Science and Technology Law Commons^™

Can Patents Deter Innovation? The Anticommons In Biomedical Research, Michael Heller, Rebecca S. Eisenberg

Faculty Scholarship

The "tragedy of the commons" metaphor helps explain why people overuse shared resources. However, the recent proliferation of intellectual property rights in biomedical research suggests a different tragedy, an "anticommons" in which people underuse scarce resources because too many owners can block each other. Privatization of biomedical research must be more carefully deployed to sustain both upstream research and downstream product development. Otherwise, more intellectual property rights may lead paradoxically to fewer useful products for improving human health.

Price Discrimination, Personal Use And Piracy: Copyright Protection Of Digital Works, Michael J. Meurer

Faculty Scholarship

The growth of digital information transmission worries copyright holders who fear the new technology threatens their profits because of greater piracy and widespread sharing of digital works. They have responded with proposals for expanded protection of digital works. Specifically, they seek restrictions on personal use rights regarding digital works provided by the fair use and first sale doctrines. The proposed changes in the allocation of property rights to digital information significantly affect the ability of copyright holders to practice price discrimination. Broader user rights make discrimination more difficult; broader producer rights make discrimination easier. I argue that more price discrimination …

The Laws Of Genetics, Michael S. Baram

Faculty Scholarship

It used to be that high technology meant nuclear physics and missile systems, and presented the threat of physical destruction. Today, "high tech" means biotechnology and electronic communication systems, and the focus has shifted to concerns about more subtle problems like loss of privacy, inability to control personal information, and the discriminations and other adversities that often follow.

The Battered Woman Syndrome In The Age Of Science, David L. Faigman, Amy J. Wright

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Invisible Barbecue, Eben Moglen

Faculty Scholarship

Past legislation subsidizing the development of infrastructural technology has borne the mark of political corruption. The subject matter of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 falls within the same category of legislation that has fallen prey to this process in the past. In an effort to discern whether such forces are at work today, Professor Moglen undertakes a critical examination of the metaphors that pervade the current scholarly discourse on the subject of telecommunications law. Terms such as "Superhighway," "Broadcasting," and "Market for Eyeballs" reveal a great deal about the implicit assumptions at work behind the current scholarship and legislation, and …

Cyberspace Sovereignty? – The Internet And The International System, Tim Wu

Faculty Scholarship

Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of the Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.

By linking with the Internet, we don't mean absolute freedom of information. I think there is a general understanding about this. If you go through customs, you have to show your passport. It's the same with management of information. There is no contradiction at all between the development of telecommunications …

Lmo's: Treasure Chest Or Pandora's Box, Michael S. Baram

Faculty Scholarship

Biotechnology is beginning to trans- A form agriculture across the globe. After thousands of years of traditional plant and animal breeding, and centuries of mechanization and chemical application, genetic research has opened a Pandora's box of living modified organisms (LMOs) designed to improve the productivity and efficiency of commercial agriculture. A multitude of transgenic crops and animals is now being introduced into commerce by biotechnology companies, and b nations are puzzling out how to appropriate the benefits and manage the risks.

American biotechnology companies and agencies are the leading proponents of using LMOs. They claim that two decades of costly …

The Discovery Confidentiality Controversy, Richard L. Marcus

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Discovery Along The Litigation/Science Interface, Richard L. Marcus

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Biotechnology Revolution And Its Regulatory Evolution, Diane E. Hoffmann

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

To Have And Have Not: Assessing The Value Of Social Science To The Law As Science And Policy, David L. Faigman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Economic Perspectives On Trade In Professional Services, Jagdish N. Bhagwati

Faculty Scholarship

This paper will bring an economist's perspective to bear on three questions raised at this conference by some of the other important contributions:

1. How are services different from goods;
2. What implications do these differences have for the rules we seek to negotiate to free trade in services; and
3. How can we induce the key developing countries, such as Brazil, Egypt and India, which have generally opposed liberalization of trade in services, to support it?

Answers to these questions will naturally bear critically on the narrower question of international trade in professional, and especially legal, services, since recommendations and decisions on …

The Lithotripsy Game In North Carolina: A New Technology Under Regulation And Deregulation, Clark C. Havighurst, Robert S. Mcdonough

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Housing And Technology: The Mobile Home Experience, Bailey Kuklin

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Some Regulatory Implications Of Technology Assessment, Michael S. Baram

Faculty Scholarship

To conclude this wide-ranging panel discussion, I want to briefly address two aspects of regulation which have been troublesome, and for which Technology Assessment may be particularly useful.

The first aspect, which relates to radiation and other hazardous substances in general, is the increasingly important regulatory function of forcing the development and application of appropriate control technologies on industry-normally, the development and application of devices and techniques to protect public and worker health and safety. The question becomes: Is the regulatory program appropriately forcing and guiding necessary advances in control techniques and their timely use?

The Uses Of Scientific Information In Environmental Decision Making, Marcia R. Gelpe

Faculty Scholarship

This Article explores the response of the legal system to the uncertainty which is inherent in the scientific analysis of environmental impact. The first principle of due process is that the assignment of responsibility correspond with the actor who did in fact cause the injury. We argue that existing concepts of cause-in-fact, the foundation of liability, place potentially severe constraints on the ability of the legal system to respond to the need to minimize the risks of future environmental injury. Further, these constraints exist to some degree regardless of whether the prohibitions or restrictions take the form of adjudication, administrative …

The Legal And Regulatory Framework For Thermal Discharge From Nuclear Power Plants, Michael S. Baram

Faculty Scholarship

As the rate of electricity generation increases, and as more nuclear power plants-in contrast to fossil fuel and hydro-electric facilities-are built to meet power needs, the use of cooling water and its subsequent discharge in heated states into the environment is expected to rise to massive levels. Estimates of future cooling water use vary and are subject to technical and economic developments, but by 1990, between 640 and 850 billion gallons per day are expected to be required. This range of water use can be roughly equated to one-half to three fourths of the average daily run-off of fresh water …

The Social Control Of Science And Technology, Michael S. Baram

Faculty Scholarship

Science and technology increasingly work changes in the complex matrix of society. These changes pervade our ecological systems and our physical and psychic health. Less perceptibly, they pervade our culture, our values, and our value based institutions such as the law. In turn, our values and institutions shape the progress and utilization of science and technology.

As we know, science and technology have provided society with enormous material benefits and a higher standard of living and health. But we now realize that this process has been accompanied by alarming rates of resource consumption and many new hazards to ecological systems …

"Uncontrollable" Actions And The Eighth Amendment: Implications Of Powell V. Texas, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

No questions of criminal justice are more fundamental than the bases for imposing criminal punishment, yet the Federal Constitution says nothing explicit about them. It is, therefore, understandable that the increasing limitations imposed by constitutional interpretation upon procedures for ascertaining criminal guilt have not been accompanied by similar limits upon principles of criminal responsibility. That the difference in treatment is understandable does not, of course, necessarily mean it has been justified.

When the Court struck down a law punishing addiction in Robinson v. California in 1962, it was still unclear whether it was willing to become significantly implicated in developing …

Limitations On The Uses Of Behavioral Science In The Law, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.