Law Commons^™

Brave New Eugenics: Regulating Assisted Reproductive Technologies In The Name Of Better Babies, Kerry Macintosh

Kerry L Macintosh

Infertile men and women have been using assisted reproductive technologies (“ART”) to conceive children since the first “test-tube baby” was born in 1978. During the past decade, however, the federal government has begun to clamp down on ART, asserting safety concerns as grounds for banning novel technologies such as cloning, nuclear transfer, and ooplasm transfer. Some scholars and policymakers now want to extend governmental regulation to include conventional ART such as in vitro fertilization (“IVF”) and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (“ICSI”). They claim children conceived through ART face an increased risk of birth defects and other health problems. This Article examines …

Anti-Cyber Bullying Statutes: Threat To Student Free Speech, John O. Hayward

John O. Hayward

In October 2006, thirteen-year-old Megan Meier committed suicide because of postings on MySpace, an Internet social networking site. As a result, twenty-one states have passed statutes prohibiting cyber bullying, i.e., bullying by electronic means. Many of these laws threaten student free speech. This article examines cyber bullying, the laws it has spawned, how they chill student speech, their constitutionality, and proposes a Model Anti-Cyber Bullying Law.

Domestic Violence And Spyware: How And Why Spousal Abuse Through Spyware Lies Outside The Protection Of California Law And A Proposal For Reform., Terese Laubscher

Terese E Laubscher

No abstract provided.

Fueling The Coal War--The Courts, The Feds, And The Epa: Who Is In A Better Position To Curb Coal-Related Pollution?, Corwyn Davis

Corwyn M Davis

ABSTRACT: With the United States’ continued and growing dependence on the use of coal for energy production, it is vital that the country examines ways to eliminate coal wastes more efficiently. The courts have varying opinions on who should ultimately bear responsibility for environmental torts connected with carbon pollution. With greenhouse gases and global warming stealing the environmental spotlight, the equally hazardous nature of coal combustion waste disposal has taken a back door to national policy reform. This paper introduces the problems associated with the disposal of this hazardous by-product. By analyzing the status quo of environmental regulation, it becomes …

No Innocents Here: Using Litigation To Fight Against The Costs Of Universal Service In France, Dorit Reiss

Dorit R. Reiss

Liberalization of utility sectors may bring the benefits of competition to customers, but it also creates risks of manipulation of the new system by powerful industrial actors. Litigation is one tool available to undermine or delay effective regulation. In 2001 the European Court of Justice declared the French system of funding universal service in telecommunications untreaty, and ordered France to redesign it. The commission and observers understood the case as a triumph of open market over France’s narrow protection of the "national champion" French Télécom. An alternative interpretation that fits the data better describes the story as successful use of …

You Infringed My Patent, Now Wait Until I Sue You: The Federal Circuit’S Decision In Avocent Huntsville Corp. V. Aten International Co., Marta Vanegas

Marta R. Vanegas LL.M.

The Federal Circuit recently held that it lacked personal jurisdiction over a foreign defendant, because neither the patentee’s sales within the forum state, nor their patent enforcement letters constituted sufficient contacts for personal jurisdiction. This Note argues that the Federal Circuit erroneously held that a patentee’s sales in the forum state are irrelevant to specific personal jurisdiction. The Note surveys the legal background of personal jurisdiction in declaratory judgment actions, particularly in the patent context. The Note then argues that the Federal Circuit's recent line of cases incorrectly held that a patentee’s sales of the patented product within the forum …

No Innocents Here: Using Litigation To Fight Against The Costs Of Universal Service In France, Dorit Reiss

Dorit R. Reiss

Liberalization of utility sectors may bring the benefits of competition to customers, but it also creates risks of manipulation of the new system by powerful industrial actors. Litigation is one tool available to undermine or delay effective regulation. In 2001 the European Court of Justice declared the French system of funding universal service in telecommunications untreaty, and ordered France to redesign it. The commission and observers understood the case as a triumph of open market over France’s narrow protection of the "national champion" French Télécom. An alternative interpretation that fits the data better describes the story as successful use of …

The Political Philosophy Of The Internet - From Locke’S State Of Nature To His Social Contract, Efrat Shuster

Efrat Shuster

No abstract provided.

Neuroimaging And Competency To Be Executed After Panetti, Michael L. Perlin

Michael L Perlin

Scholars have begun to consider the impact of neuroimaging evidence on capital punishment trials, questioning whether reliance on such testimony can actually make “sentencing more rational and humane.” They have also considered the impact of this evidence on criminal sentencing, expressing concern that such evidence will be improperly used “as predictive factors to increase sentences,” and counseling policymakers to “avoid misuse of new techniques.” In an earlier article on neuroimaging and criminal procedure, I considered the questions of a criminal defendant’s competency to submit to neuroimaging testing, and the impact of antipsychotic medications on the results of such testing.

What …

Improving The Fda Approval Process, Anup Malani

Anup Malani

The FDA employs an average-patient standard when reviewing drugs: it approves a drug only if is safe and effective for the average patient in a clinical trial. It is common, however, for patients to respond differently to a drug. Therefore, the average-patient standard can reject a drug that benefits certain patient subgroups (false negative) and even approval a drug that harms other patient subgroups (false positives). These errors increase the cost of drug development – and thus health care – by wasting research on unproductive or unapproved drugs. The reason why the FDA sticks with an average patient standard is …

Copyrighting "Twilight": Digital Copyright Lessons From The Vampire Blogosphere, Jacqueline D. Lipton

Jacqueline D Lipton

In January of 2010 a United States District Court granted an injunction against a Twilight fan magazine for unauthorized use of copyrighted publicity stills . No surprise there. Intellectual property laws deal effectively – some would argue too effectively – with such cases. Nevertheless, recent Web 2.0 technologies, characterized by user-generated content, raise new challenges for copyright law. Online interactions involving reproductions of copyrighted works in blogs, online fan fiction, and online social networks do not comfortably fit existing copyright paradigms. It is unclear whether participants in Web 2.0 forums are creating derivative works, making legitimate fair uses of copyright …

Ip Misuse As Foreclosure, Christina Bohannan

Christina Bohannan

In an age of IP expansionism, the doctrine most explicitly concerned with limiting IP overreaching has no defensible basis in IP policy. “Misuse” relates to the IP holder’s use of licenses and other arrangements to obtain rights “beyond the scope” of a statutory IP grant, but the doctrine has not established adequate principles for identifying the practices that should be condemned. The misuse doctrine evolved in patent law and concerned the tying of patented and unpatented goods. Courts held that such tying violated federal patent policy by expanding the statutory monopoly to include a second product not covered by the …

Indianizing Hollywood: The Debate Over Bollywood's Copyright Infringement, Hariqbal Basi

Hariqbal Basi

For decades, the mainstream Indian film industry, known as Bollywood, has remade copyrighted Hollywood films for the Indian audience without legal repercussions. This practice has gone unnoticed by Hollywood until recently, and accusations have since been brought against Indian filmmakers for copyright infringement. This note provides an in depth analysis of why these potentially infringing films have only become the subject of litigation over the last two years, cultural arguments advanced by Indian filmmakers for why their remakes should constitute original, and not infringing, works, and what the effects of litigation have been. As the two industries become increasingly intertwined, …

Patent Law And The Two Cultures, Peter Lee

Peter Lee

A half century ago, author and physicist C.P. Snow warned of a “gulf of mutual incomprehension” between the liberal arts and sciences. Snow’s “Two Cultures” thesis is particularly relevant to patent law, a realm where law and science intersect. Drawing on Snow’s framework, this Article addresses challenges that arise when lay judges must engage, understand, and ultimately pass judgment on complex technologies. It first argues that technological subject matter imposes significant cognitive burdens on generalist judges. It then explores the “cognitive miser” model whereby lay persons adopt heuristics and defer to expertise to limit their engagement with technology. Drawing from …

Indianizing Hollywood: The Debate Over Bollywood's Copyright Infringement, Hariqbal Basi

Hariqbal Basi

For decades, the mainstream Indian film industry, known as Bollywood, has remade copyrighted Hollywood films for the Indian audience without legal repercussions. This practice has gone unnoticed by Hollywood until recently, and accusations have since been brought against Indian filmmakers for copyright infringement. This note provides an in depth analysis of why these potentially infringing films have only become the subject of litigation over the last two years, cultural arguments advanced by Indian filmmakers for why their remakes should constitute original, and not infringing, works, and what the effects of litigation have been. As the two industries become increasingly intertwined, …

Local Participatory Democracy In Israel: Toward A Digital Era, Jennifer Shkabatur

Jennifer Shkabatur

Numerous Israeli cities are amidst a participatory and economic crisis. The gist of the Article is that stronger citizen participation in municipal affairs can help mitigate the crisis, and that digital technologies should play a central role in this endeavor. As the use of digital technologies is still largely uncommon in this context, the Article contends that an effective institutional design for digital platforms is particularly important. Hence, the Article suggests criteria for the evaluation of digital participatory initiatives and develops two models of online citizen participation—consumerist and co-productive. Relying on a variety of American, German, and Israeli examples, the …

Regulating Online Buzz Marketing: Untangling A Web Of Deceit, Robert Sprague, Mary Ellen Wells

Robert Sprague

During the past fifteen years, the Internet has swelled into its own virtual world of commentary, opinion, criticism, news, music, videos, gaming, role playing, shopping, banking, finance, and digital commerce. Coupled with the growth of blogs and social networking sites, millions of Americans appear willing to share online their own thoughts and experiences regarding products, services and companies. In response to the public’s interest, companies have begun to rely more heavily in recent years on word of mouth marketing, often referred to as “buzz marketing,” a technique that attempts to generate conversations among and with current and potential customers. Marketers …

A Preliminary First Amendment Analysis Of Leglisation Treating News Aggregation As Copyright Infringement, Alfred C. Yen

Alfred C. Yen

The newspaper industry has recently experienced economic difficulty. Profits have declined because fewer people read printed versions of newspapers, preferring instead to get their news through so-called "news aggregators" who compile newspaper headlines and provide links to storied posted on newspaper websites. This harms newspaper revenue because news aggregators collect advertising revenue that newspapers used to enjoy. Some have responded to this problem by advocating the use of copyright to give newspapers the ability to control the use of their stories and headlines by news aggregators. This proposal is controversial, for news aggregators often do not commit copyright infringement. Accordingly, …

Crime And Punishment: Teen Sexting In Context, Julia Halloran Mclaughlin

Julia Halloran McLaughlin

Debt As Venture Capital, Darian M. Ibrahim

Darian M Ibrahim

Venture debt, or loans to rapid-growth start-ups, is a puzzle. How are start-ups with no track records, positive cash flows, tangible collateral, or personal guarantees from entrepreneurs able to attract billions of dollars in loans each year? And why do start-ups take on debt rather than rely exclusively on equity investments from angel investors and venture capitalists (VCs), as well-known capital structure theories from corporate finance would seem to predict in this context? Using hand-collected interview data and theoretical contributions from finance, economics, and law, this Article solves the puzzle of venture debt by revealing that a start-up’s VC backing …

Law School & The Web Of Group Affiliation: Socializing, Socialization, & Social Network Site Use Among Law Students, Eric M. Fink

Eric M Fink

Online social network sites (“SNS”) have emerged as a significant socio-technical phenomenon in the past several years. Scholars from various disciplines have examined these sites to develop a better understanding of their social significance and implications from a variety of perspectives. Within the burgeoning field of SNS studies, one strand of work focuses on the place of SNSs in students’ educational experiences and the potential pedagogical applications of SNSs. However, the SNS phenomenon generally, and its educational/pedagogical significance in particular, have received scant attention from legal scholars. This article examines the place of SNSs within the contemporary law school experience, …

Youtube, Ugc, And Digital Music: Competing Business And Cultural Models In The Internet Age, Olufunmilayo B. Arewa

Olufunmilayo B. Arewa

YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, and other websites that contain user-generated content (UGC) have become key reference points in broader debates about copyright in the digital era. UGC websites and other digital era players have created much destruction of cultural industry business models. The rise of Web 2.0 thus poses significant challenges to pre-digital era cultural industry business models, particularly because UGC may contain copyright protected content. The challenges of YouTube and other websites containing UGC and video content follow experiences in the music arena. The music industry was the first of the cultural industries to con- front the digital era, and …