Law Commons^™

Patent Continuations, Product Lifecycle Contraction And The Patent Scope Erosion. – A New Insight Into Patenting Trends., Ron D. Katznelson

Ron D. Katznelson

This study was initiated in order to provide more factual insight into the recent debates on patent reforms in general and more particularly, the practice of patent continuations in the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”). Several important trends that have not been previously quantified are brought to light. A quantitative analysis of various components of the flow of patent applications to the USPTO was carried out and insight into the ever-increasing propensity of patentees to file patent applications is presented. It is shown that with the exception of isolated transients due to patent law changes, the growth trend …

Online Postings Can Be Nightmare For Recruits: In Acting On Google Search Results, However, Law Firms Should Proceed With Caution, Michael D. Mann

Michael D. Mann

No abstract provided.

Chain Reaction: How Property Begets Property, Sabrina Safrin

Sabrina Safrin

Classic theories for the evolution of property rights consider the emergence of private property to be a progressive development reflecting a society's movement to a more efficient property regime. This article argues that instead of this progressive dynamic, a more subtle and damaging chain reaction dynamic can come into play that traditional theories for intellectual and other property rights neither anticipate nor explain. The article suggests that the expansion of intellectual and other property rights have an internally generative dynamic. Drawing upon contemporary case studies, the article argues that property rights evolve in reaction to each other. The creation of …

The Problem With Unpaid Work, Katharine K. Baker

Katharine K. Baker

This article examines the problems with a social norm that assumes women should shoulder a disproportionate amount of unpaid family work. It evaluates the most recent empirical data which suggests that women continue to do substantially more unpaid work than men, and men continue to do substantially more paid work than women. It then briefly reviews two standard explanations for where this gendered division of work may come from, biological inclination and/or systems of male dominance. It suggests that neither of these traditional explanations have given adequate consideration to the normative question begged by the extant division of labor. Is …

Federalism And Accountability: State Attorneys General, Regulatory Litigation, And The New Federalism, Timothy L. Meyer

Timothy Meyer

No abstract provided.

Who Cares About Director Independence? Presentation (Pdf Format), Paolo Santella, Carlo Drago, Giulia Paone

Paolo Santella

No abstract provided.

Who Cares About Director Independence? Presentation (Pdf Format), Paolo Santella, Carlo Drago, Giulia Paone

Carlo Drago

No abstract provided.

The Public Trust Debate: Implications For Heirs' Property Owners Along The Gullah Coast, Faith R. Rivers

Faith R Rivers

Heirs’ property ownership is a significant problem facing the African American community in the Lowcountry of South Carolina. Heirs’ property generally refers to real property purchased by African Americans and held within families for generations without clear title. The land is owned by a group of relatives – the heirs – who possess fractionated fees as tenants in common. The disposition of tenants in common property is governed by the law of partition. Partition provides for the division of property, or its cash “equivalent,” according to owner interests.

The Lowcountry of South Carolina is the birthplace and central hub of …

English Only At Work, Por Favor, Natalie Prescott

Natalie Prescott

Whether or not employees can be required to speak only English at work is a very delicate question. This issue has caused considerable disagreement among courts and legal scholars and gained greater prominence in 2006, when the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals created a circuit split by allowing for the possibility that an English-only rule may violate Title VII. Some scholars have attempted to address the legality of an English-only rule, mostly arguing that the rule violates Title VII. This Article, however, explains why Title VII does not apply to an English-only rule. The Article addresses a wide range of …

A Report On The Working Of The Writ Of Habeas Corpus In Kashmir: 1990 – 2005 (Chapter-Ii, Methodology), Ashok Agrwaal

Ashok Agrwaal

This report is the first part of a two part study on the functioning of the constitutional and legal redress mechanism for the protection of the most basic of rights, the right to life and liberty, during the period of insurgency in Kashmir: 1990 to 2003. The report is pivoted around a study of petitions for a writ of habeas corpus, filed by the families of the affected persons. All these persons were subjected to illegal arrest (and unacknowledged) arrest and detention by the security forces in Kashmir. Most of them were never seen again. For comparison, we have also …

A Report On The Working Of The Writ Of Habeas Corpus In Kashmir: 1990 - 2005 (Chapter-I, Introduction), Ashok Agrwaal

Ashok Agrwaal

This report is the first part of a two part study on the functioning of the constitutional and legal redress mechanism for the protection of the most basic of rights, the right to life and liberty, during the period of insurgency in Kashmir: 1990 to 2003. The report is pivoted around a study of petitions for a writ of habeas corpus, filed by the families of the affected persons. All these persons were subjected to illegal arrest (and unacknowledged) arrest and detention by the security forces in Kashmir. Most of them were never seen again. For comparison, we have also …

A Control Theory Model Of Pricing For A Firm Facing A Stochastic Environment – A Firm’S Dynamic Pricing Strategy When Faced With The Threat Of Antitrust Action, Manak Gupta, Atin Basu Choudhary

Atin Basu Choudhary

No abstract provided.

Silence Is Golden: Communication, Silence, And Cartel Stability, Atin Basu Choudhary, John Conlon

Atin Basu Choudhary

This paper studies how cartel stability is influenced by asymmetric information and communication about demand. Firms in a cartel face fluctuating demand in a repeated game framework. In each period, one randomly chosen firm knows current demand. In this context we consider two different equilibria -- one where the informed firm communicates its information to its partners and another where it does not. We show that cartels are extremely unstable when the informed firm communicates with the uninformed firms. However, when the informed firm does not communicate with the uninformed firms cartels can be as stable as when there are …

The Evolving Role Of Citizens In United States-Canadian International Environmental Law Compliance, Noah D. Hall

Noah D Hall

Citizen participation is critical in environmental law compliance. While citizens often have a major role in advancing compliance with domestic environmental law, citizens have historically had a much more limited role in international environmental law. However, a new model is emerging North America. The role of citizens in United States-Canadian international environmental law compliance has expanded greatly over the past several decades. Beginning in the 1970’s with increased public participation in binational governance agreements and expanding in the past two decades to formal roles in monitoring implementation of international environmental agreements, citizen participation is now central in the United States-Canadian …

Transboundary Pollution: Harmonizing International And Domestic Law, Noah D. Hall

Noah D Hall

Addressing transnational pollution requires both international and domestic law. Transnational pollution is an international problem that demands and deserves the attention of international legal mechanisms such as treaties, agreements, arbitration, and international management and governance. At the same time, transnational pollution problems can often be addressed more effectively and efficiently through the domestic legal system. An ideal approach is to harmonize transnational pollution management and dispute resolution under international and domestic law. This article seeks to provide pragmatic, feasible, and politically realistic solutions to transnational pollution by harmonizing international and domestic law. However, given the diversity in geography, domestic legal …

Inconsistent Ethical Models: Abortion Opposition Ignores Foster Care, Michael Katz

Michael Katz

Not all pro-life movements are equivalent. Some states are pushing harder to ban abortion than others. These states are focal points for the pro-life movement, and are therefore most telling as to the ethics of the movement as a whole. To gauge the ethical basis for pro-life legislation, this paper takes a closer look at the nine states that form the locus of the country’s pro-life movement. Possible ethical models are posited as foundations for state legislation opposing abortion, and then used as the analytical basis to test the ethical consistency of the pro-life movement. Specifically, this paper considers whether …

Some Job Hunters Are What They Post, Michael D. Mann

Michael D. Mann

Plug a prospective employee's name into an Internet search engine, and you might be surprised at what you find. Web pages may tell hiring attorneys that the person they just interviewed wrote for an undergraduate newspaper or belonged to a specific sorority, but the Web may also reveal the recent interviewee's drink of choice and dating status. Law firms can use the Internet for their own recruiting needs, says attorney Michael D. Mann, but they should take what they read on the Web with a grain of salt.

14. Filial Dependency And Recantation Of Child Sexual Abuse Allegations., Lindsay C. Malloy, Thomas D. Lyon, Jodi A. Quas

Thomas D. Lyon

Weshalb Die Uno Ein Parlament Braucht, Beat Habegger

Beat Habegger

No abstract provided.

Who Cares About Director Independence? Presentation (Pdf Format), Paolo Santella, Carlo Drago, Giulia Paone

Paolo Santella

No abstract provided.

Who Cares About Director Independence? Presentation (Pdf Format), Paolo Santella, Carlo Drago, Giulia Paone

Carlo Drago

No abstract provided.

Term Limits And Party Loyalty, Tom Campbell, Cameron Doolittle

Tom Campbell

No abstract provided.

Strategic Planning For Combating Terrorism: A Critical Examination, Arsalan Suleman

Arsalan Suleman

This article engages in a thorough assessment of the Bush Administration's main security strategy documents related to combating terrorism, namely the 2002 and 2006 National Security Strategy documents, the 2003 National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, and the 2006 National Military Strategic Plan for the War on Terrorism. First, the article assesses the value and importance of strategy documents and the utility in analyzing them. Second, the strategies are analyzed based on the process by which they were authored, the structural elements of the strategy, and the strategy's content. Third, the article discusses the overall content of counter-terrorism strategy and makes …

Undermining Individual And Collective Citizenship: The Impact Of Felon Exclusion Laws On The African-American Community, S. David Mitchell

S. David Mitchell

Felon exclusion laws are jurisdiction-specific, post-conviction statutory restrictions that prohibit convicted felons from exercising a host of legal rights, most notably the right to vote. The professed intent of these laws is to punish convicted felons equally without regard for the demographic characteristics of each individual, including race, class, or gender. Felon exclusion laws, however, have a disproportionate impact on African-American males and, by extension, on the residential communities from which many convicted felons come. Thus, felon exclusion laws not only relegate African-American convicted felons to a position of second-class citizenship, but the laws also diminish the collective citizenship of …

The New Market Affair: Scouting The Hills Of The Shenandoah Valley For The Next Big Thing, Kembrew Mcleod

Kembrew McLeod

No abstract provided.

Planners Gone Wild: The Overregulation Of Parking, Michael E Lewyn, Shane Cralle

Michael E Lewyn

A review of Donald Shoup's book, The High Cost of Free Parking (to be published in William Mitchell Law Review).

Gonzales V. Oregon And Physician-Assisted Suicide: Ethical And Policy Issues, Ken M. Levy

Ken Levy

No abstract provided.

Fixing Fair Use, Michael W. Carroll

Michael W. Carroll

The fair use doctrine in copyright law balances expressive freedoms by permitting one to use another's copyrighted expression under certain circumstances. The doctrine's extreme context-sensitivity renders it of little value to those who require reasonable ex ante certainty about the legality of a proposed use. In this Article, Professor Carroll advances a legislative proposal to create a Fair Use Board in the U.S. Copyright Office that would have power to declare a proposed use of another's copyrighted work to be a fair use. Like a private letter ruling from the IRS or a “no action” letter from the SEC, a …

Prolegomenon To A Fairness-Centered Anthropology Of Law, James M. Donovan

James M. Donovan

Legal anthropology, which began with Malinowski’s holistic reflections on law, has today drifted toward an emphasis on the study of dispute resolution. Part I outlines the three historical phases of this development—Holism, Realism, and Processualism—and identifies two shortcomings of viewing the dispute as the central problem for legal anthropology: (1) the collapse of law into dispute analyses has not been, and perhaps cannot be, fully theorized; and (2) the most pressing of current problems, such as human rights and intellectual property issues, cannot be reduced without distortion to the disputing paradigm. Part II offers fairness as an alternative organizing concept …

Response To The Library Of Congress Request For Comment On Specific Issues In Section 108., Denise Troll Covey

Denise Troll Covey

No abstract provided.