Science and Technology Studies Commons^™

The Futures Of Law, Lawyers, And Law Schools: A Dialogue, Sameer M. Ashar, Benjamin H. Barton, Michael J. Madison, Rachel F. Moran

Articles

On April 19 and 20, 2023, Professors Bernard Hibbitts and Richard Weisberg convened a conference at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law titled “Disarmed, Distracted, Disconnected, and Distressed: Modern Legal Education and the Unmaking of American Lawyers.” Four speakers concluded the event with a spirited conversation about themes expressed during the proceedings. Distilling a lively two days, they asked: what are the most critical challenges now facing US legal education and, by extension, lawyers and the communities they serve? Their agreements and disagreements were striking, so much so that Professors Hibbitts and Weisberg invited those four to extend their …

Preparing For Service: A Template For 21st Century Legal Education, Michael J. Madison

Articles

Legal educators today grapple with the changing dynamics of legal employment markets; the evolution of technologies and business models driving changes to the legal profession; and the economics of operating – and attending – a law school. Accrediting organizations and practitioners pressure law schools to prepare new lawyers both to be ready to practice and to be ready for an ever-fluid career path. From the standpoint of law schools in general and any one law school in particular, constraints and limitations surround us. Adaptation through innovation is the order of the day.

How, when, and in what direction should innovation …

Linking Development And Innovation: What Does Technological Change Bring To The Society?, Evgeny A. Klochikhin

Evgeny A. Klochikhin

Recently, there has been a popular trend in academic research for paying more attention to ‘pro-poor’ policies and theoretical studies. This tradition has emerged from a broader understanding of development that includes not only economic but also social and political dimensions. Meanwhile, innovation researchers are still considering development as mere economic growth without much focus on the social impacts of technological change. This article recognizes that, despite these fundamental differences, the concepts of innovation and development have much in common and are, in fact, positively connected and mutually beneficial. This assumption has some important implications for the innovation and development …

Maestros To Multipliers: Exploring The Evolution Of Public Sector Innovation Intermediation And Governance (A Case Study Of Greater Manchester, 2003-2011), Martin Wain

Martin Wain

There has been a trend within the last decade, observable to economic development practitioners, for innovation becoming increasingly integrated into and central to mainstream economic development. To date it can be seen across all areas of economic development, including factors of competitiveness and competitive advantage, to the attraction and retention of talent. Arguably, this extends the policy recommendations and implications of innovation from competitiveness and growth to the perceived dynamicity and attractiveness of a locale to potential inward investors and upwardly mobile entrepreneurs.

This dissertation explores the evolution of innovation policy, through design and implementation, over a nine-year period. The …

Public Policy Instruments In (Re)Building National Innovation Capabilities: Cases Of Nanotechnology Development In China, Russia And Brazil, Evgeny A. Klochikhin

Evgeny A. Klochikhin

In 2001 Goldman Sachs named Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRICs) the most rapidly-growing countries in the world capable of surpassing the United States, Japan and Europe as leading economies by 2050.

Nevertheless, for the last decade we have learned relatively little about the mechanisms of success and failure in these countries. All of them have huge territory and population as well as fast-growing economies that sometimes show two-digit rates of GDP growth per year and surprise the world by their increasing budgets and public spending. In the meantime, most of these countries are believed to be desperately struggling against …

Beyond Invention: Patent As Knowledge Law, Michael J. Madison

Articles

The decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Bilski v. Kappos, concerning the legal standard for determining patentable subject matter under the American Patent Act, is used as a starting point for a brief review of historical, philosophical, and cultural influences on subject matter questions in both patent and copyright law. The article suggests that patent and copyright law jurisprudence was constructed initially by the Court with explicit attention to the relationship between these forms of intellectual property law and the roles of knowledge in society. Over time, explicit attention to that relationship has largely disappeared from …

Knowledge Curation, Michael J. Madison

Articles

This Article addresses conservation, preservation, and stewardship of knowledge, and laws and institutions in the cultural environment that support those things. Legal and policy questions concerning creativity and innovation usually focus on producing new knowledge and offering access to it. Equivalent attention rarely is paid to questions of old knowledge. To what extent should the law, and particularly intellectual property law, focus on the durability of information and knowledge? To what extent does the law do so already, and to what effect? This article begins to explore those questions. Along the way, the article takes up distinctions among different types …

Strengthening Greater Manchester's Economic Base Through Science, Innovation And Research And Development: Report Of Panel, Manchester Developmental Panel

Martin Wain

This report offers the findings and conclusions of the Developmental Panel, which visited Greater Manchester at the invitation of the Commission for the New Economy and the Northern Way. The Panel’s goal was to inform thinking about how Greater Manchester can strengthen its economic base through science, innovation, and research and development in a context of economic and structural change. The Panel visited Manchester on February 23rd and 24th, 2011, meeting with representatives of public, private, university, community and other organisations engaged in innovation, business, and economic development in Greater Manchester. The Panel is grateful for the time and co-operation …

Social Software, Groups, And Governance, Michael J. Madison

Articles

Formal groups play an important role in the law. Informal groups largely lie outside it. Should the law be more attentive to informal groups? The paper argues that this and related questions are appearing more frequently as a number of computer technologies, which I collect under the heading social software, increase the salience of groups. In turn, that salience raises important questions about both the significance and the benefits of informal groups. The paper suggests that there may be important social benefits associated with informal groups, and that the law should move towards a framework for encouraging and recognizing them. …

Law As Design: Objects, Concepts, And Digital Things, Michael J. Madison

Articles

This Article initiates an account of things in the law, including both conceptual things and material things. Human relationships matter to the design of law. Yet things matter too. To an increasing extent, and particularly via the advent of digital technology, those relationships are not only considered ex post by the law but are designed into things, ex ante, by their producers. This development has a number of important dimensions. Some are familiar, such as the reification of conceptual things as material things, so that computer software is treated as a good. Others are new, such as the characterization of …