Law Commons^™

Innovation Prizes In Practice And Theory, Michael J. Burstein, Fiona Murray

Faculty Articles

Innovation prizes in reality are significantly different from innovation prizes in theory. The former are familiar from popular accounts of historical prizes like the Longitude Prize: the government offers a set amount for a solution to a known problem, like £20,000 for a method of calculating longitude at sea. The latter are modeled as compensation to inventors in return for donating their inventions to the public domain. Neither the economic literature nor the policy literature that led to the 2010 America COMPETES Reauthorization Act — which made prizes a prominent tool of government innovation policy — provides a satisfying justification …

The Freedom To Pursue A Common Calling: Applying Intermediate Scrutiny To Occupational Licensing Statutes (Note), Alexandra L. Klein

Faculty Articles

After the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, the monks at St. Joseph Abbey in Louisiana sought a new source of income. They began producing simple wooden coffins priced at much lower rates than caskets sold in funeral homes. After the Abbey had made a large investment in its business, St. Joseph Woodworks, the Louisiana State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors ordered it to close. Although the monks did not provide funeral or embalming services, a Louisiana statute regulating the funeral industry prohibited the monks from selling coffins.

Under the statute, "funeral directing" included "any service whatsoever connected with... the purchase …