Digital Commons Network^™

Preserving The Fruits Of Labor: Impediments To University Inventor Mobility, Brenda M. Simon

Faculty Scholarship

Academic inventors must overcome numerous obstacles when they seek to leave their parent universities. The results of their work are often intertwined in what I call "innovation-essential components," which are important aspects of the. innovative process that create strong ties to the parent university, such as data, patents, trade secrets, grants, contracts, materials, and other agreements and restrictions. Innovation-essential components effectively bind university inventors to their parent institutions, making departure unworkable without the university's approval. Universities sometimes further complicate inventor mobility by entering into unlawful agreements with other academic institutions in their efforts to prevent inventor movement or by engaging …

Climate Change And Innovation In Brazil: Threats And Opportunities, Gabriel Wedy, Cacia Pimentel

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

In recent decades, Brazil has adopted a political approach focused on maintaining economic stability and consolidating inclusive social policies. However, despite repeated attempts, little progress has been made in overcoming difficulties within the country and making Brazil more competitive in the global market. Nevertheless, there seems to be an awakening and a certain consensus among scholars of Brazilian problems that the expected inclusive economic growth cycle may be achieved if Brazil invests in enhancing the bioeconomy business environment through bioenergy and innovation.

The actual crisis is fast–tracking two major transformations at the global level: the energy transition and the information …

Governing Complexity: Integrating Science, Governance, And Law To Manage Accelerating Change In The Globalized Commons, Barbara Cosens

Articles

The speed and uncertainty of environmental change in the Anthropocene challenge the capacity of coevolving social–ecological–technological systems (SETs) to adapt or transform to these changes. Formal government and legal structures further constrain the adaptive capacity of our SETs. However, new, self-organized forms of adaptive governance are emerging at multiple scales in natural resource-based SETs. Adaptive governance involves the private and public sectors as well as formal and informal institutions, self-organized to fill governance gaps in the traditional roles of states. While new governance forms are emerging, they are not yet doing so rapidly enough to match the pace of environmental …

Narrowing Death Eligibility In Idaho: An Empirical And Constitutional Analysis, Aliza Plener Cover

Articles

No abstract provided.

Necessary Coverage For Authentic Identity: How Bostock Made Title Vii The Strongest Protection Against Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance Denial Of Gender-Affirming Medical Care., Jennifer A. Knackert

Marquette Law Review

In June 2020, the United States Supreme Court held that Title VII

protection from discrimination on the basis of sex extended to LGBTQ+

employees. The Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia decision dealt with three

separate cases where LGBTQ+ employees had been fired from their jobs based

on either their sexual orientation or gender identity. While the shared issue in

these cases had to do with employee termination, the textualist argument

presented by the Court leads many legal scholars to believe that the holding

would be applicable to other areas of employment discrimination covered by

Title VII such as employer-sponsored healthcare …

Child Support And Joint Physical Custody, Raymond C. O'Brien

Scholarly Articles

Child custody has evolved to the point where, at a minimum, states provide a mediated process by which parents may formulate parenting plans with court-appointed assistance. At a maximum state legislatures and courts increasingly consider joint physical custody awards. While joint physical custody safeguards the fundamental rights of parents, it nonetheless prompts practical concerns in awarding child support. Today, child support begins with state statutory guidelines, but the guidelines often fail to adequately address the economic consequences of two complete residences, one supported by a parent with fewer economic resources, and the fact that oftentimes the child drifts from one …

Actors And Law-Making In International Environmental Law, In Research Handbook On International Environmental Law (Malgosia Fitzmaurice Et Al. Eds, 2d Ed. 2021), Mark A. Drumbl, Kateřina Uhlířová

Books and Chapters

This chapter explores who makes international environmental law and which are the sources of international environmental law? Traditionally, the number of actors with international legal personality is limited. States were primary among this group, followed by international organizations. In recent years, however, considerable international environmental law effectively has been generated by non-governmental organizations, networked communities of experts, and administrative secretariats of treaty organizations. The expansion in the number of actors that, whether de jure or de facto, make international environmental law has diversified the sources of international environmental law. Sources of international law include treaties, custom, general principles of law, …

2020 Foreign And International Legislative Review, Brittany Rowe

Animal Law Review

This Legislative Review highlights the animal law related legislative victories 2020 brought about on foreign and international fronts.

Communion: Envisioning And Executing The Fourth National People Of Color Legal Scholarship Conference — The Largest Ever Gathering Of Minority Law Scholars, Anthony E. Varona

Articles

No abstract provided.

After Marriage Equality: Dual Fatherhood For Married Male Same-Sex Couples, Jessica Feinberg

Faculty Publications

In most states, married male same-sex couples who conceive children via gestational surrogacy using sperm from one member of the couple and donor ova must pursue adoption in order to establish legal parentage for the member of the couple who is not genetically related to the child. This is because only a minority of jurisdictions have surrogacy laws that recognize the non-biological intended parent as a legal parent in this situation, and across the United States cisgender male same-sex couples are excluded from the longstanding non-adoptive marriage-based avenues of establishing parentage currently available to both different-sex couples and female same-sex …

Spirit Of The Corporation, Russell Powell

Seattle University Law Review

Christian theologians have analyzed the productive and destructive qualities of institutions, sometimes attributing to them human virtues and vices. In City of God, Saint Augustine describes a utopian vision of human community within a Christian context as an alternative to the flawed “City of Man.” Contemporary theologians and sociologists have described collective structures of human behavior in institutions as having a kind of “spirit” analogous to the individual human “spirit.” Institutions are then assumed to take on an existence separate from the individuals within them, and in fact, the “spirit” of an institution influences the behavior of individuals. In The …

Marissa Jackson Sow’S “Whiteness As Contract”, Marissa Jackson Sow

Seattle University Law Review

Marissa Jackson Sow’s “Whiteness as Contract.”

Spirit Of The Corporation, Russell Powell

Seattle University Law Review

This Article provides a contemporary theoretical framework for Berle’s insight as a basis for considering its legal and ethical implications for corporate governance. Part II attempts to unpack contemporary understandings of spirit in order to provide a helpful working definition. Part III considers the origins and essential traits of the modern business corporation in the United States. The question posed by Berle—whether corporations can or ought to have a sort of moral orientation—is discussed in Part IV, while Part V ponders potential policy shifts that might tilt the orientation of the “spirit of the corporation” toward the common good. Part …

Religious Roots Of Corporate Organization, Amanda Porterfield

Seattle University Law Review

Religion and corporate organization have developed side-by-side in Western culture, from antiquity to the present day. This Essay begins with the realignment of religion and secularity in seventeenth-century America, then looks to the religious antecedents of corporate organization in ancient Rome and medieval Europe, and then looks forward to the modern history of corporate organization. This Essay describes the long history behind the entanglement of business and religion in the United States today. It also shows how an understanding of both religion and business can be expanded by looking at the economic aspects of religion and the religious aspects of …

Clearing Opacity Through Machine Learning, Arti K. Rai, W. Nicholson Price Ii

Faculty Scholarship

Artificial intelligence and machine learning represent powerful tools in many fields, ranging from criminal justice to human biology to climate change. Part of the power of these tools arises from their ability to make predictions and glean useful information about complex real-world systems without the need to understand the workings of those systems.

But these machine-learning tools are often as opaque as the underlying systems, whether because they are complex, nonintuitive, deliberately kept secret, or a synergistic combination of those three factors. A burgeoning literature addresses challenges arising from the opacity of machine-learning systems. This literature has largely focused on …

Because Of Bostock, Noelle N. Wyman

Michigan Law Review Online

On a below-freezing January morning, Jennifer Chavez, an automobile technician, sat in a car that she was repairing to keep warm while waiting for delayed auto parts to arrive. Without intending to, she nodded off. Her employer promptly fired her for sleeping on the job. At least, that is the justification her employer gave. But Chavez had reason to believe that her coming out as transgender motivated the termination. In the months leading up to the January incident, Chavez’s supervisor had told her to “tone things down” when she talked about her gender transition. The repair-shop owner said that the …

Congress's Commissioners, Brian Feinstein, M Henderson

Articles

No abstract provided.

Delegation Of Powers: A Historical And Functional Analysis, Richard Epstein

Articles

No abstract provided.

Property Law For The Ages, Michael Pollack, Lior Strahilevitz

Articles

No abstract provided.

Kinship Care In Pennsylvania: Creating An Equitable System For Families, Heidi Redlich Epstein, Lucy Johnston-Walsh, Jennifer Pokempner, Kathleen Creamer, Karissa Phelps

Faculty Scholarly Works

Family connection provides one of the most important contributions to the development and identity of children. A child’s family connections help them grow and thrive, provide them identity and security, and are a critical link to culture and traditions.

When experiencing difficult times, family members can support each other in ways no one else can, with the shared goal of keeping the family intact and connected.

When a child’s life is disrupted, calling on the support of family is custom in most communities and can be a great source of comfort for both children and the family. This is especially …

Health Ai For Good Rather Than Evil? The Need For A New Regulatory Framework For Ai-Based Medical Devices, Sara Gerke

Faculty Scholarly Works

Artificial intelligence (AI), especially its subset machine learning, has tremendous potential to improve health care. However, health AI also raises new regulatory challenges. In this Article, I argue that there is a need for a new regulatory framework for AI-based medical devices in the U.S. that ensures that such devices are reasonably safe and effective when placed on the market and will remain so throughout their life cycle. I advocate for U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and congressional actions. I focus on how the FDA could - with additional statutory authority - regulate AI-based medical devices. I show that …

Unbecoming Adversaries: Natural Resource Federalism In Wyoming, Tara Kathleen Righetti, Robert B. Keiter, Jason Robison, Temple Stoellinger, Sam Kalen

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Wyoming’s unique cultural and physical landscape fostered dynamic federalism relationships that have oscillated between adversarial and cooperative. Too often, though, the State and its federal and tribal counterparts have found themselves in the role of unbecoming adversaries. As current and former natural resources faculty members at the University of Wyoming (UW) College of Law, we are privileged to offer a retrospective on this subject upon the law school’s centennial. In 2021, the State is facing new and daunting challenges that are straining its core industries and budget, including economic changes associated with the COVID-19 global pandemic and rapidly transforming energy …

Is Obesity A Manifestation Of Systemic Racism? A Ten‐Point Strategy For Study And Intervention, Daniel G. Aaron, Fatima Cody Stanford

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

In the recent past, there has been rising attention to systemic racism. The ensuing discussions have largely focused on COVID-19 and policing. Despite long-standing disparities in obesity across racial and ethnic groups and obesity’s important role in COVID-19 disparities, there has been minimal attention to whether obesity itself could be a manifestation of systemic racism. Nor has there been serious policy attention dedicated to alleviating obesity and its disproportionate burden on BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color). We discuss whether obesity’s disproportionate harms to BIPOC may be attributed to systemic racism, and we provide a ten-point strategy for studying …

Farming With Trees: Reforming U.S. Farm Policy To Expand Agroforestry And Mitigate Climate Change, Lingxi Chenyang, Andrew Currie, Hannah Darrin, Nathan Rosenberg

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Agroforestry systems have enormous potential to mitigate climate change. These systems incorporate trees and shrubs into agricultural production, increasing both soil carbon sequestration and the amount of carbon stored in biomass. Even the most conservative estimates find that agroforestry sequesters two to five times more carbon per acre than the most effective—and better known—climate-friendly practices for annual crops, such as no-till agriculture and cover crops. Agroforestry also offers substantial environmental and economic benefits: clean water, reduced fertilizer and pesticide use, greater resiliency, and higher profitability per acre. Yet there are significant legal and policy barriers to its expansion in the …

Institution Denied: The Evolution Of Discretionary Denials Of Inter Partes Review Under 35 U.S.C. § 314(A) Since Apple Inc. V. Fintiv, Inc., Kelly A. Welsh

American University Law Review

The Leahy-Smith American Invents Act (AIA), passed by Congress in 2011, dramatically altered the landscape of patent litigation through the creation of new administrative post-grant proceedings for adjudicating patent validity disputes. One of these administrative proceedings, inter partes review (IPR), has proved immensely popular and polarizing. IPR proceedings have invalidated huge swaths of patents, making the decision whether to institute an IPR significant. The current uncertainty regarding whether an IPR proceeding will be instituted, or whether the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB or Board) will exercise its newfound expanded discretionary denial authority, continues to frustrate both petitioners and patent …

Pandemics, Paid Sick Leaves, And Tax Institutions, Alex Zhang

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

The COVID-19 pandemic is currently ravaging the world, and the United States has been largely unsuccessful at containing the coronavirus. One long-standing policy failure stands out as having exacerbated the pandemic in our country: the lack of a national mandate of paid sick leaves, without which workers face financial and workplace-cultural pressures to attend work while sick, thus spreading the virus to their fellow employees and the public at large.

This Article provides the blueprint for a national, subsidized mandate of paid sick leaves and two additional insights about our tax institutions as mechanisms of effectuating broader societal goals. It …

Privacy In Pandemic: Law, Technology, And Public Health In The Covid-19 Crisis, Tiffany C. Li

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused millions of deaths and disastrous consequences around the world, with lasting repercussions for every field of law, including privacy and technology. The unique characteristics of this pandemic have precipitated an increase in use of new technologies, including remote communications platforms, healthcare robots, and medical AI. Public and private actors alike are using new technologies, like heat sensing, and technologically influenced programs, like contact tracing, leading to a rise in government and corporate surveillance in sectors like healthcare, employment, education, and commerce. Advocates have raised the alarm for privacy and civil liberties violations, but the emergency …

What Both Hart And Fuller Got Wrong, Oren Gross

Articles

No abstract provided.

Perfluoroalkyl And Polyfluoroalkyl Substances: Using Law And Policy To Address These Environmental Health Hazards In The United States, Jennifer Black, Amanda Moreland, Montrece Mcneill Ransom, Emely Sanchez

Health Matrix: The Journal of Law-Medicine

No abstract provided.

Tobacco Reborn: The Rise Of E-Cigarettes And Regulatory Approaches, Daniel G. Aaron

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

This paper examines e-cigarettes, FDA-regulated products which heat nicotine-containing fluid into an aerosol to be breathed into the lungs. Recent data show that e-cigarettes are used by about one-fifth of U.S. high schoolers. Given that we have, in the Surgeon General’s words, reached an epidemic of youth e-cigarette use, it is worth asking how a product within FDA jurisdiction became a serious threat to to 3.6 million youth.

This article will review the law surrounding e-cigarettes and the history of FDA’s attempts to regulate them. Administrative law doctrines instruct us that increased presidential control will rein in misbehaving agencies by …