Law Commons^™

Stem Cell Patents After The America Invents Act, Jacob S. Sherkow, Christopher Scott

Articles & Chapters

Under the newly passed Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA), the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office may hear new challenges to stem cell patents. Here, we explore how the new law affects challenges to stem cell patents, focusing on two recent cases, and discuss the future of stem cell patent disputes.

The History Of Patenting Genetic Material, Jacob S. Sherkow, Henry T. Greely

Articles & Chapters

The US Supreme Court’s recent decision in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc. declared, for the first time, that isolated human genes cannot be patented. Many have wondered how genes were ever the subjects of patents. The answer lies in a nuanced understanding of both legal and scientific history. Since the early twentieth century, “products of nature” were not eligible to be patented unless they were “isolated and purified” from their surrounding environment. As molecular biology advanced, and the capability to isolate genes both physically and by sequence came to fruition, researchers (and patent offices) began to apply …

Beyond The Fourth Amendment: Additional Constitutional Guarantees That Mass Surveillance Violates, Nadine Strossen

Articles & Chapters

The ongoing dragnet communications surveillance programs raise multiple statutory and constitutional problems. Each problem alone, and even more so the whole combination, provides a serious ground at least for vastly curbing such programs, if not ending them. This Article reviews constitutional challenges to these programs to evaluate the likely success of current and future litigants.

Are Prosecutors The Constitution's Gatekeepers?, Rebecca Roiphe

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Trafficking In Law: Cause Lawyer, Bureaucratic State And Rights Of Human Trafficking Victims In Thailand, Frank W. Munger

Articles & Chapters

In this case study of a young, Thai “cause lawyer”, advocacy for human rights is considered in context. The most important elements of that context are the path of development of Thai political and legal institutions, globalisation of law, and the networks of relationships that penetrate the state. The case study shows that human rights advocacy by NGO lawyers can adapt creatively to unpromising conditions under which courts provide little access or oversight. At the same time, the case study raises profound questions about the ultimate independence of cause lawyers when the state must be made a partner in order …

Administrating Patent Litigation, Jacob S. Sherkow

Articles & Chapters

Recent patent litigation reform efforts have focused on every branch of govemment-Congress, the President, and the federal courts-save the fourth: administrative agencies. Agencies, however, possess a variety of functions in patent litigation: they serve as "gatekeepers" to litigation in federal court; they provide scientific and technical expertise to patent disputes; they review patent litigation to fulfill their own mandates; and they serve, in several instances, as entirely alternative fora to federal litigation.

Understanding administrative agencies' functions in managing or directing, i.e., "administrating," patent litigation sheds both descriptive and normative insight on several aspects of patent reform. These include several problems …

Privacy As Trust: Sharing Personal Information In A Networked World, Ari Ezra Waldman

Articles & Chapters

This Article is the first in a series on the legal and sociological aspects of privacy, arguing that private contexts are defined by relationships of trust among individuals. The argument reorients privacy scholarship from an individual right to social relationships of disclosure. This has implications for a wide variety of vexing problems of modern privacy law, from limited disclosures to “revenge porn.”

The common everyday understanding is that privacy is about choice, autonomy, and individual freedom. It encompasses the individual’s right to determine what he will keep hidden and what, how, and when he will disclose to the public. Privacy …

I Expected It To Happen/I Knew He'd Lost Control: The Impact Of Ptsd On Criminal Sentencing After The Promulgation Of Dsm-5, Michael L. Perlin

Articles & Chapters

The adoption by the American Psychiatric Association of DSM-5 significantly changes (and in material ways, expands) the definition of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a change that raises multiple questions that need to be considered carefully by lawyers, mental health professionals, advocates and policy makers.

My thesis is that the expansion of the PTSD criteria in DSM-5 has the potential to make significant changes in legal practice in all aspects of criminal procedure, but none more so than in criminal sentencing. I believe that if courts treat DSM 5 with the same deference with which they have treated earlier versions of …

Discussing Advocacy Skills In Traditional Doctrinal Courses, Stephen A. Newman

Articles & Chapters

Can teaching students in doctrinal courses, using traditional case-oriented materials, convey some of the skills lawyers need to practice law effectively? While the recent interest in and debate over training practice-ready lawyers makes this a timely question, my thinking about this harks back to the mid-1990s, when Harry Wellington, then dean of New York Law School, suggested that faculty members consider teaching law from the lawyer’s perspective rather than from the perspective of either the judge or the legal scholar.

In traditional doctrinal courses in law school, like my own in family law, coverage is broad and time is short. …

Introductory Remarks: The Convention On The Rights Of Persons With Disabilities And The Treatment Of Institutionalized Forensic Patients, Michael L. Perlin

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

Making Peace With Your Enemy: Nelson Mandela And His Contributions To Conflict Resolution, Jean R. Sternlight, Andrea Schneider, Carrie Menkel-Meadow, Robert Mnookin, Richard Goldstone, Penelope Andrews

Articles & Chapters

This is a transcription of the tenth anniversary celebration of the Saltman Center for Conflict Resolution at the William S. Boyd School of Law, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The event was held in honor of NelsonMandela, and included a panel discussion about his contributions to the dispute resolution field.

Panelists included Dean Penelope Andrews of the University of Cape Town Faculty of Law, Prof. Carrie Menkel-Meadow of the U.C. Irvine School of Law, Prof. Robert Mnookin of Harvard Law School, and Judge Richard Goldstone, a former member of the Constitutional Court of South Africa.

An introduction was made by …

What Are The Article Iii Limits To Bankruptcy Court Jurisdiction, And Can Parties Consent To Expanded Jurisdiction: Wellness International Network V. Sharif (13-935), Marshall E. Tracht

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Lesbian Palimony Claim Can Proceed In Illinois, Arthur S. Leonard

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

No Religious Out For Firefighters Staffing Engine In Pride Parade, Arthur S. Leonard

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

State’S Highest Bench Approves Reduced Charges For Hiv Transmission, Arthur S. Leonard

Other Publications

No abstract provided.