Law Commons^™

The Substantial Identity Rule Under The Japanese Novelty Standard, Toshiko Takenaka

Articles

This article compares the novelty standard under Japanese patent law with the novelty standard under American patent law. This article first explains the structure of the novelty and inventive step provisions under Japanese patent law and examines the interpretation and basic legal theories of these provisions. The inventive step standard developed out of the novelty standard. Thus, to understand the inventive step standard, it is necessary to understand the novelty standard.

Next, this article discusses the unique features of the Japanese novelty standard. The strict novelty requirements of the patent laws of the United States and European countries are contrasted …

Nōryoku Shōgai Wo Motsu Amerikajin Ni Kansuru Hōritsu (Ada) To Amerikahō Ni Okeru Sabetsu No Gainen [The Americans With Disabilities Act And Concepts Of Discrimination In U.S. Law], Daniel H. Foote

Articles

Paradoxical as it may seem, Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act (hereinafter, "ADA"), which deals with employment of the disabled, at one and_ the same time represents only a gradual advance over existing law and a pathbreaking new statute with far-reaching implications. On the one hand, the ADA merely builds on the foundations laid in the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, with the key provisions of the ADA closely parallelling approaches taken in the Rehabilitation Act and regulations implementing it. On the other hand, the ADA vastly expands the coverage of the Rehabilitation Act, thereby establishing that integration of …

Enforcement Of Foreign Money-Judgments In The United States: In Search Of Uniformity And International Acceptance, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

When international trade and investment increase, so does the need for satisfactory means of dispute resolution. Dispute resolution in national courts requires that litigants consider not only the likelihood of a favorable judgment but also the ability to collect on that judgment. In cases where the defendant’s assets lie in another jurisdiction, collection is possible only if the second jurisdiction will recognize the first jurisdiction’s judgment.

In the international arena, enforcement of United State judgments overseas is often possible only if the United States court rendering the judgment would enforce a similar decision of the foreign enforcing court. This reciprocity …

Of Outlaws, Christians, Horsemeat, And Writing: Uniform Laws And Saga Iceland, William I. Miller

Articles

Our word law is a loanword from Old Norse.1 It makes its earliest appearances in Old English manuscripts in the late tenth century. At that time the Old English word for law was, believe it or not, æ, written as a digraph called "ash." Now most readers, myself included, tend to experience anxiety when we confront a ligatured vowel like ae and so we untie it as a prelude to getting rid of it altogether: we turn an aesthete2 into an aesthete before finally humiliating him (or her) as an esthete, all to resolve our nervousness. King Æthelred the Unready …

Confessions And The Right To Silence In Japan, Daniel H. Foote

Articles

In several highly-publicized recent cases in Japan, individuals convicted of murder and sentenced to death were acquitted in retrials obtained after decades on death row. These so-called "death penalty retrial cases'" generated great controversy and considerable reflection about the criminal justice system in Japan. A central, substantive issue presented by these cases relates to the procurement and use of confessions; each of these cases-and several other major recent Japanese cases in which defendants have been acquitted following bitterly contested trials-turned on the validity of repudiated confessions.

Consequently, much recent commentary has focussed on conf essions and related issues. Not surprisingly, …