A Budding Theory of Willful Patent Infringement: Orange Books, Colored Pills, and Greener Verdicts

The rules of engagement in the brand-name versus generic-drug war are rapidly changing. Brand-name manufacturers face increasing competition from Canadian manufacturers of generic drugs, online drug companies, and Wal-Mart® Super Centers deciding to cash in by turning a piece of the generic prescription drug business into a huge marketing campaign with offerings of generic drugs for four dollar prescriptions. Other discount drug providers are likely to follow suit in hopes of boosting customer traffic and sales of their generic drugs. Now, more than ever before, attorneys representing owners of pharmaceutical patents need to be creative with their damages theories to maximize recovery and help their clients recoup the investments in research and development necessary to bring new and innovative drugs to the marketplace. This article suggests a novel theory of willful infringement to assist a patent owner in recovering treble damages and attorneys’ fees

Sex Work and Empowerment: Migrant Women Looking for Love

This paper will address the issues regarding consensual female sex work and whether this is a legitimate form of work or an appropriate lifestyle for women to hold. Research collected from various countries and cultures conclude that sexual labor is a common, but often underappreciated, means of income for women. In China, India, Ethiopia, and Hungary we see an intersection between the women interviewed and how their stories, while different, all lead towards a very similar conclusion and realization: female sex work is empowering

Leadership Competency Perceptions of Rural Community College Presidents in the Coastal Southeast Region

In a 2012 study, the American Association of Community Colleges noted over three quarters of community college presidents surveyed planned to retire in the next ten years. The rural community colleges in the Coastal Southeast Region face additional and unique challenges beyond the growing leadership shortage. Rural community colleges in the Coastal Southeast Region are often the focus of both educational and cultural development within the community. The rural community college president must lead the effort to advance the mission of the college and ensure the college leads the community in a positive direction. This study explored the perceptions of presidents of rural community colleges in the Coastal Southeast Region regarding the most important professional skills, characteristics, and competencies identified by the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) for effective community college leadership. In addition, through qualitative data gathered in interviews with presidents, this study identified the experiences reported as helpful to their development within the six AACC leadership competencies

Throwing Judge Bryson\u27s Curveball: A Pro Patent View of Process Claims as Patent-Eligible Subject Matter, 7 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 701 (2008)

Can a baseball pitcher patent a method of throwing a curveball? On May 8, 2008, Judge Bryson posed that hypothetical as a way of stressing a point during the oral argument of In re Bilski, one of the most highly-attended hearings in the twenty-five year history of the Federal Circuit. In the Bilski case, the Federal Circuit will decide whether to embrace a new patentability test that redefines what is patent-eligible subject matter in the United States, or to create a fourth no-no to patent eligibility. At stake are many computer software patents and business method patents that form the lifeblood of financial services and software companies. In a very real sense, the hypothetical highlights the ultimate tension between diametrically opposing views of patents—as protecting inventions through financial incentives that encourage innovation or as spurring excessive litigation through overprotection that stifles innovation

Choosing Between the Advice of Counsel Defense to Willful Patent Infringement or the Effective Assistance of Trial Counsel: A Bridge or the Troubled Waters

Trouble is brewing for patent infringement defendants who use lawyers from one law firm to act as trial counsel and other lawyers from the same or different firm (albeit perfectly screened off from the trial team) to prepare a non-infringement opinion as an advice of counsel defense to allegations of willful infringement. The 2006 Federal Circuit decision in EchoStar has set off a veritable feeding frenzy of attacks by patentees\u27 counsel on the most sacred of attorney client communications and work product: that of trial counsel. In a case of first impression, one federal court has even granted a motion to disqualify the trial counsel shortly before the jury trial was to begin, when a member of that firm had given the client an opinion relevant to non-willfulness, thereby turning the advice of counsel defense to willfulness on its head. Consequently, the potential for grave abuses of, and misguided extensions of, the EchoStar decision is rife with confusion and threatens to invade and destroy a defendant\u27s ability not only to rely on the defense but to deny it effective assistance of trial counsel if it does. Was the motion to disqualify the law firm mandated by ethics or merely motivated by gamesmanship? Is this a case of first impression from a renegade court or a prescient avant-garde likely to trigger cascading decisions that follow suit? The current state of flux in the law forecasts dire consequences if an opinion of counsel may be used as fodder for declaring open season on trial counsel, thereby morphing the defense into the troubled water instead of a bridge over troubled water as intended. The article proposes a coherent and equitable balancing test that will bring clarity and fairness to the potentially chilling effect on discussions between trial counsel and its client in the wake of EchoStar

Tesla, Marconi, and the Great Radio Controversy: Awarding Patent Damages without Chilling a Defendant\u27s Incentive to Innovate

The true life story of Nikola Tesla reads like a fiction novel worthy of Hollywood in a tale of the great radio controversy. Who did invent radio? Marconi is often credited with the invention, while a discouraged Tesla mostly watched from the sidelines - his contributions and further innovations to radio being silenced during the height of radio\u27s most rapid growth. While Tesla\u27s bizarre personal life may read like a novel by Jules Verne and F. Scott Fitzgerald, this much can be learned from the facts and folklore of the radio controversy: simultaneous discovery and independent development ought to mitigate patent damages in order to fuel innovation. Indeed, unmitigated patent damages might slow or obstruct the progress of science by creating a zone of uncertainty that would-be defendants can enter only at the risk of either losing all research dollars already invested in product development or facing costly patent infringement lawsuits if they bring the independently developed product to market. As a result, innovation may be discouraged only a little less than unequivocal foreclosure in a field of invention. But the simultaneous discovery of an invention by two or more talented inventors working independently is certainly not unknown. And it is as important to the public that competition in developing valuable inventions should not be suppressed as it is when the patentee is protected by a monopoly. Balancing these ostensibly opposing policies can prove an elusive goal, but this is not necessarily so. If the defense proposed in this article is adopted, the patentee will be able to retain its unqualified patent monopoly as to all latecomers to the invention, but a defendant who simultaneously discovered and independently developed the infringing product will be allowed to mitigate damages. This adjustment in the calculation of damages will spark innovation

Choosing Between the Advice of Counsel Defense to Willful Patent Infringement or the Effective Assistance of Trial Counsel: A Bridge or the Troubled Waters

Trouble is brewing for patent infringement defendants who use lawyers from one law firm to act as trial counsel and other lawyers from the same or different firm (albeit perfectly screened off from the trial team) to prepare a non-infringement opinion as an advice of counsel defense to allegations of willful infringement. The 2006 Federal Circuit decision in EchoStar has set off a veritable feeding frenzy of attacks by patentees\u27 counsel on the most sacred of attorney client communications and work product: that of trial counsel. In a case of first impression, one federal court has even granted a motion to disqualify the trial counsel shortly before the jury trial was to begin, when a member of that firm had given the client an opinion relevant to non-willfulness, thereby turning the advice of counsel defense to willfulness on its head. Consequently, the potential for grave abuses of, and misguided extensions of, the EchoStar decision is rife with confusion and threatens to invade and destroy a defendant\u27s ability not only to rely on the defense but to deny it effective assistance of trial counsel if it does. Was the motion to disqualify the law firm mandated by ethics or merely motivated by gamesmanship? Is this a case of first impression from a renegade court or a prescient avant-garde likely to trigger cascading decisions that follow suit? The current state of flux in the law forecasts dire consequences if an opinion of counsel may be used as fodder for declaring open season on trial counsel, thereby morphing the defense into the troubled water instead of a bridge over troubled water as intended. The article proposes a coherent and equitable balancing test that will bring clarity and fairness to the potentially chilling effect on discussions between trial counsel and its client in the wake of EchoStar

A Composite Genome Approach to Identify Phylogenetically Informative Data from Next-Generation Sequencing

We have developed a novel method to rapidly obtain homologous genomic data for phylogenetics directly from next-generation sequencing reads without the use of a reference genome. This software, called SISRS, avoids the time consuming steps of de novo whole genome assembly, genome-genome alignment, and annotation. For simulations SISRS is able to identify large numbers of loci containing variable sites with phylogenetic signal. For genomic data from apes, SISRS identified thousands of variable sites, from which we produced an accurate phylogeny. Finally, we used SISRS to identify phylogenetic markers that we used to estimate the phylogeny of placental mammals. We recovered phylogenies from multiple datasets that were consistent with previous conflicting estimates of the relationships among mammals. SISRS is open source and freely available at https://github.com/rachelss/SISRS.Comment: 12 pages plus36 figures, 1 supplementary table, 3 supplementary figure

Critical and Discursive Teaching in Psychology

American youth are more adept at multi-tasking and multi-processing the fast-paced media and technology information than prior generations (Glasl, 1999; Prensky, 2001). During this new wave of “post-modernism,” youth can interact globally with a far more culturally diverse yet interdependent society. Questioning, risk-taking, conflict resolution, and continuous innovation are the systems-level skills required to live and prosper. These skills should be integrated with more “modernist” skills, such as learning the truths of one’s field as the teachers of that field present them. This paper presents an example of how teaching about conflict can be used to help students critically examine the massive amount of information available to them, and understand the socially, historically, and politically situated nature of truth. Implications of standardization, critical discourse, and discursive teaching that bring real life problems and conflicts into the education process are discussed

Teaching the Diversity Course in Conservative Times

This paper describes how conservative shifts in American political thinking can obstruct discussions about race, ethnicity and culture in so-called “diversity” and multicultural courses in academic psychology. The authors, both teachers of psychology, examine the serious implications that a shifting political landscape presents for courses on race, ethnicity, gender and culture. Classroom techniques that may counter the reality of conservative action in the Academy are discussed, including some methods for continuing to deepen the meaning that psychology students take from the examination of multicultural topics. For the present authors, diversity and multi-cultural courses, particularly in psychology, must continue to include cultural sensitivity, belief in the essential importance of community research which includes the perspectives of “the other”, and constant, painstaking self-examination on the part of the teacher (Ridley, 2005). However, the very ground on which this assumption has rested for the last thirty or so years is moving and shifting under our very feet. It is hoped that the experiences of the authors teaching “the diversity course” can support others who seek to keep teaching similar courses even as the shadow of conservatism lengthens