Law Commons^™

The Value Of Accuracy In The Patent System, Stephen Yelderman

Journal Articles

Because it must rely on imperfect information, the patent system will inevitably make mistakes. To determine how the system ought to err in cases of uncertainty—and whether a given mistake is worth correcting—scholars have composed a simple picture of the consequences of error in either direction. On the one hand, erroneous patent awards impose unjustified costs. On the other hand, erroneous patent denials discourage successful inventors and reduce incentives to create in the future. The result is an essentially indeterminate balancing, in which policies of overly liberal awards drive up costs, and policies of overly cautious awards drive down incentives. …

The Burden Of Proof In Criminal Cases: A Comment On The Mullaney-Patterson Doctrine, Fernand N. Dutile

Journal Articles

The United States Supreme Court's recent ventures into the constitutional requirements concerning the burden of proof in criminal cases justify consideration of their prescriptions, of their consistency and of the constitutional limits of burden-shifting.

Mullaney and Patterson mark not the end of the inquiry but rather its beginning. Although they undoubtedly resolve, whether well or badly, a large number of burden of proof situations, those resolved may be the easier and the more obvious, not the more difficult and the more subtle. In any event, however, these two landmark cases will at least have alerted us to the complex problems …