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No Forum To Rule Them All: Comity And Conflict In Transnational Frand Disputes, Eli Greenbaum
No Forum To Rule Them All: Comity And Conflict In Transnational Frand Disputes, Eli Greenbaum
Washington Law Review
Recent years have seen an explosion in FRAND litigation, in which parties commit to license intellectual property under “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory” (FRAND) terms, but they cannot agree on the meaning of that commitment. Much of this litigation is multinational and involves coordinating patent, antitrust, and contract claims across several jurisdictions. A number of courts and commentators have aimed to centralize and thereby streamline these disputes, whether by consolidating all litigation in one judicial forum or through the creation of a comprehensive arbitral process. This Article argues that such efforts are misguided—FRAND disputes are particularly unamenable to centralization, and the …
Contract Interpretation With Corpus Linguistics, Stephen C. Mouritsen
Contract Interpretation With Corpus Linguistics, Stephen C. Mouritsen
Washington Law Review
Courts and scholars disagree about the quantum of evidence that is necessary to determine the meaning of contractual provisions. Formalists favor excluding extrinsic evidence unless the contractual text is found to be ambiguous. Contextualists, by contrast, look to extrinsic evidence to support claims about contractual meaning even absent a finding of ambiguity. The formalist approach is faulted for failing to provide a meaningful account of the parties’ intentions and for placing heavy reliance upon the judge’s own linguistic intuitions and general-use English dictionaries—both problematic guides to plain meaning. At the same time, the contextualist approach may impose significant costs on …