Law Commons^™

Law School News: Rwu Law Names Judge Brian Stern As Chair Of Board Of Directors, Jill Rodrigues

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

A Qualitative Method For Investigating Design, Jessica Silbey, Mark P. Mckenna

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter describes our qualitative study of designers and design practice. It situates the study in the broader field of empirical studies of intellectual property, and it describes in detail the methodology and benefits of a qualitative interview study of designers and design practice to shed light on some of the persistent puzzles in design law. The chapter focuses on four lines of inquiry: defining “design” and “design practice” from within the profession; exploring the various inputs to design practice and the process of “problem solving” designers pursue; understanding what “integrated” form and function mean to designers; and explaining the …

Law School News: National Housing Advocate Named To Lead Rwu's New Real Estate Initiatives 02/08/2022, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Changemakers: Master Of Studies In Law: 'Radical Imagination, Radical Listening', Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Investigating Design, Jessica Silbey, Mark P. Mckenna

Faculty Scholarship

Design is ascendant. Steve Jobs’s legendary obsession with design was widely regarded as Apple’s comparative advantage, and that lesson has not been lost on its competitors. Design thinking is a growth industry, in business and at universities, and design professionals continue to take on increasingly significant roles within firms. The increasing economic significance of design has been reflected in an explosion of design patent applications and increasing amount of design litigation.

Despite design’s growing economic and legal importance, relatively little is known by legal scholars and policymakers about designers or the design process. This paper addresses that gap and is …

Trust In And Ethical Design Of Carebots: The Case For Ethics Of Care, Gary Kok Yew Chan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The paper has two main objectives: to examine the challenges arising from the use of carebots as well as to discuss how the design of carebots can deal with these challenges. First, it notes that the use of carebots to take care of the physical and mental health of the elderly, children and the disabled as well as to serve as assistive tools and social companions encounter a few main challenges. They relate to the extent of the care robots’ ability to care for humans, potential deception by robot morphology and communications, (over)reliance on or attachment to robots, and the …

Changemakers: Finding The Perfect Niche, Michael Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Law Library Blog (March 2021): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Towards A Law Of Inclusive Planning: A Response To “Fair Housing For A Non-Sexist City”, Olatunde C.A. Johnson

Faculty Scholarship

Noah Kazis’s important article, Fair Housing for a Non-sexist City, shows how law shapes the contours of neighborhoods and embeds forms of inequality, and how fair housing law can provide a remedy. Kazis surfaces two dimensions of housing that generate inequality and that are sometimes invisible. Kazis highlights the role of planning and design rules – the seemingly identity-neutral zoning, code enforcement, and land-use decisions that act as a form of law. Kazis also reveals how gendered norms underlie those rules and policies. These aspects of Kazis’s project link to commentary on the often invisible, gendered norms that shape …

Law School News: Fall 2020 Reopening: The Faq 07-09-2020, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Ethical Testing In The Real World: Evaluating Physical Testing Of Adversarial Machine Learning, Kendra Albert, Maggie Delano, Jonathon Penney, Afsaneh Ragot, Ram Shankar Siva Kumar

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This paper critically assesses the adequacy and representativeness of physical domain testing for various adversarial machine learning (ML) attacks against computer vision systems involving human subjects. Many papers that deploy such attacks characterize themselves as “real world.” Despite this framing, however, we found the physical or real-world testing conducted was minimal, provided few details about testing subjects and was often conducted as an afterthought or demonstration. Adversarial ML research without representative trials or testing is an ethical, scientific, and health/safety issue that can cause real harms. We introduce the problem and our methodology, and then critique the physical domain testing …

Law School News: Aals Honors Barron With Major Pro Bono Award 11/14/2019, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Anthrogogy: Towards Inclusive Law School Learning, Rebecca C. Flanagan

Faculty Publications

At the time it was introduced, andragogy did offer benefits over “chalk and talk;” where most law students passively took notes while one student at a time actively engaged with their professor in a Socratic dialogue. While andragogy has sustained several modifications and revisions over the last fifty years, it does not reflect the life stage or life experiences that blur the boundaries of childhood and adulthood for over half the current student body in most law schools. Andragogy, designed as a teaching methodology for traditional adults seeking continuing education or to gain credentials for upward mobility in their current …

Expanding Access To Remedies Through E-Court Initiatives, Amy J. Schmitz

Faculty Publications

Virtual courthouses, artificial intelligence (AI) for determining cases, and algorithmic analysis for all types of legal issues have captured the interest of judges, lawyers, educators, commentators, business leaders, and policymakers. Technology has become the “fourth party” in dispute resolution through the growing field of online dispute resolution (ODR), which includes the use of a broad spectrum of technologies in negotiation, mediation, arbitration, and other dispute resolution processes. Indeed, ODR shows great promise for expanding access to remedies, or justice. In the United States and abroad, however, ODR has mainly thrived within e-commerce companies like eBay and Alibaba, while most public …

Coding For Cultural Competency: Expanding Access To Justice With Technology, Sherley Cruz

Scholarly Works

Innovations in legal technology are revolutionizing access to justice for individuals who previously had little or no ability to obtain legal assistance. This Article explores how the lack of culturally competent designs within legal technology negatively impacts diverse communities, thereby hindering the ability to expand access to justice. An examination of the underlying theories of access to justice and cultural competency illustrates why it is necessary for legal professionals and technology designers to incorporate culturally competent designs when developing legal technology. In light of ongoing changes in United States’ demographics, and the heightened need to provide access to justice given …

Ferpa Close-Up: When Video Captures Violence And Injury, Richard J. Peltz-Steele, Kitty L. Cone

Faculty Publications

Federal privacy law is all to often misconstrued or perverted to preclude the disclosure of video recordings that capture students victimized by violent crime or tortious injury. This misuse of federal law impedes transparency and accountability and, in many cases, even jeopardizes the health, safety, and lives of children. When properly construed, however, federal law is no bar to disclosure and, at least in public schools, works in tandem with freedom of information laws to ensure disclosure. This Article posits that without unequivocal guidance from federal administrative authorities, uncertainty regarding the disclosure of such recordings will continue to linger, jeopardizing …

All For Copyright Stand Up And Holler! Three Cheers For Star Athletica And The U.S. Supreme Court’S Perceived And Imagined Separately Test, David E. Shipley

Scholarly Works

In March 2017 the United States Supreme Court held in Star Athletica L.L.C. v. Varsity Brands Inc. that an artistic feature incorporated into the design of a useful article could be protected by copyright when that feature could be perceived as a two- or three-dimensional work of art separate from the useful article, and imagined separately as a protectable pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work. This two-part test replaces a variety of tests which courts and commentators proposed and applied during the last 40 years. The Star Athletica decision is predicted to be a boon to the fashion and apparel industry, …

The "Publicization" Of Private Space, Sarah B. Schindler

Faculty Publications

Recently, many urban areas have moved away from the creation of publicly owned open spaces and toward privately owned public open spaces, or POPOS. These POPOS take many forms: concrete plazas that separate a building from the sidewalk; glass-windowed atriums in downtown office buildings; rooftop terraces and gardens; and grass-covered spaces that appear to be traditional parks. This Article considers the nature of POPOS and examines whether they live up to expectations about the role that public space should play and the value it should provide to communities. This is especially important because in embracing POPOS, cities have made a …

Swarm Networks And The Design Process Of A Distributed Meme Warfare Campaign, Travis Wall, Teodor E. Mitew

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

No abstract provided.

Are Privacy Laws Deficient?, Woodrow Hartzog

Faculty Scholarship

Privacy law around the world is deficient because it ignores design. Lawmakers have attempted to establish limits on the collection, use, and distribution of personal information. But they have largely overlooked the power of design. They have discounted the role that design plays in facilitating the conduct and harm privacy law is meant to prevent. Design pitches and picks privacy winners and losers, with people as data subjects and surveillance objects often on the losing side.

Claiming Design, Mark Mckenna

Journal Articles

Design stands out among intellectual property subject matter in terms of the extent of overlapping protection available. Different forms of intellectual property usually protect different aspects of a product. In the design context, however, precisely the same features are often subject to design patent, trademark, and copyright protection-and parties commonly claim more than one of those forms. Yet, as we show, the claiming regimes of these three forms of design protection differ in significant ways: the timing of claims; claim format (particularly whether the claims are visual or verbal); the multiplicity of claims (whether and how one can make multiple …

Design Patent Infringement Needs A Free Expression Defense (La Infracción De Patentes De Diseño Necesita Una Defensa De Libre Expresión), Richard J. Peltz-Steele, Ralph D. Clifford

Faculty Publications

English Abstract: As elsewhere in the world, design patents are propagating copiously in U.S. intellectual property law. Notwithstanding their fertility, design patents face potentially prohibitive and as yet unexplored legal challenges. One possibility is that the U.S. Congress might lack the very power to authorize design patents. Another possibility – our subject here, with implications for design patents in Europe and around the world – is that design patents violate fundamental rights if there is not a defense to infringement founded in the freedom of expression.

Spanish Abstract: Las patentes de diseño se propagan en abundancia en el derecho de …

Trademarks And Digital Goods, Mark Mckenna, Lucas S. Osborn

Journal Articles

Technology increasingly allows for digital distribution of goods that once might once have been offered in physical form, radically separating the design and production processes. That separation has potentially destabilizing consequences for trademark law, which overwhelmingly has been oriented toward indications of the origin of physical goods. For one thing, digitization brings much more of trademark law into contact with the Supreme Court's Dastar decision, raising difficult questions about whether, and under what circumstances, digital files count as “goods” for Lanham Act purposes. More broadly, a world of increasing digitization implicates concerns about the boundaries of trademark law vis-à-vis other …

Surviving The Storm 2016: Employee Benefit Compliance & Employment Law Update, George Thompson, Brooks R. Magratten, Mark A. Pogue, Kelli Viera, Cecily Banks, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Newsroom: Kuckes On Discovery Ruling 7-7-2016, Sheri Qualters, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

The Internet Of Heirlooms And Disposable Things, Woodrow Hartzog, Evan Selinger

Faculty Scholarship

The Internet of Things (“IoT”) is here, and we seem to be going all in. We are trying to put a microchip in nearly every object that is not nailed down and even a few that are. Soon, your cars, toasters, toys, and even your underwear will be wired up to make your lives better. The general thought seems to be that “Internet connectivity makes good objects great.” While the IoT might be incredibly useful, we should proceed carefully. Objects are not necessarily better simply because they are connected to the Internet. Often, the Internet can make objects worse and …

Architectural Exclusion: Discrimination And Segregation Through Physical Design Of The Built Environment, Sarah B. Schindler

Faculty Publications

The built environment is characterized by man-made physical features that make it difficult for certain individuals — often poor people and people of color — to access certain places. Bridges were designed to be so low that buses could not pass under them in order to prevent people of color from accessing a public beach. Walls, fences, and highways separate historically white neighborhoods from historically black ones. Wealthy communities have declined to be served by public transit so as to make it difficult for individuals from poorer areas to access their neighborhoods. Although the law has addressed the exclusionary impacts …

Creative Copyright: Tailoring Intellectual Property Policies And Business Strategies For Creative Content Industries In The Digital Age, Bhamati Viswanathan

SJD Dissertations

My dissertation explores intellectual property rights in three fields: fashion, music and education. I examine the varying degrees of IP rights in those fields, and ask whether the differing levels of rights are appropriate to keep these industries creative, innovative and robust. I further examine the salient characteristics of those rights and ask whether such an understanding might help to determine optimal levels of IP protection in other creative industries.

Increasing The Transaction Costs Of Harassment, Woodrow Hartzog, Evan Selinger

Faculty Scholarship

Wouldn’t it be nice if the rules, agreements, and guidelines designed to prevent online harassment were sufficient to curb improper behavior? As if. Wrongdoers are not always so easily deterred. Sometimes these approaches are about as effective as attacking tanks with toothpicks.

As Danielle Citron contends in her critically important work, Hate Crimes in Cyberspace, the design of the Internet facilitates vitriol and abuse, even when it is legally, contractually, and normatively prohibited. Communicating almost effortlessly at distance—sometimes anonymously and typically with minimized body language—can heighten emotional detachment and blunt moral sensitivity. Tragically, when a mediated environment makes it …

To © Or Not To ©? Copyright And Innovation In The Digital Typeface Industry, Jacqueline D. Lipton

Akron Law Faculty Publications

Intellectual property rights are often justified by utilitarian theory. However, recent scholarship suggests that creativity thrives in some industries in the absence of intellectual property protection. These industries might be called IP’s negative spaces. One such industry that has received little scholarly attention is the typeface industry. This industry has recently digitized. Its adoption of digital processes has altered its market structure in ways that necessitate reconsideration of its IP negative status, with particular emphasis on copyright. This article considers the historical denial of copyright protection for typefaces in the United States, and examines arguments both for and against extending …