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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Private Costs Of Patent Litigation, James Bessen, Michael J. Meurer
The Private Costs Of Patent Litigation, James Bessen, Michael J. Meurer
Faculty Scholarship
This paper estimates the total cost of patent litigation to alleged infringers. We use a large sample of stock market event studies around the date of lawsuit filings for US public firms from 1984-99. We find that the total costs of litigation are much greater than legal fees and costs are large even for lawsuits that settle. Lawsuits cost alleged infringers about $28.7 million ($92) in the mean and $2.9 million in the median. Moreover, infringement risk rose sharply during the late 1990s to over 14% of R&D spending. Small firms have lower risk relative to R&D.
A Generation Of Software Patents, James Bessen
A Generation Of Software Patents, James Bessen
Faculty Scholarship
This report examines changes in the patenting behavior of the software industry since the 1990s. It finds that most software firms still do not patent, most software patents are obtained by a few large firms in the software industry or in other industries, and the risk of litigation from software patents continues to increase dramatically. Given these findings, it is hard to conclude that software patents have provided a net social benefit in the software industry.
Professionalism And Advocacy At Trial – Real Jurors Speak In Detail About The Performance Of Their Advocates, Mitchell J. Frank, Osvaldo F. Morera
Professionalism And Advocacy At Trial – Real Jurors Speak In Detail About The Performance Of Their Advocates, Mitchell J. Frank, Osvaldo F. Morera
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
California Drops The Ball: The Lack Of A Clear Approach To Recklessness In Sport Injury Litigation, Joseph Hnylka
California Drops The Ball: The Lack Of A Clear Approach To Recklessness In Sport Injury Litigation, Joseph Hnylka
Faculty Scholarship
Joseph Hnylka, California Drops the Ball: The Lack of a Clear Approach to Recklessness in Sport Injury Litigation, 1 Virginia Sports & Entertainment Law Journal 77 (2012).
The Constitutional Bounding Of Adjudication: A Fuller(Ian) Explanation For The Supreme Court's Mass Tort Jurisprudence, Donald G. Gifford
The Constitutional Bounding Of Adjudication: A Fuller(Ian) Explanation For The Supreme Court's Mass Tort Jurisprudence, Donald G. Gifford
Faculty Scholarship
In this Article, I argue that the Supreme Court is implicitly piecing together a constitutionally mandated model of bounded adjudication governing mass torts, using decisions that facially rest on disparate constitutional provisions. This model constitutionally restricts common law courts from adjudicating the rights, liabilities, and interests of persons who are neither present before the court nor capable of being defined with a reasonable degree of specificity. I find evidence for this model in the Court’s separate decisions rejecting tort-based climate change claims, global settlements of massive asbestos litigation, and punitive damages awards justified as extra-compensatory damages. These new forms of …
Predicting Securities Fraud Settlements And Amounts: A Hierarchical Bayesian Model Of Federal Securities Class Action Lawsuits, Blakeley M. Mcshane, Oliver P. Watson, Sean J. Griffith, Tom Baker
Predicting Securities Fraud Settlements And Amounts: A Hierarchical Bayesian Model Of Federal Securities Class Action Lawsuits, Blakeley M. Mcshane, Oliver P. Watson, Sean J. Griffith, Tom Baker
Faculty Scholarship
This article develops models that predict the incidence and amount of settlements for federal class action securities fraud litigation in the post-PLSRA period. We build hierarchical Bayesian models using data that come principally from Riskmetrics and identify several important predictors of settlement incidence (e.g., the number of different types of securities associated with a case, the company return during the class period) and settlement amount (e.g., market capitalization, measures of newsworthiness). Our models also allow us to estimate how the circuit court a case is filed in as well as the industry of the plaintiff firm associate with settlement outcomes. …
A New Model Of Plaintiffs' Class Action Attorneys, Morris A. Ratner
A New Model Of Plaintiffs' Class Action Attorneys, Morris A. Ratner
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
The Private And Social Costs Of Patent Trolls, Michael J. Meurer, James Bessen, Jennifer Ford
The Private And Social Costs Of Patent Trolls, Michael J. Meurer, James Bessen, Jennifer Ford
Faculty Scholarship
The emergence of nonpracticing entities (NPEs) — firms that purchase and hold patent rights but neither innovate themselves nor use the patents in the production of goods — is supposed to incentivize innovation by providing a ready market for innovators. We test this idea empirically and find that NPEs produce little returns for innovators or for their own shareholders, but they place significant costs on productive firms that violate patents inadvertently. Indeed, it appears that NPEs — often disparagingly called “patent trolls” — discourage productive firms from innovating for fear that they will then be subject to a patent troll …
Law, Economics, And The Burden(S) Of Proof, Eric L. Talley
Law, Economics, And The Burden(S) Of Proof, Eric L. Talley
Faculty Scholarship
This chapter presents an overview of the theoretical law and economics literature on the burden of proof within tort law. I begin by clarifying core legal definitions within this topic, demonstrating that the burden of proof actually refers to at least five doctrinal concepts that substantially overlap but are not completely interchangeable. I then provide a conceptual roadmap for analyzing the major extant contributions to this topic within theoretical law and economics, emphasizing three key dimensions that organize them: (a) where they fall in the positive-normative spectrum; (b) what type of underlying modeling framework they employ (ranging from decision theoretic …
Beyond The Private Attorney General: Equality Directives In American Law, Olatunde C.A. Johnson
Beyond The Private Attorney General: Equality Directives In American Law, Olatunde C.A. Johnson
Faculty Scholarship
American civil rights regulation is generally understood as relying on private enforcement in courts rather than imposing positive duties on state actors to further equity goals. This Article argues that this dominant conception of American civil rights regulation is incomplete. American civil rights regulation also contains a set of "equality directives," whose emergence and reach in recent years have gone unrecognized in the commentary. These federal-level equality directives use administrative tools of conditioned spending, policymaking, and oversight powerfully to promote substantive inclusion with regard to race, ethnicity, language, and disability. These directives move beyond the constraints of the standard private …