Authoruclalaw

As digital networks emerge as the dominant means of distributing copyrighted works, the first sale doctrine is increasingly marginalized. To the extent the use and alienation of copies entails their reproduction and adaptation to new platforms, the limitations first sale places on the exclusive right of distribution decrease in their legal and market impact. This fact of the modern copyright...

At present, our federal employment discrimination laws fail to provide uniform and consistent legal protection when an employer engages in applicant-specific paternalism—the practice of excluding an applicant merely to protect that person from job-related safety and/or health risks uniquely attributable to his or her federally protected characteristic(s). Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act...

The Free Press Clause enjoys less practical significance than almost any other constitutional provision. While recognizing the structural and expressive importance of a free press, the U.S. Supreme Court does not explicitly recognize any right or protection as emanating solely from the Press Clause. Recently in the Court’s Citizens United decision, Justices Stevens and Scalia reignited the thirty...

This Comment explores the puzzle of how adjudications of fair use under the Copyright Act should be treated over time. The discussion weighs the importance of copyright law and the incentives created thereby against the policy concerns driving claim and issue preclusion. Currently, the preclusive effect of litigation that concludes in a finding of fair use may bar a copyright holder from...

This Comment argues that the First Amendment should be used as a lens for determining whether something is a “natural phenomenon” for purposes of patent law. Patent law does not permit patents over natural phenomena; yet the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has allowed patents over items that appear to be natural phenomena. Gene patents are one example. This Comment argues that genomic...

Laws imposing sanctions can be self-defeating by supplying incentive and guidance for actors engaged in socially undesirable activities to reshape conduct to evade penalties. Sometimes this is deterrence. But if the new activity, as much as the old, contravenes the legal project’s normative stance, it is a failure of law. The problem of evasion warrants response in many fields—not least in...

Though Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 19 might appear to be one of the more esoteric of the Federal Rules, it is actually an exceptionally powerful device: It permits defendants to obtain dismissal of cases over which the court has valid jurisdiction, even when no other forum exists in which the action can be brought. This Article argues that, while Rule 19 was originally intended to facilitate...