Law Commons^™

Weeds, Seeds, & Deeds Redux: Natural And Legal Evolution In The U.S. Seed Wars, Rebecca Stewart

Rebecca K Stewart

Ever since the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office began issuing utility patents for plants, the United States has sat squarely on the frontlines of what have come to be known as the “seed wars.” In the last two decades, the majority of battles in the U.S. seed wars have been waged in the form of patent infringement lawsuits. Typically these suits are filed by biotechnology corporations such as Monsanto against farmers accused of saving and planting patented seed that self-replicates to produce progeny embodying—and thus infringing—the biotech corporations’ patented inventions.

Yet in recent years, the seed wars have begun to …

Antitrust Analysis After Actavis: Applying The Rule Of Reason To Reverse Payments, Benjamin Miller

Benjamin Miller

Abstract In F.T.C. v. Actavis, Inc. the Supreme Court resolved a circuit split regarding the proper evaluation of reverse payment settlements under federal antitrust law, holding that they must be evaluated under a rule of reason analysis. However, the Court simultaneously created significant uncertainty by declaring that the lower courts were responsible for structuring the analysis. While a few cases are currently in the pre-trial phase, the only decisions relating to reverse payments since Actavis have been rulings on pre-trial motions—there have been no decisions on the merits. Given the intricate intersection between antitrust and intellectual property principles in these …

Hyperactive Judges: An Empirical Study Of Judge-Dependent "Judicial Hyperactivity" In The Federal Circuit, Ted L. Field

Ted L. Field

This article presents an empirical study of the extent to which individual judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit—which has exclusive jurisdiction over patent appeals—engage in what William C. Rooklidge and Matthew F. Weil call “judicial hyperactivity.” This article defines “judicial hyperactivity” as a form of judicial activism in which a judge improperly “elevate[s] his or her judgment above that of another constitutionally significant actor (e.g., Congress, the President, [or] other Article III courts),” where this improper behavior is not necessarily driven by politics or ideology as is traditional judicial activism. This study considers the extent …