Why a Large and Unjustified Payment Threshold Is Not Consistent with \u3ci\u3eActavis\u3c/i\u3e

This Article offers three reasons why a requirement that a plaintiff demonstrate a large and unjustified payment before reaching the rule of reason is not consistent with Actavis. First, nearly all of the Court’s discussion of large and unjustified payments occurred in contexts unrelated to the antitrust analysis that future courts were to apply. Second, the Court instructed lower courts to apply the rule of reason, not a new framework with a threshold it never mentioned. And third, such a threshold is inconsistent with the Court’s (1) allowance of shortcuts for plaintiffs to show anticompetitive effects and market power and (2) imposition of the burden on defendants to show justifications for a payment

How Not to Apply the Rule of Reason: The \u3cem\u3eO’Bannon\u3c/em\u3e Case

The case of O’Bannon v. NCAA has received significant attention. On behalf of a class of student-athletes, former college basketball star Ed O’Bannon sued the NCAA, challenging rules that prohibited payment for the use of names, images, and likenesses (NILs) in videogames, live game telecasts, and other footage. A Ninth Circuit panel, in a 2-1 decision, found that this restraint had anticompetitive effects and procompetitive justifications. And it considered “less restrictive alternatives,” upholding payment for incidental educational expenses beyond tuition and fees, room and board, and required books, but rejecting a deferred $5,000 payment for NILs. Straddling the intersection of antitrust, intellectual property, and sports law, the O’Bannon case presents engaging and complex issues. Much of the complexity, however, is unnecessary. For it stems from a ruling that misconstrued antitrust law. In particular, the Ninth Circuit applied a version of the Rule of Reason that short-circuited the analysis and insufficiently deferred to a district court judge who presided over an exhaustive trial on amateurism

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: Law and the Inner Self

A Review of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: Law and the Inner Self by G. Edward Whit

Improvements in Microboiling Device Design

Small ribbon heaters (10 μm - 20 μm wide) have been used for many years to study the formation of microbubbles in liquids when short voltage pulses are applied. This thesis describes improvements in the device design with an emphasis on smaller and more sensitive heaters. I used a novel method of creating 250 nanometer wide heaters to keep both the fabrication time and costs as low as possible by using a focused ion beam to create the heaters from a set of larger devices. Ribbon heaters are usually fabricated on a thin SiO2 layer on a silicon wafer which acts as a large heat sink whose effect becomes more pronounced the smaller the heater width. Suspending the heaters on a thin membrane dramatically increased their sensitivity in microboiling experiments. The suspended devices required the development of a very low stress platinum deposition process

An Introduction to U.S. Export Control: Regulations for Patent Practitioners

This article presents basic information on the U.S. export control laws most relevant to U.S. patent practice, including the preparation and filing of patent applications related to commercial items, and the intended audience of this article is the U.S. patent practitioner who does not routinely deal with export-controlled subject matter. If the patent practitioner intends to: export technical information from the U.S. for the purpose of having a patent application prepared; hire or work with foreign nationals (who may or may not actually be in the U.S.) in conducting technical research or patentability and invalidity searches; or help prepare patent applications for filing, the practitioner is encouraged to become familiar with the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations as discussed below, or to consult an export control practitioner for further guidance

How Not to Apply the Rule of Reason: The \u3cem\u3eO’Bannon\u3c/em\u3e Case

The case of O’Bannon v. NCAA has received significant attention. On behalf of a class of student-athletes, former college basketball star Ed O’Bannon sued the NCAA, challenging rules that prohibited payment for the use of names, images, and likenesses (NILs) in videogames, live game telecasts, and other footage. A Ninth Circuit panel, in a 2-1 decision, found that this restraint had anticompetitive effects and procompetitive justifications. And it considered “less restrictive alternatives,” upholding payment for incidental educational expenses beyond tuition and fees, room and board, and required books, but rejecting a deferred $5,000 payment for NILs. Straddling the intersection of antitrust, intellectual property, and sports law, the O’Bannon case presents engaging and complex issues. Much of the complexity, however, is unnecessary. For it stems from a ruling that misconstrued antitrust law. In particular, the Ninth Circuit applied a version of the Rule of Reason that short-circuited the analysis and insufficiently deferred to a district court judge who presided over an exhaustive trial on amateurism