This Article explores whether abstract ideas can and should be patentable. Historically, the patent system’s scope has been restricted to protecting tangible products or processes as opposed to abstract ideas. Ongoing advances in information technologies, however, have blurred the boundaries of the traditional doctrine, and many recently issued patents appear to protect abstractions. A recent …
Patent cases at the district court level are one of the most complex, time-consuming, and contentious forms of civil litigation. As an alternative to the conventional, two-sided adversarial process, this Article proposes a structural change to the manner of conducting patent litigation in the district courts: the addition of a neutral litigant who, as the …
The products of synthetic biology may improve medicine, national security, environmental protection, and the economy, but under-regulated development could catastrophically compromise these endeavors. Considering the dangers exhibited by existing microorganisms and public access to tools of synthetic biology construction, the field’s untested novelty implicates human health and safety. Further, social justice concerns are raised by …
The Hatch-Waxman Act allows generic drug manufacturers to market a generic equivalent of a pharmaceutical company’s patented drug prior to the patent’s expiration by bringing Paragraph IV challenges against the patent holder. To encourage generic manufacturers to make these challenges, the Hatch-Waxman Act grants the first generic challenger (“first-filer”) for a particular drug a 180-day …
This Article contributes conceptually and empirically towards an innovation-based growth theory for developing countries. The proposed theory adheres to the growing importance given by theoreticians and policy makers alike to re-visiting the neoclassical economics “one size fits all” innovation policy propagated by current international intellectual property instruments. In arguing for an innovation-based growth theory, the …
The high-profile prosecution of the popular online storage website Megaupload for criminal copyright infringement is the latest in a series of recent criminal prosecutions of online filesharing services. This Article addresses what pushes a legitimate online file-storing business over the edge to criminal enterprise, and how criminal copyright enforcement differs from civil enforcement. The Article …
This Article argues that the Supreme Court’s technology jurisprudence can be best understood as protecting the privacy interest of elites. After providing an overview of the major technology cases from Olmstead to Kyllo, the Article focuses on the recent case of United States v Jones. The Article does not contend that the Court intended to …
The Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Jones clearly established that use of GPS tracking surveillance constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment. But the Court left many other questions unanswered about the nature and scope of the constitutional privacy right in location data. A review of lower court decisions in the wake of …
In United States v. Jones, the Supreme Court unanimously rejected the proposition that the Government can surreptitiously electronically track vehicle location for an entire month without Fourth Amendment restraint. While the Court’s three opinions leave much uncertain, in one perspective they fit nicely within a long string of cases in which the Court is cautiously …
On January 23, 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark non-decision in United States v. Jones. In that case, officers used a GPS-enabled device to track a suspect’s public movements for four weeks, amassing a considerable amount of data in the process. Although ultimately resolved on narrow grounds, five Justices joined concurring opinions in …
