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Full-Text Articles in Law
Foreground Principles, Timothy M. Mulvaney
Foreground Principles, Timothy M. Mulvaney
Faculty Scholarship
The U.S. Supreme Court has declared for decades that, for Takings Clause purposes, property interests are not created by the Constitution but rather are determined by “existing rules or understandings that stem from an independent source such as state law.” However, the Court has exhibited a strong normative preference for a certain type of independent source — “background principles” of the common law — over others, namely state statutory and administrative law. This Article calls this preference into question.
The Article develops a model to demonstrate the four basic categories, or quadrants, of takings decisions that extensive reliance on the …
Of Smart Phone Wars And Software Patents, Stuart Graham, Saurabh Vishnubhakat
Of Smart Phone Wars And Software Patents, Stuart Graham, Saurabh Vishnubhakat
Faculty Scholarship
Among the main criticisms currently confronting the US Patent and Trademark Office are concerns about software patents and what role they play in the web of litigation now proceeding in the smart phone industry. We will examine the evidence on the litigation and the treatment by the Patent Office of patents that include software elements. We present specific empirical evidence regarding the examination by the Patent Office of software patents, their validity, and their role in the smart phone wars. More broadly, this article discusses the competing values at work in the patent system and how the system has dealt …