Law Commons^™

Information Theory And Patent Documents, W. Michael Schuster

Akron Law Review

Recent scholarship has expanded the scope of analytical tools available to patent law researchers. The foundation of information theory published by Claude Shannon has been applied to textual analysis to determine the similarities of patents and to assess a patent’s value. This article presents a theoretical application of information theory to quantify lexical ambiguity and originality in innovation within patent law.

Revisiting The Justification Of Trademark Protection For Single Drug Compositions: A Critical Analysis From A Regulatory Perspective, Kuhu Tiwari, Dr. Niharika Sahoo Bhattacharya

Akron Law Review

Trademarks, which are premised on product differentiation, are alleged to play a divergent role when used on pharmaceutical products: they tend to create an artificial product differentiation for the bioequivalent pharmaceutical products that are marketed as branded, generics, and branded-generic products. It is implied that the companies incorporate trademarks to market their products to different consumers at different prices. However, concerns arise when a company uses multiple trademarks for a single active pharmaceutical ingredient (API); sometimes, the company labels each trademark as treating a different medical condition.

This practice of brand proliferation may pose risks to patient safety by confusing …

Fair Use As A Market Facilitator, Miriam Marcowitz-Bitton, Dan Bombach

Akron Law Review

The Digital Age has enabled individuals worldwide to store, organize, and share everything from cherished memories embodied in photographs and videos to academic writing and correspondence. Yet, archived collections of academic, public, and private libraries are out of reach to many, and many books are now beyond reach because they are no longer in print. The high cost of digitization exacerbates these challenges.

In 2004, Google Inc. responded to these issues by announcing a project to scan and digitize the collections of several leading universities and public libraries (the “Google Books” project). The project offered users the opportunity to search …

Letting Anarchy Loose On The World: The Anarchist Cookbook And How Copyright Fails The Author, Debora Halbert

Akron Law Review

The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell remains one of the most controversial books in print, even 50 years after its first publication. The story to be told about its ongoing publication can teach us about the politics of authorship, ownership, publication, copyright assignments, the public domain, and the legacies our printed words leave behind. Later in life Powell regretted publishing the book and wished that it would be removed from publication and circulation but stated that he did not own the copyright and so could not control the book. However, even at his death the book remained in print and …

Failed Promises: Stand Your Ground's Removal Of Imminence Leads To Inconsistent Application And Decreased Safety, Nichole Hamsher

Akron Law Review

Self-defense, while universally recognized as a natural human right, embodies a complex set of scenarios that hinges on the level, place, and imminence of a threat to life. The modern expansion of self-defense laws, namely Stand Your Ground, allows for a wholly subjective anticipation of a threat by removing the duty to retreat, and withdraws both criminal and civil accountability. Such expansion has not afforded increased protection to those who need to use force in self-defense, such as domestic abuse victims, nor has it lowered crime rates, but actually works against such victims and increased homicide rates while not deterring …

Hb 305: A Step In The Right Direction For Ohio's Students, Jacob Davis

Akron Law Review

For nearly twenty-four years, the state of Ohio has funded education unconstitutionally. Columbus lawmakers have paid little attention to the DeRolph progeny of cases, which repeatedly provided that an education funding formula rooted in property tax values fails to pass constitutional muster. In 2019, lawmakers finally provided a solution in HB 305: the Cupp-Patterson proposal. This paper will first survey the checkered history of school funding litigation in Ohio. Then, this newly proposed approach to educational funding will be detailed and critically evaluated, with a focus placed on the hurdles that remain before it can become law. Ohio’s students deserve …

The Case Against Florida Statute §98.0751, Lyndsey Gallwitz

Akron Law Review

Felony disenfranchisement laws prevent millions of American citizens from voting. While the recent legal trend has been to eradicate felony disenfranchisement, each state currently has a unique framework, and the issue remains unsettled nationwide. In 2018, the state of Florida passed a constitutional amendment that allowed felons to regain their right to vote once their sentence was finished. Soon after, the Governor DeSantis signed Fla. Stat. Ann. § 98.0751 into law, which required felons to pay off all court cost before their right to vote will be restored. This new law prevented thousands of otherwise eligible felons from voting in …

Drones, Airspace Design, And Aerial Law In States And Cities, Brent Skorup

Akron Law Review

Federal and state governments have embraced drone technology in recent years to stimulate a domestic industry for new jobs and long-distance delivery services. However, the federal-state breakdown about who manages drone airspace and surface air rights has not been resolved, which, as the Government Accountability Office recently reported to Congress, threatens the progress of the U.S. drone industry. What is clear is that landowners, whether public or private, own low-altitude airspace and air rights. This article traces the legal treatment of surface airspace as real property back to Anglo-American legal treatises and court decisions in the mid-19th century. Therefore, absent …

Standing On Its Own Shoulders: The Supreme Court's Statutory Interpretation Of The Federal Arbitration Act, Kristen M. Blankley

Akron Law Review

Empirical evidence on the Supreme Court’s use of tools of statutory interpretation is an emerging field of legal study. This Article is the first to use these methodologies to analyze the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), enacted in 1925. I analyzed 114 separate Supreme Court arbitration opinions, coding for fourteen different tools of statutory interpretation. This article presents the results of that analysis. The most striking finding from this study is the extraordinarily insular nature of the FAA jurisprudence compared to other scholars’ studies in their respective areas of the law. This nature can be determined statistically from the Supreme Court’s …

Resorbing Patent Law's Kessler Cat Into The General Law Of Preclusion, Dennis Crouch, Homayoon Rafatijo

Akron Law Review

The Supreme Court has warned against the creation and expansion of patent-specific rules of procedure where the general law would suffice. The recently revived and expanded Kessler doctrine is one such patent-specific rule, and we argue its time has come for resorption into the general law of preclusion that has since expanded to encompass the doctrine. We utilize a novel law and economic analysis of the rules of preclusion to demonstrate how lower courts’ expansion of the Kessler doctrine defeats the rationale behind the general law of preclusion.

You Have The Duty To Remain Silent: How Workplace Gag Rules Frustrate Police Accountability, Frank D. Lomonte, Jessica Terkovich

Akron Law Review

This Article traces the First Amendment caselaw that, for more than half a century, has sided with speakers facially challenging overbroad workplace policies that forbid sharing information with the press and public. The Article then reports on the results of a nationwide survey of police and sheriff’s department policies by the Brechner Center for Freedom of Information, concluding that well over half of the nation’s biggest law enforcement agencies have rules on the books that resemble—or are identical to—those struck down as unconstitutional when challenged, at times in defiance of binding circuit-level precedent. The Article examines why these legally dubious …

Cambodia's Law On Secured Transaction, Timothy J. Holzer, Pho Sotheaphal

Akron Law Review

Cambodian law permits the taking of and the perfecting of a security interest in movables (e.g., goods) and in intangibles (e.g., legally enforceable rights, such as contracts and rights in property.) Cambodia’s system is strongly patterned after Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code as developed in the United States. Perfection (i.e. notice to third parties that a security interest exists) is usually effected by the filing of a notice at the Secured Transactions Filing Office (the “STFO”) of the Ministry of Commerce, although sometimes physical possession may be required. However, conflicting or ambiguous provisions in other Cambodian laws may …

Non-Competition Agreements Under Vietnamese Law: Protection Of Trade Secrets And Free Choice Of Employment As Two Sides Of The Same Coin, Nguyen The Duc Tam, Le Nguyen Hong Nhung

Akron Law Review

If you ask many employers in Vietnam why they use non-competition agreements (noncompetes), they will confidently tell you that they are trying to protect their legitimate ownership interests. However, what they are less confident about is the legal enforceability of noncompetes. Such uncertainty hurts both employers and employees. The ambiguity regarding the enforceability of noncompetes not only discourages employers from bringing trade secrets into Vietnam but also deprives employees of opportunities for employer investment and personal development. In this article, we argue that noncompetes should be enforceable in Vietnam. However, noncompetes should be binding only if they are necessary to …

Sustaining Vietnamese Economic Development By Improving The Transparency Of Choice Of Law Decisions, Luong Duc Doan, Trinh Thi Hong Nguyen

Akron Law Review

Without a doubt, Vietnam has enjoyed outstanding economic performance since the adoption of doi moi in 1986. To a significant extent, Vietnam has accomplished this through the dramatic increase in international trade and investment. However, further economic progress will be undermined if international partners begin to question the fairness of the Vietnamese legal system – especially in the application of choice of law principles. At best, a perceived lack of transparency in choice of law decisions will increase uncertainty; at worst, it will foster the impression that Vietnamese Courts do not treat international parties fairly. Accordingly, this article recommends that …

The Global Benefits Of The Law & Economics Framework In Legal Education: Overview (Part 1), Patrick H. Gaughan

Akron Law Review

This is the first in a series of articles that overarchingly proposes that the globalization of markets necessitates the integration of the Law & Economics Framework into legal education across all legal systems. The goal of this article is to introduce readers to the Law & Economics Framework by providing an overview of relevant terms, concepts, and historical background. This article discusses the interplay of lawyers and globalization; defines the Law & Economic Framework and its origins; details relevant principles of economics; and delves into some criticisms of the Framework. The remainder of the series will be devoted to demonstrating …

The Digital Transformation Of Law: Are We Prepared For Artificially Intelligent Legal Practice?, Larry Bridgesmith, Dr. Adel Elmessiry

Akron Law Review

We live in an instant access and on-demand world of information sharing. The global COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the necessity of remote working and team collaboration. Work teams are exploring and utilizing the remote work platforms required to serve in place of stand-ups common in the agile workplace. Online tools are needed to provide visibility to the status of projects and the accountability necessary to ensure that tasks are completed on time and on budget. Digital transformation of organizational data is now the target of AI projects to provide enterprise transparency and predictive insights into the process of work. In …

Digital Curb Cuts: Towards An Inclusive Open Forms Ecosystem, Quinten Steenhuis, David Colarusso

Akron Law Review

In this paper, we focus on digital curb cuts created during the pandemic: improvements designed to increase accessibility that benefit people beyond the population that they are intended to help. As much as 86% of civil legal needs are unmet, according to a 2017 study by the Legal Services Corporation. Courts and third parties designed many innovations to meet the emergency needs of the pandemic: we argue that these innovations should be extended and enhanced to address this ongoing access to justice crisis. Specifically, we use the Suffolk University Law School's Document Assembly Line as a case study. The Document …

Tele-Lawyering And The Virtual Learning Experience: Finding The Silver Lining For Remote Hybrid Externships & Law Clinics After The Pandemic, Lucy Johnston-Walsh, Alison Lintal

Akron Law Review

The COVID-19 pandemic has rocked the world in innumerable ways. This article argues that the COVID-19 pandemic has a silver lining for law students in experiential learning programs. The pandemic has forced law schools across the country to fully utilize remote learning technology. The pandemic similarly forced courts to accept virtual tools in an environment that had previously relied primarily on in-person appearances. The lessons that law faculty and judges have learned from the pandemic will be permanent and may change the methods of operation going forward. Law schools that embrace the lessons they learned can help their law students …