Digital Commons Network^™

Trademarks And The Covid-19 Pandemic: An Empirical Analysis Of Trademark Applications Including The Terms "Covid," "Coronavirus," "Quarantine," "Social Distancing," "Six Feet Apart," And "Shelter In Place", Irene Calboli

Faculty Scholarship

True to its nature as a (hopefully) once in a lifetime event, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a tsunami of trademark applications. These include the terms “COVID,” “Coronavirus,” and other medical and pandemic-management related terms. This unprecedented number of applications has been highlighted by several commentators in general terms in the past months. This Article examines these applications in detail. Notably, the Article presents the first and most complete survey of the applications filed between the onset of the pandemic and the end of 2020, which include the following terms: “COVID,” “Coronavirus,” “Quarantine,” “Social Distancing,” “Six Feet Apart,” and …

Equal Justice Under Law: Navigating The Delicate Balance Between Religious Liberty And Marriage Equality, Meg Penrose

Faculty Scholarship

This Article discusses the current state of the law and offers thoughts on its future. Part Il provides a brief overview of the legal landscape involved in the clash between religious liberty and same-sex marriage From Justice Scalia's seminal religious liberty test to the evolution of same- sex marriage, Part Il describes the current law. Part III introduces the reader to public accommodations laws. After providing this brief history, Part Ill discusses three Supreme Court cases that could have resolved the religious liberty versus marriage equality question. Part IV looks ahead and draws analogies to the 1960s religious liberty objections …

The Uniform Commercial Code Survey: Introduction, Jennifer S. Martin, Colin P. Marks, Wayne Barnes

Faculty Scholarship

The survey that follows highlights the most important developments of 2020 dealing with domestic and international sales of goods, personal property leases, payments, letters of credit, documents of title. investment securities, and secured transactions.

Intellectual Property Exhaustion And Parallel Imports Of Pharmaceuticals: A Comparative And Critical Review, Irene Calboli

Faculty Scholarship

This Chapter addresses the topic of intellectual property (IP) exhaustion in the context of the parallel trade of pharmaceuticals. These imports, which are controversial in general, are more complex with respect to pharmaceuticals, which require additional marketing and import authorizations. Nevertheless, individual countries remain free to accept these imports under the flexibility of Article 6 of the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects to Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement). This Chapter reviews several national approaches—in developed, developing, and least developed countries (LDCs)—from the perspective of the exhaustion of patent rights as well as other IP rights. Through this review, it highlights …

Covid-19 Relief And The Ordinary Inmate, Jenny E. Carroll

Faculty Scholarship

As scholars and advocates have lamented the deficiencies of remedies pre- and post-conviction for the extraordinary, the “ordinary” are not saddled with slow and deficient remedies -- they have none. This Essay explores this absence of such relief for those unable to make an extraordinary claim during the COVID-19 public health crisis of 2020. For the ordinary men, women, and children held in custody in 2020 and beyond, pretrial detention and sentencing laws make no exception in the face of a potentially fatal contagion or the public health crisis it creates. Yet, the pandemic highlights the reality that systematic flaws …

Mad About The First Amendment, Our Beacon For Liberty, Equality And Democracy, Nicholas Allard

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Optimizing Thermal Block Length During Infrared Neural Inhibition To Minimize Temperature Thresholds, Junqi Zhuo, Matthew T. Mcpheeters, Micael W. Jenkins, Hillel J. Chiel, Michael W. Jenkins

Faculty Scholarship

Objective. Infrared neural inhibition (INI) is a method of blocking the generation or propagation of neural action potentials through laser heating with wavelengths strongly absorbed by water. Recent work has identified that the distance heated along axons, the block length (BL), modulates the temperature needed for inhibition; however, this relationship has not been characterized. This study explores how BL during INI can be optimized towards minimizing its temperature threshold. Approach. To understand the relationship between BL and the temperature required for INI, excised nerves from Aplysia californica were laser-heated over different lengths of axon during electrical stimulation of compound action …

Q: What Is Tort? A: Categorical Hurt, Anita Bernstein

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The End Of Liberty, Adam J. Kolber

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Replicability In Empirical Legal Research, Jason M. Chin, Kathryn Zeiler

Faculty Scholarship

As part of a broader methodological reform movement, scientists are increasingly interested in improving the replicability of their research. Replicability allows others to perform replications to explore potential errors and statistical issues that might call the original results into question. Little attention, however, has been paid to the state of replicability in the field of empirical legal research (ELR). Quality is especially important in this field because empirical legal researchers produce work that is regularly relied upon by courts and other legal bodies. In this review article, we summarize the current state of ELR relative to the broader movement towards …

'That Name Is Dead To Me': Reforming Name Change Laws To Protect Transgender And Nonbinary Youth, Sarah Steadman

Faculty Scholarship

For transgender and some nonbinary youth, living under a chosen name is a first step toward becoming their authentic selves. For these youth, a name change is powerful; it allows them to choose a name that matches their gender identity. They consider their birth name to be a distressing “dead” name - one that they cannot relate to and need to bury.

Using one’s chosen name decreases suicidality among transgender youth who face many challenges, including family rejection and other severe mental health stressors. Transgender and nonbinary youth can only require others to use their chosen names after obtaining a …

Reassessing The Ahistorical Judicial Use Of William Winthrop And Frederick Bernays Wiener, Joshua E. Kastenberg

Faculty Scholarship

Government lawyers, like the courts continue to cite to Winthrop. Most recently, in the pending appeal titled Larabee v. Harker, the government ‘s counsel quoted Winthrop for the proposition that “retired officers are a part of the army and so triable by court-martial—a fact indeed never admitting of question.” It is unlikely that the government’s counsel considered the matters presented in this brief article, or that Winthrop rested his statement on dicta rather than any constitutional statement on jurisdiction. Likewise, whatever criticism may be given to Justice Alito’s Ortiz dissent, I am not suggesting that either he, or Justice Neil …

Gendered Complications Of Covid-19: Towards A Feminist Recovery Plan, Naomi Cahn, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

COVID-19 exposed the limitations in the current economic system on public and private support for gender equity and the intersecting impact of gender, race, and class in that lack of support. Women of color, particularly those who are Black, Latina, or Native American, were at the intersection of the inequities in the pandemic economy. The catalogue of COVID-19’s impact covers all aspects of women’s lives: work, family, education, health, reproduction, mental and physical well-being, and leisure. This Article argues that COVID-19 has complex implications for gender equality and gender equity as state and local governments, the federal government, and private …

The Jury Trial Reinvented, Christopher Robertson, Michael Shammas

Faculty Scholarship

The Framers of the Sixth and Seventh Amendments to the United States Constitution recognized that jury trials were essential for maintaining democratic legitimacy and avoiding epistemic crises. As an institution, the jury trial is purpose-built to engage citizens in the process of deliberative, participatory democracy with ground rules. The jury trial provides a carefully constructed setting aimed at sorting truth from falsehood.
/="/">
/="/">Despite its value, the jury trial has been under assault for decades. Concededly, jury trials can sometimes be inefficient, unreliable, unpredictable, and impractical. The COVID–19 pandemic rendered most physical jury trials unworkable but spurred some courts …

Public Health And The Power To Exclude: Immigrant Expulsions At The Border, Sarah R. Sherman-Stokes

Faculty Scholarship

We are presently in the midst of a crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, as Courts, and indeed the Biden Administration, are struggling to manage thousands of immigrants waiting to seek asylum in the midst of a global pandemic. Beginning in March of 2020, against the advice of public health experts, the U.S. Government closed the southern U.S.-Mexico border, disproportionately impacting would-be asylum seekers from Central America, who are now immediately expelled from the United States should they reach the border under a process known as “Title 42.” Not only do these expulsions lack a legitimate public health rationale, but they …

What Is "United" About The United States?, Gary S. Lawson

Faculty Scholarship

Jack Balkin’s The Cycles of Constitutional Time aims, among other things, to preserve and promote what Jack regards as “democracy and republicanism,” understood as “a joint enterprise by citizens and their representatives to pursue and promote the public good.” My question is whether and how this normative project is possible in a world full of perceptions of social, political, and moral phenomena akin to the white dress/blue dress internet controversy of 2015. Even if Madison had the better of Montesquieu in 1788 (and that is questionable), the United States has grown dramatically since the founding era, in a patchwork, and …

The Place Of The Presidency In Historical Time, Robert L. Tsai

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay arises from a symposium based on Jack Balkin’s book, The Cycles of Constitutional Time, which argues that America’s constitutional development is marked by patterns of decline and renewal. I contend that the presidency today has become endowed with outsized expectations borne of popular frustrations with a centuries-old document that is desperately in need of updating. As a result, Presidents enjoy imbalanced and dangerous power to initiate legal reform or stymie it. Going forward, three dynamics are worth watching. First, noisy signals coming from performative transformation can obscure the true source and scope of legal changes initiated by a …

Epilogue: Symposium Pnina Lahav: Between Two Worlds, Pnina Lahav

Faculty Scholarship

The epilogue by Pnina Lahav is a reflection on her life and a reaction to the articles in the symposium.

Civic Education In Circumstances Of Constitutional Rot And Strong Polarization Rot, Linda C. Mcclain, James E. Fleming

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay argues that civic education is crucial to remedying what Jack Balkin, in The Cycles of Constitutional Time, diagnoses as “constitutional rot” in the United States. A twenty-first century civic education must meet challenges of polarization and growing diversity and inequality and equip people for forms of democratic participation necessary to the health of constitutional democracy. Some commentators have called the insurrection on January 6, 2021, a “Sputnik moment for teaching civics”—seeing a link between the whitesupremacist/conspiracy-theory mob’s actions and the failure to instill civic virtue in “We the People.” To be capable of spurring national reconciliation and renewal, …

Palestinian Nationality And “Jewish” Nationality: From The Lausanne Treaty To Today, Susan M. Akram

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter assesses the legal foundations of Zionist and Palestinian national claims over the land of Palestine since the British Mandate. It explores the legal basis and implications of the claim of Jewish nationality in Palestine and compares it with the claim of Palestinian nationality. The question of national rights, and who can claim them, is central to rethinking the statehood and residency rights of those living today in the area of historic Palestine. The law of nationality is at the core of the protections of peoples’ right to self-determination, and understanding the principles underlying nationality law is essential to …

Medicaid Waivers, Administrative Authority, And The Shadow Of Malingering, Nicole Huberfeld

Faculty Scholarship

From 2018 through 2020, HHS approved state Medicaid demonstration waivers to impose new eligibility conditions such as work requirements, connecting current “personal responsibility” rhetoric and historical suspicion of malingering. The Biden administration reversed course but advocated to the Supreme Court for expansive administrative discretion. This approach supports health equity now but could enable reemergence of restrictive health policies down the road.

Racism As A Human Rights Risk: Reconsidering The Corporate 'Responsibility To Respect' Rights, Erika George

Faculty Scholarship

Darnella Frazer, a teenage witness to a fatal police encounter, used social media to share her cell phone video footage capturing a white police officer casually kneeling on the neck of a handcuffed Black man named George Floyd for nearly nine minutes. Her video rapidly went viral, sparking civil unrest across the United States (US) and protests around the world.¹ Independent experts of the Special Procedures of the United Nations Human Rights Council came together to issue a joint statement condemning 'systemic racism' and 'state sponsored racial violence' in the US.² George Floyd was not the first unarmed …

A Comparative Study Of Dark Patterns Across Mobile And Web Modalities, Johanna Gunawan, Amogh Pradeep, David Choffnes, Woodrow Hartzog, Christo Wilson

Faculty Scholarship

Dark patterns are user interface elements that can influence a person's behavior against their intentions or best interests. Prior work identified these patterns in websites and mobile apps, but little is known about how the design of platforms might impact dark pattern manifestations and related human vulnerabilities. In this paper, we conduct a comparative study of mobile application, mobile browser, and web browser versions of 105 popular services to investigate variations in dark patterns across modalities. We perform manual tests, identify dark patterns in each service, and examine how they persist or differ by modality. Our findings show that while …

"Hey, Hey! Ho, Ho! These Mass Arrests Have Got To Go!": The Expressive Fourth Amendment Argument, Karen Pita Loor

Faculty Scholarship

The racial justice protests ignited by the murder of George Floyd in May 2020 constitute the largest protest movement in the United States. Estimates suggest that between fifteen and twenty-six million people protested across the country during the summer of 2020 alone. Not only were the number of protestors staggering, but so were the number of arrests. Within one week of when the video of George Floyd’s murder went viral, police arrested ten thousand people demanding justice on American streets, with police often arresting activists en masse. This Essay explores mass arrests and how they square with Fourth Amendment …

Keep Passing The Baton: Reflections On The Legacy Of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Angela Onwuachi-Willig

Faculty Scholarship

For those who care about justice, particularly for marginalized communities, September 18, 2020 brought immense heartbreak.² On that day, which happened to be Rosh Hashanah, Justice Ginsburg, who had previously written about how her religious background shaped her career as a lawyer, ³ passed away.

When Justice Ginsburg passed, many highlighted that a person who dies on Rosh Hashanah, the start of the Jewish New Year, is a "Tzadik," which is a title given to people of great righteousness. ⁴ For example, Nina Totenberg, a reporter for National Public Radio, explained, "A Jewish teaching says those who died just …

Long Overdue: Fifth Amendment Protection For Corporate Officers, Tracey Maclin

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court has extended to corporations many of the same constitutional rights that were originally intended to protect people.One notable exception, however, is the Fifth Amendment’s prohibition on compulsory self-incrimination.

“Corporations may not take the Fifth.” There is a long line of cases dating back to the start of the twentieth century stating—but never directly holding— that corporations are not protected by the Self-Incrimination Clause.

But the fact that a corporation cannot invoke the Fifth Amendment does not explain why a person who works for a corporation cannot. As a matter of text, the Fifth Amendment draws no distinction …

Comments On Preliminary Draft 7 [Black Letter And Comments], Jane C. Ginsburg, June M. Besek

Faculty Scholarship

PD7 is often confusing, largely as a result of failure to provide important explanations or definitions, or to tell the reader where that information can be found. Key terms, such as “edicts of law” and “formalities” remain undefined. Formalities are a principal topic of PD7; they deserve a more thorough description than the draft contains, addressing what formalities are, whether every declaratory obligation (or option) is a “formality,” or only those that go to the existence or enforcement of copyright (this is the Berne Convention meaning of “formality”).

Rico Had A Birthday! A Fifty-Year Retrospective Of Questions Answered And Open, Randy D. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) came into the world in 1970, a time of great social upheaval that was accompanied by shifting attitudes towards both crime and civil litigation. From the outset, the statute’s complexity, ambiguity, and uncertain purpose have confounded courts and commentators. At least some doubts as to the statute’s meaning and application arise because it has criminal and civil components that subject it to the twin—yet antithetical—social impulses to be “tough on crime” while containing a perceived “litigation explosion.” In this Article, I situate RICO in this larger context and offer that context as …

Towards A Pedagogy Of Connection: A Critical View Of Being Relational In Listening, Jessi Hinz, John Paul Stephens, Ellen Van Oosten

Faculty Scholarship

Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS) perspectives define interpersonal work experiences such as positive work relationships and high-quality connections by the mutual growth and empowerment experienced by relationship or connection partners. Listening has been implicated as a key mechanism for building such positive interpersonal work experiences, but it is unclear how listening spurs on mutual, rather than one-sided growth, in relationship and connection partners. In this paper, we argue that management education currently focuses on the intrapersonal capability of listeners to execute key verbal and non-verbal behaviors. Less emphasis is placed on the mutual experience co-created between speaker and listener and, thus, …

Desirability Of Outcome Ranking For The Management Of Antimicrobial Therapy (Door Mat) Reveals Improvements In The Treatment Of Bloodstream Infections Caused By Escherichia Coli And Klebsiella Pneumoniae In Patients From The Veterans Health Administration, Federico Perez, Brigid M. Wilson, Elie Saade, Robin L.P. Jump, Robert A. Bonomo

Faculty Scholarship

Background: Reductions in the use of broad-spectrum antibiotics is a cornerstone of antimicrobial stewardship. We aim to demonstrate use of the Desirability of Outcome Ranking Approach for the Management of Antimicrobial Therapy (DOOR MAT) to evaluate the treatment of Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae bloodstream infections in patients from the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) across a decade. Methods: Using electronic records, we determined empiric and definitive antibiotic treatments, clinical characteristics, and 30-day mortality of patients with monomicrobial E. coli and K. pneumoniae bloodstream infections hospitalized in VHA medical centers from 2009 to 2018. Focusing on patients treated with parenteral β-lactams …