The Earth’s climate is changing rapidly, affecting the distribution of and increasing the pressures placed on natural resources in entirely new and unpredictable ways. Recognizing that water in the United States is not immune to this fate, environmentally conscious citizens are increasingly turning to rainwater collection as a means of securing a precious resource for …
There’s an old saying that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Vaccinations seem to exemplify this, allowing people to avoid diseases entirely by submitting to a simple injection, rather than forcing them to worry about the more difficult alternative of treating the disease once it is contracted. Markovich v. Secretary of …
The government incentivizes investment in carbon-free energy production facilities by creating tax schemes designed to make renewable energy more attractive for investors. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 created a number of tax incentives for nuclear facilities, including one tax credit based on the amount of electricity produced at the facility. The Energy Policy Act …
During fiscal years 2004 and 2005, the United States Patent and Trademark Office implemented an enhanced quality review initiative as an additional level of oversight over the patent examination process. As a result of this initiative, in fiscal year 2006, the patent allowance rate was reduced to 54%, down from a patent allowance rate of …
Oscar Pistorius, a double-amputee sprinter set on competing in the Olympic Games, was banned from competition by the International Association of Athletics Federation (“IAAF”) after it found his prosthetic legs gave him an unfair advantage over other runners. On appeal, the Court of Arbitration for Sport held that Pistorius had no such advantage, but the …
In MDY Industries v. Blizzard Entertainment, the United States District Court of Arizona had an opportunity to clarify the concept of ownership in software copyright law. The MDY court held that users of Blizzard’s computer video game do not own the physical copies of the game software and thus can only load the game software …
In the high-bandwidth Internet age, video sharing websites such as YouTube and Yahoo! Video are growing in popularity. The ease with which such sharing is accomplished has aided users in illegally uploading copyrighted movies, TV shows, and music. In a recent lawsuit, Viacom and its copyright-owning affiliates sought one billion dollars in damages against YouTube, …
A preliminary injunction is an incredibly useful and important tool in cases involving the enforcement of environmental statutes and regulations. Parties hoping to protect the environment will often seek preliminary injunctions to prevent environmental harm from occurring while the case is being litigated in court. In Winter v. National Resource Defense Council (NRDC), the Supreme …
Reverse payments, such as the one at issue in Arkansas Carpenters Health & Welfare Fund v. Bayer AG, are controversial because they appear to be nothing more than agreements between competitors not to compete. However, because a patent was involved, the Federal Circuit refused to declare this agreement unlawful—even when the patentee offered to pay …
In March 2008, the Federal Communications Commission auctioned licenses to sizeable tracts of radio frequency spectrum that will be vacated due to the analog-to-digital television conversion to occur in June 2009. The Commission conditioned the license to one portion of this spectrum—the “D Block”—on an unprecedented requirement: for the licensee to work hand-in-hand with public-safety …