Generally speaking, the Supreme Court of the United States is a tribunal with the final say on “what the law is.” But the desirability of the Supreme Court’s acting as “final law sayer” is questionable in patent law, where the Court primarily reviews the work of the Federal Circuit, a comparatively expert body having virtually exclusive jurisdiction over initial appeals. Nonetheless, in recent...
International Travel and the Constitution
This Article makes the case for the fundamental right of U.S. citizens to leave their country and return home again. Surprisingly, Americans do not enjoy such a fundamental right. Under current U.S. Supreme Court precedents, the right to travel abroad is merely an aspect of liberty that may be restricted within the bounds of due process. The controversial No Fly List is one such result. Anyone...
The Birth of Rule 144A Equity Offerings
In a groundbreaking deal closed in May 2007, Oaktree Capital Management LLC, a leading private U.S. hedge fund advisory firm, sold a 15 percent equity stake in itself for $880 million. The deal is groundbreaking because it was not structured as an initial public offering (IPO), traditionally the only option for an equity offering of this size by a private company. Instead, it was structured as a...
Unconsciously Regarded as Disabled: Implicit Bias and the Regarded-As Prong of the Americans With Disabilities Act
Much scholarly work has been written detailing the shift away from the original congressional intent behind the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), starting with the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Sutton v. United Air Lines. While the U.S. Congress intended the protections under the ADA to be broad, courts have interpreted the act very narrowly, denying protections for many whom...
Taking the "Hate" Out of Hate Crimes: Applying Unfair Advantage Theory to Justify the Enhanced Punishment of Opportunistic Bias Crimes
Should bias crime perpetrators who, for personal gain, intentionally select victims from social groups that they perceive to be more vulnerable be punished similarly to typical bias crime perpetrators who are motivated by group hatred? In this Comment, I apply unfair advantage theory to argue that enhancing the punishment of opportunistic bias crimes is proper because of the perpetrators’...
Seeing and Believing: Mandatory Ultrasound and the Path to a Protected Choice
Several state legislatures now require that before a woman may consent to an abortion, she must first undergo an ultrasound and be offered the image of her fetus. The justification is that without an ultrasound, her consent will not be fully informed. Such legislation, the latest move in abortion regulation, supposes that a woman who sees the image will be less likely to abort. This Article...
Heightened Enablement in the Unpredictable Arts
A bedrock principle of patent law is that an applicant must sufficiently disclose the invention in exchange for the right to exclude. Essential to the disclosure requirement is enablement, which compels a patent applicant to enable a person having ordinary skill in the art (PHOSITA) to make and use the full scope of the claimed invention without undue experimentation. Enablement may be...
The Case for Comparative Fault in Compensating the Wrongfully Convicted
The issue of compensating the wrongfully convicted has recently been thrust into public awareness. Over one hundred and fifty people have been exonerated through DNA evidence since 2000. Only half have received compensation for their time behind bars. While twenty-two states have enacted statutes that provide a direct legal right to compensation, these statutes require victims of wrongful...