Jurisprudence Commons^™

Certiorari, Universality, And A Patent Puzzle, Tejas N. Narechania

Michigan Law Review

The most important determinant of a case’s chances for Supreme Court review is a circuit split: If two courts of appeals have decided the same issue differently, review is substantially more likely. But practically every appeal in a patent case makes its way to a single court—the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. How, then, does the Supreme Court decide whether to grant certiorari in a patent case?

The petitions for certiorari in the Court’s patent docket suggest an answer: The Supreme Court looks for splits anyway. These splits, however, are of a different sort. Rather than consider whether …

The Supreme Assimilation Of Patent Law, Peter Lee

Michigan Law Review

Although tensions between universality and exceptionalism apply throughout law, they are particularly pronounced in patent law, a field that deals with highly technical subject matter. This Article explores these tensions by investigating an underappreciated descriptive theory of Supreme Court patent jurisprudence. Significantly extending previous scholarship, it argues that the Court’s recent decisions reflect a project of eliminating “patent exceptionalism” and assimilating patent doctrine to general legal principles (or, more precisely, to what the Court frames as general legal principles). Among other motivations, this trend responds to rather exceptional patent doctrine emanating from the Federal Circuit in areas as varied as …

The Accession Insight And Patent Infringement Remedies, Peter Lee

Michigan Law Review

What is the appropriate allocation of rights and obligations when one party, without authorization, substantially improves the property of another? According to the doctrine of accession, a good faith improver may take title to such improved property, subject to compensating the original owner for the value of the source materials. While shifting title to a converter seems like a remarkable remedy, this outcome merely underscores the equitable nature of accession, which aims for fair allocation of property rights and compensation between two parties who both have plausible claims to an improved asset. This Article draws upon accession-a physical property doctrine …

Using Public Disclosure As The Vesting Point For Moral Rights Under The Visual Artists Rights Act, Elizabeth M. Bock

Michigan Law Review

In 2010, the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit confronted the novel question of when moral rights protections vest under the Visual Artists Rights Act. In Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art Foundation, Inc. v. Bichel, the First Circuit determined that the protections of the Visual Artists Rights Act begin when a work is "created" under the Copyright Act. This Note argues that this decision harms moral rights conceptually and is likely to result in unpredictable and inconsistent decisions. This Note proposes instead that these statutory protections should vest when an artist determines that his work is complete and presents …

Exclusion Confusion? A Defense Of The Federal Circuit's Specific Exclusion Jurisprudence, Peter Curtis Magic

Michigan Law Review

Specific exclusion has become a controversial limitation on the doctrine of equivalents, which is itself an essential and controversial area of patent law. The doctrine of equivalents allows a patentee to successfully claim infringement against devices that are outside of the literal reach of the language used by the patentee in her patent to describe what she claims as her invention. The Supreme Court has prescribed some of the outer limits of the doctrine of equivalents and articulated the underlying policy concerns that inform its analysis-noting that courts should balance protection of the patentee's intellectual property with the public's reasonable …

Note And Comment, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Constitutional Law--Compelling one to be a Witness Against Himself--Comparing Defendant's Shoe with Footprints; Rights in Inventions as Between Employer and Employee; Constitutional Law--Power of Legislature to Prescribe Rules of Evidence--Making Conveyance by Person Indebted Prima Facie Evidence of Intent to Defraud Creditors; Decorum of Attorney in Argument--Propriety of Appeals to the Pathetic or Sentimental; Liability of United States for Injury from Elevator in its Public Buildings--Implied Contract to Operate Safely--Case "Sounding in Tort"; Statutes Regulating the Practice of Medicine--Osteopathy; Precedents