Law Commons^™

Measuring Trademark Dilution By Tarnishment, Suneal Bedi, David Reibstein

Indiana Law Journal

The law of trademark tarnishment—a type of trademark dilution—is in disarray. The

basic definition is deceptively simple. Trademark tarnishment occurs when a junior

mark harms the reputation of a substantially similar existing senior trademark by

associating itself with something perverse or deviant. However, it turns out that

Congress and the courts disagree over the prima facie evidence necessary to prove

its existence. The problem is that federal law and related legal principles are simply

ill-equipped to adequately analyze this unique market-driven doctrine. To make

matters worse, legal scholars cannot even agree on whether trademark tarnishment

can empirically exist in the …

Internet Architecture And Disability, Blake Reid

Indiana Law Journal

The Internet is essential for education, employment, information, and cultural and democratic participation. For tens of millions of people with disabilities in the United States, barriers to accessing the Internet—including the visual presentation of information to people who are blind or visually impaired, the aural presentation of information to people who are deaf or hard of hearing, and the persistence of Internet technology, interfaces, and content without regard to prohibitive cognitive load for people with cognitive and intellectual disabilities—collectively pose one of the most significant civil rights issues of the information age. Yet disability law lacks a comprehensive theoretical approach …

Upskirting, Bitcoin, And Crime, Oh My: Judicial Resistance To Applying Old Laws To New Crimes – What Is A Legislature To Do?, Michael Whiteman

Indiana Law Journal

As technology continues to advance at a break-neck speed, legislatures often find themselves scrambling to write laws to keep up with these advances. Prosecutors are frequently faced with the prospect of charging a defendant with a crime based on an existing law that does not quite fit the circumstances of the defendant’s actions. Judges, cognizant of the fact that legislatures, and not the judiciary, have the primary responsibility for creating crimes, have pushed back. Judges routinely refuse to convict a defendant if the statute does not fairly criminalize the defendant’s actions. To determine if a defendant’s actions fit within a …

A Coffee Break For Bitcoin, Margaret Ryznar

Indiana Law Journal

For many, the appeal of bitcoin is in its detachment from government regulation. However, the Coffee bonding theory, which initially arose in the context of foreign stocks, suggests certain benefits of regulation for bitcoin, including increased legitimacy. By invoking the Coffee bonding theory, this Article offers another perspective on the regulation of bitcoin.