Law Commons^™

Amendment In The Nature Of A Substitute To H.R. 2795, The "Patent Act Of 2005": Hearing Before The Subcomm. On Courts, The Internet, And Intellectual Property Of The H. Comm. On The Judiciary, 109th Cong., Sept. 15, 2005 (Statement Of Professor John R. Thomas, Geo. U. L. Center), John R. Thomas

Testimony Before Congress

No abstract provided.

The Future Of Copyright, Lawrence B. Solum

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Review of Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity by Lawrence Lessig (2004).

Sometimes technological change is so profound that it rocks the foundations of an entire body of law. Peer-to-peer (P2P) filesharing systems--Napster, Gnutella, KaZaA, Grokster, and Freenet3--are mere symptoms of a set of technological innovations that have set in motion an ongoing process of fundamental changes in the nature of copyright law. The video tape recorder begat the Sony substantial noninfringing use defense. The digital cassette recorder begat the Audio Home Recording Act. The internet begat the Digital …

Albert Einstein, Esq., Steven Goldberg

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Albert Einstein’s 1905 paper setting forth the special theory of relativity is one of the most famous scientific articles ever written. Peter Galison’s influential book, Einstein’s Clocks, Poincaré’s Maps: Empires of Time (2003), demonstrates that Einstein’s paper was fundamentally shaped by his work as a patent examiner by showing that arguments previously seen as abstract thought experiments were instead derived from Einstein’s work on patent applications for devices that coordinate clocks. Moving beyond Galison’s insights, we can see portions of Einstein’s paper as reflecting the quasi-judicial role of a patent examiner. Like trial judges, patent examiners must apply settled legal …

The Politics Of Embryonic Discourse, Kevin P. Quinn

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In our brave new world of stem cells, clones, and parthenotes,l how should we talk about early human embryos? In fashioning a response to this very thorny question, Ann Kiessling has a core message. It is: (1) that new science produces "new" conceptuses; (2) that science and scientists have failed to differentiate (with appropriate clarity) these new ex vivo conceptuses from those created in vivo; (3) that new, more appropriate and scientifically-informed, terms are necessary; and (4) that this new language should transform the public discourse about human embryos. No one would deny that the subtleties of human embryology are …

Cooperative Research And Technology Enhancement (Create) Act Of 2003: Hearing On H. R. 2390 Before The H. Subcomm. On Courts, The Internet And Intellectual Property Of The H. Comm. On The Judiciary, 108th Cong., June 10, 2003 (Statement Of John R. Thomas, Prof. Of Law, Geo. U. L. Center), John R. Thomas

Testimony Before Congress

No abstract provided.

Rogue Science, Maxwell Gregg Bloche

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This review essay considers the tension between the evidence-driven vision of science's mission and the fears of malicious use and terrible consequences that have come to the fore since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. These fears have led some to call for government restrictions on the substance of scientific research and communication. In general, this approach is likely to do far more harm than good. But scientists need to take the problem of social consequences more seriously than they have so far. The author argues in this essay that in some circumstances, when rogue use of science can …

That Wonderful Year: Smallpox, Genetic Engineering, And Bio-Terrorism, David A. Koplow

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The thesis of this Article is that the United States, Russia, and by extension, the world as a whole, are pursuing a fundamentally sound strategy in retaining, rather than destroying, the last known remaining samples of the variola virus. For now, those samples are housed in secure, deep-freeze storage at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia and at the comparable Russian facility, known as Vector, near Novosibirsk, Siberia. But that basic decision is about the only correct move we are making at this time - and even it is animated by fundamental misapprehensions about …

Dominance In The Sky: Cable Competition And The Echostar-Directv Merger: Hearing Before The S. Subcomm. On Antitrust, Business Rights And Competition, 107th Cong., Mar. 6, 2002 (Statement Of Robert Pitofsky, Prof. Of Law, Geo. U. L. Center), Robert Pitofsky

Testimony Before Congress

No abstract provided.

Direct Broadcast Satellite Service And Competition In The Multichannel Video Distribution Market: Hearing Before The H. Comm. On The Judiciary, 107th Cong., Dec. 4, 2001 (Statement Of Robert Pitofsky, Prof. Of Law, Geo. U. L. Center), Robert Pitofsky

Testimony Before Congress

No abstract provided.

Privacy, Ideology, And Technology: A Response To Jeffrey Rosen, Julie E. Cohen

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This essay reviews Jeffrey Rosen’s The Unwanted Gaze: The Destruction of Privacy in America (2000).

Rosen offers a compelling (and often hair-raising) account of the pervasive dissolution of the boundary between public and private information. This dissolution is both legal and social; neither the law nor any other social institution seems to recognize many limits on the sorts of information that can be subjected to public scrutiny. The book also provides a rich, evocative characterization of the dignitary harms caused by privacy invasion. Rosen’s description of the sheer unfairness of being “judged out of context” rings instantly true. Privacy, Rosen …

Embryonic Stem Cell Research As An Ethical Issue: On The Emptiness Of Symbolic Value, Kevin P. Quinn

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The debate over human embryonic stem cell research-scientific and clinical prospects as well as ethical implications-became front-page news only after two teams of university researchers reported in November 1998 that they had isolated and cultured human pluripotent stem cells. The discovery caused a flurry of excitement among patients and researchers and drew attention from President Clinton, who instructed the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC) to "conduct a thorough review of the issues associated with. .. human stem cell research, balancing all medical and ethical issues.”

Criminal Law In Cyberspace, Neal K. Katyal

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Two of the most talked-about crimes of the year, the ILoveYou computer worm and the denial of service attacks on Yahoo, eBay, and ETrade, suggest that a new form of crime is emerging: cybercrime. Thousands of these crimes occur each year, and the results are often catastrophic; in terms of economic damage, the ILoveYou worm may have been the most devastating crime in history, causing more than $11 billion in losses.

This paper asks how cybercrime is best deterred. It identifies five constraints on crime - legal sanctions, monetary perpetration cost, social norms, architecture, and physical risks - and explains …

Copyright And The Jurisprudence Of Self-Help, Julie E. Cohen

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The proposed draft of Article 2B grants broad rights to enforce electronically contract provisions governing access to and use of digital works. Purveyors of digital works may engage in electronic self-help following breach of contract, and may also elect to foreclose unauthorized uses ex ante, via electronic “regulation of performance.” This Article examines these provisions in light of existing law authorizing self-help repossession of tangible chattels, leading academic justifications for self-help repossession, and federal copyright law and policy. It concludes that the provisions authorize an unprecedented degree of intrusion into private homes and offices, that they lack a sound theoretical …

Reverse Engineering And The Rise Of Electronic Vigilantism: Intellectual Property Implications Of "Lock-Out" Programs, Julie E. Cohen

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Over the past few years, there has been an abundance of scholarship dealing with the appropriate scope of copyright and patent protection for computer programs. This Article approaches those problems from a slightly different perspective, focusing on the discrete problem of lock-out programs. The choice of lock-out as a paradigm for exploring the interoperability question and the contours of copyright and patent protection of computer programs is informed by two considerations. First, for purposes of the interoperability inquiry, lock-out programs represent an extreme; they are discrete, self-contained modules that are highly innovative in design, yet that serve no purpose other …