motivation from stifling further innovation. The constitutional grant of congressional power to motivate innovation by securing "for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries" is qualified by the requirement that congressional enactments under the Intellectual Property Clause "promote progress."

The speed of technological change, particularly in the converging fields of computer software, music, video, television, and communications, coupled with the power of technology industry lobbying, have left the statutory balance tilted in favor of rewarding …

Significant Statistics: The Unwitting Policy Making Of Mathematically Ignorant Judges, Michael I. Meyerson, William Meyerson

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This article will explore several areas in which judges, hampered by their mathematical ignorance, have permitted numerical analysis to subvert the goals of our legal system. In Part II, I will examine the perversion of the presumption of innocence in paternity cases, where courts make the counter-factual assumption that regardless of the evidence, prior to DNA testing, a suspect has a 50/50 chance of being the father. In Part III, I will explore the unnecessary injection of race into trials involving the statistics of DNA matching, even when race is entirely irrelevant to the particular case. Next, in Part IV, …

A Defense Of Embryonic Stem Cell Research, Gregory Dolin

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On November 21, 2007, sensational scientific developments were reported by major newspapers, both in the United States and abroad. The media reported a new breakthrough in the area of stem cell research. According to two articles published in Science and Cell (both highly respected scientific journals), two teams of scientists were able to “reprogram” adult stem cells into embryonic stem cells, without actually having to experiment on embryos. The discovery was immediately hailed by the White House and other opponents of embryonic stem cell research. The New York Times gushed that the “stem cell wars” may be at an end. …

The "Reasonable Plant" Test: When Progress Outruns The Constitution, Max Oppenheimer

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No abstract provided.

No Wonder They Dislike Us: Us Admonishes Europe For Protecting Itself From Microsoft's Predation, Albert A. Foer, Robert H. Lande

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This short article applauds the European Commission for holding that Microsoft violated European competition laws, and admonishes the U.S. for criticizing the Europeans for protecting themselves from Microsoft's anticompetitive activity.

Annotating The News: Mitigating The Effects Of Media Convergence And Consolidation, Eric Easton

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This essay is a personal inquiry into the nature of media technology, law, and ethics in an era marked by the convergence of media that have been largely separate-print, broadcast, cable, satellite, and the Internet-and by the consolidation of ownership in all of these media. What inventions, practices, and norms must emerge to enable us to take advantage of this vast new information-based world, while preserving such important professional values as diversity, objectivity, reliability, and independence?

The right to know belongs not only to individuals, but to the public at large, it can (or, perhaps, must) be vindicated by government …

The Right To Speak, The Right To Hear, And The Right Not To Hear: The Technological Resolution To The Cable/Pornography Debate, Michael I. Meyerson

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The advent of cable television presented a new opportunity to consider the competing interests on each side of the free speech/pornography debate. This Article attempts to construct an analysis that will be consistent with Supreme Court teaching on how government, under the first amendment, may constitutionally regulate legal obscenity, particularly in the name of protecting those who wish to avoid exposure to such material.

The Article shows how, unlike earlier battles over technology and pornography, cable television presented the novel opportunity to have a technological rather than a censorial solution to this difficult problem.

The Pursuit Of Pluralism: The Lessons From The New French Audiovisual Communications Law, Michael I. Meyerson

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Electronic mass communications, which have become increasingly influential over the past quarter century, have also undergone rapid and profound technological change. Constitutional governments around the world have struggled to apply their fundamental legal principals to the electronic media through sensible and balanced regulation. Perhaps the central problem in such regulation is to protect truth in the media, mainly by encouraging diversity, without allowing the regulators themselves to exert undue influence over what is disseminated over the airwaves and cables of a country's communications infrastructure. The following article traces the history of France's attempts to solve this problem in its electronic …