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Full-Text Articles in Law
Disguised Patent Policymaking, Saurabh Vishnubhakat
Disguised Patent Policymaking, Saurabh Vishnubhakat
Faculty Scholarship
Patent Office power has grown immensely in this decade, and the agency is wielding its power in predictably troubling ways. Like other agencies, it injects politics into its decisions while relying on technocratic justifications. It also reads grants of authority expansively to aggrandize its power, especially to the detriment of judicial checks on agency action. However, this story of Patent Office ascendancy differs from that of other agencies in two important respects. One is that the U.S. patent system still remains primarily a means for allocating property rights, not a comprehensive regime of industrial regulation. Thus, the Patent Office cannot …
Sweetheart Deals, Deferred Prosecution, And Making A Mockery Of The Criminal Justice System: U.S. Corporate Dpas Rejected On Many Fronts, Peter Reilly
Faculty Scholarship
Corporate Deferred Prosecution Agreements (DPAs) are contracts negotiated between the federal government and defendants to address allegations of corporate misconduct without going to trial. The agreements are hailed as a model of speedy and efficient law enforcement, but also derided as making a “mockery” of America’s criminal justice system stemming from lenient deals being offered to some defendants. This Article questions why corporate DPAs are not given meaningful judicial review when such protection is required for other alternative dispute resolution (ADR) tools, including plea bargains, settlement agreements, and consent decrees. The Article also analyzes several cases in which federal district …
Mandatory Predispute Consumer Arbitration, Structural Bias, And Incentivizing Procedural Safeguards, Nancy A. Welsh
Mandatory Predispute Consumer Arbitration, Structural Bias, And Incentivizing Procedural Safeguards, Nancy A. Welsh
Faculty Scholarship
Within the past several decades, there has been an explosion in the creation, institutionalization and use of “alternative” dispute resolution procedures. Mandatory predispute arbitration has generated the most controversy because it appears beset with structural bias. The recent cases of AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion and Compucredit Corp. v. Greenwood have raised additional concerns as the Supreme Court has announced that corporations can force consumers to arbitrate their private and statutory claims and give up their rights to pursue class relief. This Article begins by arguing that the Supreme Court’s enthusiastic embrace of mandatory predispute arbitration should be understood primarily …