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In Support of Industry-Conscious Disclosure Standards for Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology Patents
Get PDFOne of the fundamental requirements for a patent application is a disclosure of the invention via an accurate written description with sufficient detail to enable the recreation of the invention. The U.S. patent system has historically reviewed patent applications from various industries with a uniform set of requirements and standards. However, the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries operate on notably extended product development timelines and face unique administrative pressures related to their products when compared with other industries. In response to these pressures, biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies have traditionally applied for patent protections through liberal use of genus claims and other strategies that allow for early and broad protection of groups of related products. However, three recent decisions by the Federal Circuit, and a subsequent appeal to the Supreme Court, have notably heightened patent disclosure requirements for technologies from these industries. This Comment discusses the Federal Circuit’s and Supreme Court’s decisions, compares these decisions to prior trends in the judiciary, and considers the potential impact of the decisions on the patent environment in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. In light of the decisions’ potential impact on these industries, this Comment argues that the federal judiciary should align the disclosure standard more closely to the requirements of the Patent Act while protecting the usefulness of genus claims for the pharmaceutical and related industries
Public–private sharing of carbon sequestration risk
No full textAs carbon capture and sequestration enter the mainstream, governments and developers grapple with the long-term liability for sequestered carbon. A multi-tiered framework with public–private sharing of risk can help promote the safe and timely deployment of this vital decarbonization technology
Oops! The Unfortunate (but Basic) Error in the New UCC Article 12
Get PDFThe Uniform Law Commission and American Law Institute have recognized the need for commercial law to govern digital transactions and responded with the proposed addition of a new article to the Uniform Commercial Code (the “Code” or “UCC”), Article 12. Article 12 will govern the transfer of property rights in a particular category of digital assets (controllable electronic records), which would include commonly known digital assets, such as bitcoin and non-fungible tokens (“NFTs”). Although the addition of Article 12 should provide more certainty in transactions involving current and emerging technologies, there is a fundamental problem with the article as it is currently drafted, which, left unresolved, will instead invite legal uncertainty and litigation. The problem is the drafters’ choice to cast the “qualifying purchaser” in the role of the dramatis personae of Article 12. Article 12’s “qualifying purchaser” benefits from a generous rule that allows them to take controllable electronic records free from competing claims. The drafters include a person who obtains a controllable electronic record from a thief or hacker as someone who could be a “qualifying purchaser.” However, in order to be a “purchaser” under the current definition in the UCC, a person must take through a transaction that creates an interest in property. Thieves and hackers obtain no property interest when they steal a controllable electronic record, so a person who takes a controllable electronic record from a hacker could not be participating in a transaction that creates an interest in property. Thus, they could not be a “qualifying purchaser,” as the drafters claim.
Most of the uncertainty of the result could have been avoided had the drafters chosen a term other than “purchaser” to describe the beneficiary of Article 12’s liberal take-free rule and defined it in a manner that would effectuate the drafters’ statutory aim. However, despite making the drafters aware of this glaring issue, they have failed to remedy the mistake. This is unfortunate and will likely lead to legal uncertainty and, thus, needless litigation after the article’s enactment. Why rely on courts to tweak sections of the Code if ambiguities are recognized and can be eliminated by careful drafting? If inartful statutory drafting is a source of uncertainty that can easily be reduced without offsetting social costs, efforts should be made to do so
The protection against unfair competition and passing off in ASEAN Member States: a review and commentary
No full textThis article offers a brief review of the protection against unfair competition in the Member States of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN). More specifically, it highlights ASEAN’s different legal systems and how ASEAN Members, respectively, implement Article 10bis of the Paris Convention under national unfair competition or laws against passing off based on their respective legal system—Civil Law, Common Law and hybrid systems.
Ultimately, this article notes that, despite these different legal systems, ASEAN Members share close similarities in their national implementation of Article 10bis of the Paris Convention.
The article concludes that these similarities are not surprising considering the shared history of several ASEAN Members and the fact that all these countries (with the exception of Myanmar) are signatories to the major international IP agreements
Critical Race Theory Bans and the Changing Canon: Cultural Appropriation in Narrative
Get PDFThirty-five states have enacted critical race theory bans at the level of elementary and secondary public education, and seven states have extended these to the university level. One way to resist these attempts to repress a healthy democracy by whitewashing history is through a pedagogy of antiracism, including literary works. The question of what that would look like involves questions of cultural appropriation, which occurs when one takes from another culture, such as a writer creating a narrative about a character outside of the writer’s cultural identity. This Article considers the story of Ota Benga, brought from the Congo to the United States to be exhibited at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair as a pygmy, and in 1906 at the Bronx Zoo. In addition to discussing Benga’s physical appropriation for the purpose of demonstrating scientific views about the racial superiority of whites, this Article considers literature about Benga and the literary canon in general, in order to explore the complicated question of when does a cultural appropriation harm the insider or marginalized community, such that the work should be deemed a failure and excluded from the literary canon. Literary works that succeed in depicting another culture are important and effective tools for a pedagogy of antiracism because they offer empathic portrayals and social critiques of racism
Lovely One: A Memoir
No full textWith this unflinching account, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson invites readers into her life and world, tracing her family’s ascent from segregation to her confirmation on America’s highest court within the span of one generation.https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/black-history-month-2025-works/1002/thumbnail.jp
Red Cardinal, White Snow
No full textIn Red Cardinal, White Snow, Susan Ayres tells us in the first poem that childhood is not a meadow, and she will document the spirit shatter of mental illness and family trauma. But these stunning poems do so for the sake of talking back to ruin, showing us the beauty of love under pressure, how illumination coexists with heartache, and disorder strengthens kindness. These poems are a master class in the art of becoming human.https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/poetry-month-2025-works/1001/thumbnail.jp
Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources, and Associated Traditional Knowledge
Get PDFThe recently concluded WIPO Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge mandates disclosure requirements in patent applications, thereby creating an obligation to attribute the use of genetic resources and traditional knowledge. The WIPO member countries thus have an opportunity to modify their national patent laws, so that they can effectively control genetic resources and traditional knowledge. This article examines the choices that the biodiversity-rich countries have when designing their national legal systems to implement the treaty
Economic Consequences of the COVID-19 crisis
No full textThe year 2020 will be remembered as the year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 crisis has, by June 15, 2021, taken almost 600,000 U.S. lives and more than 3.8 million lives globally. The crisis has also imposed crushing economic hardship both in developing countries and in developed countries alike. Most developed countries, and many prominent developing countries, designed and implemented policies to contain the crisis and mitigate the economic impact. The United States stands out in the world for its inability to contain the COVID-19 virus and the economic impact is both profound and lasting. This chapter has three goals. The first goal is to describe the economic impact of the crisis with a particular focus on U.S. labor markets, low-wage workers, and workers in the restaurant industry. The second goal is to describe the implications of the pandemic on developing countries because the world is increasingly interconnected and, thus, the crisis in the U.S. has important implications for developing countries. The third goal is to describe the main policy lessons that emerge from a review of more than eighty academic papers and in-depth interviews focusing on the economic effects of the COVID-19 crisis
Promoting Judicial Clerk Transparency: A Proposal That Balances Hiring Prerogative and Public Accountability
No full textTo provide context on the role of clerks, this article briefly discusses the influence of judicial clerks and the value of disclosing the identity of judicial clerks. After outlining data currently available on clerks and calls for more transparency related to clerks, the article discusses how the lack of information on clerks can be addressed through simple disclosure of clerks’ names on the web pages of federal courts and state appellate courts. It also examines possible consequences associated with making such information publicly available and how disclosing clerks’ identities can promote transparency and public confidence in the judiciary while preserving judges’ autonomy in selecting their clerks