We stand at the threshold of a major change in legal education. Recognizing the extent to which law students and lawyers alike rely on the Internet in both their professional and personal lives, the American Bar Association (“ABA”) has approved new standards for the J.D. curriculum which will greatly expand the opportunities for law students …
Obviousness, or inventive step, has been called the ultimate bar to patentability. The purpose of the nonobviousness requirement is to complement the novelty requirement and to extend the scope of the relevant prior art beyond anticipatory prior art. This ensures that an invention constitutes a sufficient advance in technology to warrant an exclusive right. Adoption …
This Comment focuses on the problems associated with the use of employment-based genetic testing. Recently, the German National Ethics Council (“NEC”) drafted a list of recommendations to regulate the use of predictive testing in the workplace. This problem of genetic testing is not limited to Germany-similar cases have been reported in the United States. The …
Methamphetamine labs can be set up anywhere. One batch of methamphetamine produces five to seven pounds of toxic byproduct. These contaminants are often dumped at the production site and, along with airborne contaminants from the cooking process, leave behind a “methfield.” States have developed widely divergent standards for methfield remediation. This Comment examines the solution …
The GNU General Public License (“GPL”) is the most popular license in use for free and open-source software projects. Now in its fifteenth year, the GPL has endured both practical and legal challenges and today enjoys widespread use and a reputation as a legitimate legal instrument. However, recently proposed changes to the GPL will harm …
In Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corp., the Ninth Circuit held that search engines’ reproduction of images for use as thumbnails is a fair use under the Copyright Act. This Recent Development critiques the Ninth Circuit’s analysis in determining whether a search engine infringed on a copyright holder’s rights. The author proposes that this ruling broadened …
In recent years, there has been growing interest in the area of open source software (“OSS”) as an alternative economic model. However, the success of the OSS mindshare and collaborative online experience has wider implications to many other fields of human endeavor than the mere licensing of computer programmes. There are a growing number of …
On September 1, 2005, Representative Lamar Smith introduced a “Coalition Print” version of a patent reform bill (Substitute bill H.R. 2795) into Congress. That bill included a post-grant opposition procedure not later than nine months after grant. On April 5, 2006, Representative Howard Berman introduced the “Patents Depend on Quality Act of 2006” (H.R. 5096 …
In Volume 6, Issue 1 of the North Carolina Journal of Law and Technology, Kate Reder published an article on a related topic, entitled “Ashcroft v. ACLU: Should Congress Try, Try, and Try Again, or Does the International Problem of Regulating Internet Pornography Require an International Solution?” 6 N.C. J. L. & Tech. 139 (2004). …
This comment explores the ways in which the doctrines of preemption, and more recently, complete preemption are being applied to the Copyright Act. In deciding whether claims are preempted by the Copyright Act, courts apply the “Extra Element Test.” However, courts are increasingly applying this test by looking at the facts underlying the claim, rather …
