Law Commons^™

Vol. 31, No. 3, Eric Madiar

The Illinois Public Employee Relations Report

Illinois Public Pension Reform: What's Past is Prologue, by Eric Madiar

Recent Developments

Competing With The “Patent Court”: A Newly Robust Ecosystem, Arti K. Rai

Chicago-Kent Journal of Intellectual Property

In a provocative address, Chief Judge Wood of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals suggests exposing the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, created in 1982 to hear all appeals from patent cases, to competition from sister appellate courts. This response, published as part of a Symposium on Chief Judge Wood's address, argues that competition is indeed desirable. Whether such competition is best provided by other appellate courts is unclear, however. The more tractable approach is to improve competitive input from sources that have already emerged. These include dissenting Federal Circuit judges, parties and amici who are not "patent …

Saving The Federal Circuit, Paul R. Gugliuzza

Chicago-Kent Journal of Intellectual Property

In a recent, attention-grabbing speech, the Chief Judge of the Seventh Circuit, Diane Wood, argued that Congress should abolish the Federal Circuit’s exclusive jurisdiction over patent cases. Exclusive jurisdiction, she said, provides too much legal uniformity, which harms the patent system. In this response to Judge Wood’s thoughtful speech, I seek to highlight two important premises underlying her argument, neither of which is indisputably true.

The first premise is that the Federal Circuit actually provides legal uniformity. Judge Wood suggests that, due to the Federal Circuit’s exclusive jurisdiction, patent doctrine is insufficiently “percolated,” meaning that it lacks mechanisms through which …

Federal Circuit Exclusive Appellate Patent Jurisdiction: A Response To Chief Judge Wood, Harold C. Wegner

Chicago-Kent Journal of Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Globalizing Standard Of Patent Protection In Wto Law And Policy Options For The Ldcs: The Context Of Bangladesh, M. Monirul Azam

Chicago-Kent Journal of Intellectual Property

This Article analyzes the globalizing standard of patent protection as adopted under the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and possible options for the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) such as Bangladesh against the experiences of Brazil, India, and South Africa with special reference to pharmaceutical patent issues.

It’S Blonder-Tongue All Over Again, Alex Kozinski, Daniel Mandell

Chicago-Kent Journal of Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Managing The Changes To The Oath Or Declaration Requirement: The Effect Of The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act Oath Or Declaration Change On Corporations, Adam Thompson

Chicago-Kent Journal of Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Online Tracking: Can The Free Market Create Choice Where None Exists?, Benjamin Strauss

Chicago-Kent Journal of Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Reconciling Twombly And Patent Pleadings Beyond The Text Of Form 18, Yoonhee Kim

Chicago-Kent Journal of Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Abolishing Exclusive Jurisdiction In The Federal Circuit: A Response To Judge Wood, Rochelle C. Dreyfus

Chicago-Kent Journal of Intellectual Property

Part of a symposium of responses to Chief Judge Wood’s suggestion for giving regional circuits a share of the Federal Circuit’s authority over patent law, this article argues that now that a degree of nationwide uniformity in patent law has been achieved, it would be a pity to disrupt it. While Chief Judge Wood is right that the law would improve with percolation, a change in the composition of the court, new procedures for challenging patents in the Patent and Trademark Office, a District Court pilot program, and satellite patent offices will bring to the debate new voices, different kinds …

Americanization Of The Common Law: The Intellectual Migration Meets The Great Migration, David Thomas Konig

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This essay is an appreciation of William E. Nelson’s Americanization of the Common Law: The Impact of Legal Change on Massachusetts Society, 1760–1830 (1975) and the complementary study published six years later as Dispute and Conflict Resolution in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, 1725–1825 (1981). The essay places Nelson’s research project in the immediate context of historical writing on colonial New England at the time of their publication but steps back from that narrow context to identify the significance of the book in the long trajectory of great legal historical writing on the Anglo-American legal tradition.

Table Of Contents, Chicago-Kent Law Review

Chicago-Kent Law Review

No abstract provided.

Introduction: The Making Of A Canonical Legal Historian, Felice Batlan, R. B. Bernstein

Chicago-Kent Law Review

No abstract provided.

That Elusive Consensus: The Historiographic Significance Of William E. Nelson's Works On Judicial Review, Mark Mcgarvie

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This essay provides a historiographical context for Nelson’s work on judicial review. It argues that Nelson’s integration of intellectual and legal history not only rebutted the instrumentalist historiography that prevailed when he undertook his work on Marshall and judicial review, but also fostered an appreciation of the need to place legal actors in the intellectual context in which they acted. Highlighting the influence of Bernard Bailyn’s pathfinding work on popular sovereignty upon Nelson’s development of his consensus theory, the essay contends that Nelson’s work changed the course of academic readings of Marshall’s jurisprudence to be consistent with a broader acceptance …

Original Intent And The Fourteenth Amendment: Into The Black Hole Of Constitutional Law, Paul Finkelman

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This article explores and examines William E. Nelson’s masterful study of the origins and adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, The Fourteenth Amendment: From Political Principal to Judicial Doctrine (1988). The article explains that a quarter of a century after he wrote this book, Nelson’s study of the origins and adoption of the Amendment remains the best exploration of these issues. His book illustrates the difficulties of determining the “original intent” of the framers of this complicated and complex Amendment. At the same time, however, Nelson demonstrates that for many issues we can come to a strong understanding of the goals …

Rejecting The Legal Process Theory Joker: Bill Nelson's Scholarship On Judge Edward Weinfeld And Justice Byron White, Brad Snyder

Chicago-Kent Law Review

My contribution to this tribute places Bill Nelson’s scholarship about Judge Edward Weinfeld and Justice Byron White within several contexts. It is a personal history of Nelson the law student, law clerk, and young scholar; an intellectual history of legal theory since the 1960s; an examination of the influence of legal theory on Nelson’s scholarship based on his writings about Weinfeld and White; and an example of how legal historians contend with the subject of judicial reputation. Nelson was one of many former Warren Court and Burger Court clerks who joined the professoriate and rejected the legal process theory that …

A Response: The Impact Of War On Justice In The History Of American Law, William E. Nelson

Chicago-Kent Law Review

The foundational claim of this essay is that judges at most points in time should act with restraint and should not attempt to resolve contested issues of policy. They should incorporate new policies into the law only when the polity as a whole has already adopted a particular policy or when it is in the process of adopting one. The essay then maintains that there have been three periods in American history—the Revolution and the subsequent decades of constitution-making, the Civil War and Reconstruction, and World War II and its aftermath—when the American public as an entity did adopt policies …

The "Moral Hazards" Of Title Vii's Religious Accomodation Doctrine, Stephen Gee

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Freedom of religion in the workplace has recently become a hot topic with regards to whether U.S. or state laws (mainly contraceptive care and treatment of same-sex, married employees’ spouses) must accommodate certain employer’s religious beliefs or else violate the employer’s constitutional right. However, before this recent employer-centric topic came to light, the main focus was on employees and to what extent employers must accommodate an employee’s religion via Title VII. Most, if not all, academic literature has argued an employer’s duty to accommodate employee’s religion is too weak under Title VII and should thus be increased to the significant …

Abstention Doctrine And The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, Michael J. Wood

Chicago-Kent Law Review

A survey of cases where federal courts abstain from hearing cases related to existing state court cases under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) reveals varying approaches and theories underlying those courts’ abstentions. This article attempts to distinguish FDCPA claims related to the validity of the underlying debt from claims arising out of debt collectors’ conduct in collecting a debt, and recommends that federal courts avoid abstaining from the latter. When Congress passed the FDCPA, it intended to provide access to a forum of the consumer’s choice to enforce their rights under the Act by serving as “private attorneys …

William E. Nelson's The Roots Of American Bureaucracy And The Resuscitation Of The Early American State, Gautham Rao

Chicago-Kent Law Review

In 1983, William E. Nelson published The Roots of American Bureaucracy, 1830–1900. Nelson traced the somewhat unlikely emergence and victory of the bureaucratic model in American political and legal thought. This article summarizes the book’s argument and describes its reception. It also seeks to assess the scholarly legacy of The Roots of American Bureaucracy. I argue that the book was ahead of its time because it contradicted prevailing scholarly trends in identifying a significant federal state in nineteenth-century America. In particular, during the past two decades, historians and political scientists have built on Nelson’s insights to develop a consensus about …

Assessing The Board Of Immigration Appeals' Social Visibility Doctrine In The Context Of Human Trafficking, Kathleen M. Mallon

Chicago-Kent Law Review

United States asylum law provides individuals who have been persecuted in their country of origin with residency in the United States. Membership in a “particular social group” (PSG) confers refugee status on individuals applying for asylum in the United States. The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) initially defined a PSG as a group composed of members who all share an immutable characteristic, that is, an unchangeable characteristic or one so fundamental to an individual’s identity that they should not be required to change it. This test functioned well for over a decade; however, the BIA added an additional requirement to …

Law For The Empire: The Common Law In Colonial America And The Problem Of Legal Diversity, Lauren Benton, Kathryn Walker

Chicago-Kent Law Review

In laboring to uncover the legal origins of the American Revolution, historians of law in early America often separated the field from the comparative legal history of empires. William E. Nelson does not explicitly set out to place American colonial legal history in a global context in The Common Law in Colonial America. But in analyzing legal diversity and identifying elements of early legal convergence, Nelson does address key questions within the comparative history of empire and law. This article surveys Nelson’s contributions and places them alongside two other approaches to the study of colonial legal diversity and the constitution …

Semi-Wonderful Town, Semi-Wonderful State: Bill Nelson's New York, Edward A. Purcell Jr.

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This article examines Bill Nelson’s two major books on the history of New York law and politics, The Legalist Reformation (2001) and Fighting for the City (2008). The former deals with developments in New York State from the late nineteenth to the late twentieth century; the latter with New York City starting somewhat earlier but concentrating on the same later period. The Legalist Reformation argues that the election of Alfred E. Smith as Governor of New York in 1922 began a transformation of the state’s legal and political culture that brought new and more egalitarian social policies to the state …

Table Of Contents, Seventh Circuit Review

Seventh Circuit Review

No abstract provided.

Preface, Kathleen Mallon

Seventh Circuit Review

No abstract provided.

Laundry And Cable Television: How The Seventh Circuit Preserved Consumer Protection Class Action Litigation From Washing Down The Tubes, Stephen D. Pauwels

Seventh Circuit Review

Class actions are an essential tool for plaintiffs seeking relief from relatively minor harms. In recent years, the Supreme Court has handed down a collection of rulings that seem to have created additional hurdles––or heightened those already in place––to obtaining class certification under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure Rule 23. One such ruling, Comcast v. Behrend, seemed to have enhanced the predominance requirement and thus raised speculation from various commentators about the ability of plaintiffs to bring class actions where resolution of liability and damages questions are raised for the entire class.

The Seventh Circuit, in Butler v. Sears, …

Yes, We Were Wrong;No, We Will Not Make It Right: The Seventh Circuit Denies Post-Conviction Relief From An Undisputed Sentencing Error Because It Occurred In The Post- Booker, Advisory Guidelines Era, Gregory S. Dierdorf

Seventh Circuit Review

Federal courts disfavor granting collateral relief from final criminal judgments. This mentality is premised on a need for finality in the criminal process; the idea that, at some point, a criminal case must come to an end. Post-conviction relief is available, however, where an error in the trial court causes a miscarriage of justice that must be remedied to preserve the integrity of the criminal justice system.

For example, the Seventh Circuit has granted post-conviction relief where the sentencing court miscalculated the defendant's prison sentence by misapplying the career offender-sentencing enhancement under the then-binding Federal Sentencing Guidelines. However, the court …

Judge Posner Got It Right: Requiring Abortion Doctors To Have Hospital Admitting Privileges Places An Undue Burden On A Woman Seeking An Abortion, Kelly K. Koss

Seventh Circuit Review

Anti-abortion activists have sought to undermine and restrict a woman's right to choose ever since 1992, when the Supreme Court replaced Roe v. Wade's strict scrutiny analysis with the looser undue burden test in Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey. Under Casey's undue burden test, a state regulation cannot have the "purpose or effect of placing a significant obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus." However, the Casey Court failed to define the types of regulations that would run afoul of the undue burden test and create a "substantial obstacle" in the …

Don't Break The Safety Valve's Heart: How The Seventh Circuit Superimposes Substantial Assistance On The Mandatory Minimum Safety Valve's Complete Truthful Disclosure Requirement, Adrienne N. Kitchen

Seventh Circuit Review

Congress passed the safety valve to mitigate the disparate and often harsh sentences mandatory minimums impose on low-level drug defendants. But judicial interpretation continues to impose disparate sentences. In 2014, in United States v. Acevedo-Fitz, the Seventh Circuit reaffirmed its position in an ongoing circuit split regarding the safety valve. The safety valve requires defendants to meet five criteria, the fifth—sometimes called the heart of the safety valve—requires defendants provide complete truthful disclosure to prosecutors prior to sentencing. Judges interpret this requirement as imposing a burden on defendants to prove they met all five criteria without requiring the government …

Conference, Conciliation, And Persuasion: The Seventh Circuit's Groundbreaking Approach To Analyzing The Eeoc's Pre-Suit Obligations, Lisa M. Deleon

Seventh Circuit Review

In EEOC v. Mach Mining, LLC, the Seventh Circuit sharply diverged with its sister circuits when it held that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)'s statutorily mandated conciliation process is immune from judicial review. In Mach Mining, the Seventh Circuit addressed the provision contained in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that requires the EEOC to engage in "informal methods of conference, conciliation, and persuasion" with an employer before it can file a discrimination lawsuit against that employer. These pre-suit negotiations, or "conciliation," provide an opportunity for the EEOC to reach an out-of-court agreement with …