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The Constitutional Protection of Information in a Digital Age

PDF by Gerard J. Clark · April-27-2014 · Categories: Current, Current Lead Articles, Lead Articles, Number 2, Print Edition, Volume 47

To state the obvious, we live in a world that is awash in information. Discoveries of new scientific information occur daily in the laboratories of the world. The Facebook accounts of millions of teenagers contain information about the love lives of their friends. Google traces the search information of its subscribers. Supermarkets use personalized discount cards to trace the purchasing preferences of their customers. The National Security Agency (NSA) has been building a one-million-square-foot data and supercomputing center in Utah, which is expected to intercept and store much of the world’s Internet communication for decryption and analysis. States maintain driver, tax, and voter records. All of these records contain information that can yield profit for some and embarrassment for others. [...]

An Unexpected Friend: Liberalism’s Response to Corporate Political Spending

PDF by Daniel M. Isaacs · April-27-2014 · Categories: Current, Current Lead Articles, Lead Articles, Number 2, Print Edition, Volume 47

Much of the scholarly literature critical of the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United rings true to people predisposed to view corporate power and free markets with suspicion. In this Article, I seek to reach a different audience—people who believe in the power of free markets to promote social welfare. To do so, I maintain that corporate political expenditures are inconsistent with the principles of classical liberalism and against the interests of the corporations that make the expenditures. I also pose solutions consistent with classical liberalism. If corporate political spending so threatens the system that preserves liberty and the efficient operation of a free-market society, it is reasonable, under classical liberalism, to permit the state to set rules to [...]

Multifactors, Multiconfusion? Refining “Likelihood of Confusion” Factors for Reverse-Confusion Trademark Infringement Claims To Achieve More Consistent and Predictable Results

PDF by Christina P. Mott · April-27-2014 · Categories: Current, Current Notes, Notes, Number 2, Print Edition, Volume 47

On the surface, trademark law protects trademarks, defined as any “word, logo or package design, [or some combination thereof,] used by a manufacturer or merchant to identify its goods [or services] and distinguish them from others.” Typical trademark infringement cases involve a “senior” trademark owner seeking to prohibit a subsequent, “junior” user from using the same or similar mark. On a deeper level, however, trademarks also serve as objective, goodwill symbols of consumer satisfaction, representing and reinforcing to the public a distinctive good or service. “In trademark law, the question is always of consumer perception in the marketplace rather than judicial perception in the courtroom.” The Lanham Act (the Act) governs federal trademark protection, providing for nationwide protection of [...]

Connecting the Spheres of Trade and Gender: Creating a Gender-Conscious World Trade Organization

PDF by Lyndsay J. Montour · April-27-2014 · Categories: Current, Current Notes, Notes, Number 2, Print Edition, Volume 47

Globalization is an intricate economic, political, cultural, and geographic process during which the movement of resources, organizations, ideals, discourses, and peoples become progressively global or transnational. Pure economic globalization theory recognizes the market as the sole, legitimate institution and the only logical path to growth and prosperity. Women play a major economic role in driving globalization, mainly because they participate in worldwide agriculture, small and micro-enterprises, and export-processing industries. Without including household labor and informal economic activity, women encompass 854 million workers of the global workforce. . . .

Pirate Patents: Arguing for Improved Biopiracy Prevention and Protection of Indigenous Rights Through a New Legislative Model

PDF by Katherine A. Kelter · April-27-2014 · Categories: Current, Current Notes, Notes, Number 2, Print Edition, Volume 47

Many common agricultural crops have developed through human tinkering; alteration and experimentation have given rise to food species whose existence depends entirely on humans. The development of these crops has generated specific, traditional knowledge associated with particular species, and this potent combination of genetic material and phenotypic value creates a modern-day treasure trove of valuable commercial material. Individual and corporate parties have increasingly sought to collect such indigenous knowledge and capitalize on its value through existing intellectual property patent protections. This practice, known as “biopiracy,” evades easy definition; by common consensus, the practice may best be characterized as a form of biological theft, in which plants identified and cultivated by indigenous communities are collected and patented by noncommunity members without [...]

Abuse of Diplomatic Immunity in Family Courts: There’s Nothing Diplomatic About Domestic Immunity

PDF by Amanda M. Castro · April-26-2014 · Categories: Current, Current Notes, Notes, Number 2, Print Edition, Volume 47

Democracy is founded upon the principle that no one is above the law. International law nevertheless permits diplomats to escape liability for crimes or civil wrongs they commit in the country where they are being hosted. Some scholars estimate that, each year, individuals with diplomatic immunity commit thousands of crimes around the world. Another abuse of diplomatic privilege is found in the form of “deadbeat diplomats” who avoid paying spousal and child support by claiming immunity from jurisdiction of the courts. . . .

Bare-Naked Ladies (and Gentlemen): Analyzing Protection of Nude Protesting Under the First Amendment and State Constitutions

PDF by Mary C. Ambacher · April-26-2014 · Categories: Current, Current Notes, Notes, Number 2, Print Edition, Volume 47

The cover of John Lennon’s 1968 record Two Virgins shocked the world by showing Lennon and Yoko Ono naked, which was an unheard of act of controversy for a popular celebrity at the time. Today, however, public nudity in the context of protest has become prevalent around the world. This trend holds true in the United States as well, as there are numerous examples of protesters utilizing nudity as a method of protest. Many groups have recognized that the utility of and prominent reasons for protesting nude include the ways in which it immediately garners attention, fosters discussion in the media, and places the protesters’ messages into the public sphere. The recent phenomenon of protesting nude raises legal questions [...]

Evidence—Admission of Autopsy Reports and Surrogate Testimony of Medical Examiners Does Not Violate Confrontation Clause—United States v. James, 712 F.3d 79 (2d Cir. 2013)

PDF by John Scannell · April-25-2014 · Categories: Case Comments, Current, Current Case Comments, Number 2, Print Edition, Volume 47

The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides criminal defendants with one of the country’s most basic criminal law principles–the right to confront one’s accusers–by prohibiting prosecutors from using a witness’s adverse testimony against the accused without prior opportunity for cross-examination. Determining what types of witness statements require the opportunity for confrontation has undergone dramatic change in recent years. In United States v. James, the Second Circuit considered these changes and held that the Confrontation Clause is not violated when autopsy and toxicology reports are admitted against a defendant, and medical examiners are allowed to testify about them despite not authoring the reports themselves.

Patent Law—First-Sale Doctrine Does Not Extinguish Patentee’s Rights in Self-Replicating Organisms—Bowman v. Monsanto Co., 133 S. Ct. 1761 (2013)

PDF by Kristen Salvaggio · April-24-2014 · Categories: Case Comments, Current, Current Case Comments, Number 2, Print Edition, Volume 47

Through the patent system, inventors are rewarded for their ingenuity with a limited monopoly to practice their inventions at the exclusion of all others for a finite period of time. The grant of a monopoly is not taken lightly in the United States, resulting in a careful construction by the courts of limiting doctrines, including the patent-exhaustion (first-sale) doctrine and the related repair-reconstruction doctrine, to prevent overreaching on the part of the patent owner. In Bowman v. Monsanto Co., the Supreme Court addressed the issue of how the patent-exhaustion doctrine and post-sale restrictions apply to patented seeds, which by their very nature self-replicate when planted and create new seeds that are genetically similar to the original patented seed. The Court [...]

From Trash to Treasure: Converting America’s Contaminated Land into Renewable Energy Havens

PDF by Jeremy S. Scholtes · March-16-2014 · Categories: Current, Current Lead Articles, Lead Articles, Number 1, Print Edition, Volume 47

How is it possible to turn brown to green? Think back to elementary school when you learned about the color wheel, and with great determination, you would mix colors together to get the exact hue needed for your painting. It was easy to mix the wrong colors and end up with a dirty brown. Once your palette was dirtied, it was nearly impossible to return to the brilliant colors with which you started and get a second shot at getting it right. . . .