United States Copper Industry in the World Market: Running Hard Yet Losing Ground

The domestic copper industry is a national one, directly affected by seemingly unrelated policies, ranging, for instance, from International Monetary Fund ( IMF ) and Multilateral Development Bank ( MDB ) lending policies to policies underlying the implementation of the Clean Air Act.\u27 Yet the United States has no comprehensive national copper policy. Rather, current policy consists primarily of fragmented decisions made without a broad view of the needs of the nation or the domestic copper industry. This Comment first surveys the world copper industry, its recent history, and present condition. t It then addresses the ability of the domestic copper industry to compete on the world market, with focus on market factors, objective business considerations, and United States government policy. Discussion of recent congressional attempts to assist the industry follows. Finally, the Comment suggests the basic elements necessary for a national copper policy

United States Copper Industry in the World Market: Running Hard Yet Losing Ground

The domestic copper industry is a national one, directly affected by seemingly unrelated policies, ranging, for instance, from International Monetary Fund ( IMF ) and Multilateral Development Bank ( MDB ) lending policies to policies underlying the implementation of the Clean Air Act.\u27 Yet the United States has no comprehensive national copper policy. Rather, current policy consists primarily of fragmented decisions made without a broad view of the needs of the nation or the domestic copper industry. This Comment first surveys the world copper industry, its recent history, and present condition. t It then addresses the ability of the domestic copper industry to compete on the world market, with focus on market factors, objective business considerations, and United States government policy. Discussion of recent congressional attempts to assist the industry follows. Finally, the Comment suggests the basic elements necessary for a national copper policy

Is Litigation Counsel Who Also Engages in Competitive Decision-Making Wrong for the Part?

In-house counsel wear different hats, and are often involved in business decisions regarding products, marketing, and other strategic issues. It was in this context that courts began to adopt protective orders that precluded in-house counsel who provided their clients advice with “competitive decision-making” from having access to information from a competitor disclosed in discovery. Prosecution bars present numerous issues for courts and counsel. It may be that because of prosecution counsel’s knowledge of the technology that her service as trial counsel would lead to cost savings and other benefits to her client. However, due to the myriad problems that arise from having litigation counsel also engage in other activities, she may be wrong for the part. Only through careful analysis of the policies involved, and careful drafting of any protective orders can courts, clients, and counsel be sure of their casting decisions

Ethics of Using Artificial Intelligence to Augment Drafting Legal Documents

This article focuses on the second step in the due diligence process. While it addresses the question of competency, it focuses more on the further steps a lawyer must take to ensure that the use of the service as part of the representation of a client is consistent with the lawyer’s other ethical obligations. While it is important to emphasize that competency requires that the lawyer must be able to assess whether the work product is comparable to what a human would produce, competency is of course a fact-depending inquiry: whether a will is competently drafted turns on the standard of care of a practitioner who drafts wills. This article focuses more on how a lawyer can determine whether it is ethical to use a competent service that augments document drafting. While addressing how ethical concerns arise across typical practice areas, it highlights a practice area where the risks for violations may be particularly acute because the need for confidentiality is high, and the potential for undetected conflicts of interest is great: patent practice. This article identifies the issues, describes the potential risks, and explains what protections a lawyer should look for in the terms of service of an automated legal document drafting site to ensure ethical representation

An Article We Wrote to Ourselves in the Future: Early 21st Century Views on Ethics and the Internet.

Written from the viewpoint of the year 2050, this Article discusses the clash between legal ethics and the technological revolution of the early twenty-first century. As a result of ethics rules being applied to new technologies in ways never contemplated under traditional circumstances, lawyers had to be overly cautious when they used the Internet to correspond with or seek out clients, or otherwise promote their legal services. The lesson learned is that the legal community should reflect on the harm caused by over zealous regulation and take a more reasoned approach to the use of technology for the benefit of lawyers, judges, and clients

Brief Amici Curiae of Intellectual Property Professors in Support of Petitioner, No. 18-600, Texas Advanced Optoelectronic Solutions, Inc. V. Renesas Electronics America, Inc.

To comply with the obligations of the Uruguay Round Agreements, particularly the Agreement on the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS), Congress amended 35 U.S.C. § 271(a) to make it an act of infringement to “offer to sell” a patented invention within the United States. See Uruguay Round Agreements Act, Pub. L. No. 103-465, §§ 531-533, 108 Stat. 4809 (1994). The Federal Circuit has interpreted this provision in a manner contrary to the presumption against the extraterritorial reach of United States laws. The Federal Circuit has held that location of the ultimate sale contemplated in the offer controls the locus of the act of infringement, not the location of the offer. Transocean Offshore Deepwater Drilling, Inc. v. Maersk Contractors USA, Inc., 617 F.3d 1296, 1309 (Fed. Cir. 2010) (holding that “the location of the contemplated sale controls whether there is an offer to sell within the United States.”). The Federal Circuit further clarified that an offer made in the United States to sell the invention abroad is not infringing. Halo Elecs., Inc. v. Pulse Elecs., Inc., 831 F.3d 1369, 1380 (Fed. Cir. 2016). As a result, the court has created an odd dichotomy: activity entirely outside of the United States can trigger liability for infringement of a United States patent, whereas activity within the United States does not. Such an approach is inconsistent with the presumption against extraterritoriality, particularly the two-step framework of RJR Nabisco, Inc. v. European Community, 136 S. Ct. 2090, 2101 (2016). This issue is of considerable importance, and this case is an excellent vehicle for assessing the appropriate territorial scope of § 271(a)

Brief of Intellectual Property Law Scholars As Amici Curiae in Support of Neither Party, WesternGeco LLC v. Ion Geophysical Corp., No. 16-1011, US Supreme Court

This amici curiae brief was filed on behalf of Intellectual Property Law Scholars in WesternGeco LLC v. Ion Geophysical Corp. in the U.S. Supreme Court. The question presented is: Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit erred in holding that lost profits arising from prohibited combinations occurring outside of the United States are categorically unavailable in cases in which patent infringement is proven under 35 U.S.C. § 271(f). In RJR Nabisco, Inc. v. European Community, 136 S. Ct. 2090 (2016), the Supreme Court articulated a two-step method for assessing the extraterritorial reach of a US statute: 1. A court should determine whether the presumption against extraterritoriality has been rebutted—that is, whether the statute gives a clear, affirmative indication that it applies extraterritorially. If the presumption is rebutted, the statute may have extraterritorial reach. 2. But even if the presumption has not been rebutted, a court should look at the focus of the statute. If the conduct relevant to the statute\u27s focus occurred in the United States, then the case involves a permissible domestic application even if other conduct occurred abroad; but if the conduct relevant to the focus occurred in a foreign country, then the case involves an impermissible extraterritorial application regardless of any other conduct that occurred in U.S. territory. The brief of amici curiae makes the follow points: 1. The Supreme Court has not squarely answered the question as to whether the presumption against extraterritoriality applies separately to remedial provisions of a statute generally (here whether it applies to § 284). We argue it does. 2. We argue that the territorial reach § 284 necessarily depends the relevant provision of § 271 used to find liability. Here, under § 271(f), the presumption is rebutted (though it would not be generally for a case under § 271(a), with NTP v. Research in Motion may be a counter-example when one looks at the focus at step 2)). 3. We also argue that the Court should offer more guidance as to what happens even if the RJR test is satisfied. RJR Nabisco seems to operate in binary fashion -- either the statute has extraterritorial reach or it doesn\u27t. But Microsoft Corp. v. AT&T Corp., and earlier Supreme Court decision also interpreting 35 U.S.C. § 271(f), suggests that the presumption may still have a role in interpreting a statute. We offer two suggestions on how the presumption should operate in this context. First, courts should seriously and formally consider issues of comity and potential conflicts with foreign law in assessing whether to apply U.S. law extraterritorially. Second, that territoriality should remain relevant in assessments of proximate cause

Clinical predictors of 3- and 6-month outcome for mild traumatic brain injury patients with a negative head CT scan in the emergency department: A TRACK-TBI pilot study

Aconsiderable subset of mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) patients fail to return to baseline functional status at or beyond 3 months postinjury. Identifying at-risk patients for poor outcome in the emergency department (ED) may improve surveillance strategies and referral to care. Subjects with mTBI (Glasgow Coma Scale 13–15) and negative ED initial head CT < 24 h of injury, completing 3- or 6-month functional outcome (Glasgow Outcome Scale-Extended; GOSE), were extracted from the prospective, multicenter Transforming Research and Clinical Knowledge in Traumatic Brain Injury (TRACK-TBI) Pilot study. Outcomes were dichotomized to full recovery (GOSE = 8) vs functional deficits (GOSE < 8). Univariate predictors with p < 0.10 were considered for multivariable regression. Adjusted odds ratios (AOR) were reported for outcome predictors. Significance was assessed at p < 0.05. Subjects who completed GOSE at 3- and 6-month were 211 (GOSE < 8: 60%) and 185 (GOSE < 8: 65%). Risk factors for 6-month GOSE < 8 included less education (AOR = 0.85 per-year increase, 95% CI: (0.74–0.98)), prior psychiatric history (AOR = 3.75 (1.73–8.12)), Asian/minority race (American Indian/Alaskan/Hawaiian/Pacific Islander) (AOR = 23.99 (2.93–196.84)), and Hispanic ethnicity (AOR = 3.48 (1.29–9.37)). Risk factors for 3-month GOSE < 8 were similar with the addition of injury by assault predicting poorer outcome (AOR = 3.53 (1.17–10.63)). In mTBI patients seen in urban trauma center EDs with negative CT, education, injury by assault, Asian/minority race, and prior psychiatric history emerged as risk factors for prolonged disability