A Comment on “Do Patents Facilitate Financing in the Software Industry?”

“Do Patents Facilitate Financing in the Software Industry?” by Ronald J. Mann contributes empirical evidence to our understanding of how software startups use patents. However, a close examination of the actual empirical findings in this paper points to rather different conclusions than those that Mann draws, namely: few software startups benefits from software patents and patents are not widely used by software firms to obtain venture financing. Indeed, among other things, the paper reports that 80% of venture-financed software startups had not acquired any patents within four years of receiving financing.

A Comment on \u27Do Patents Facilitate Financing in the Software Industry?\u27

\u27Do Patents Facilitate Financing in the Software Industry?\u27 by Ronald J. Mann contributes empirical evidence to our understanding of how software startups use patents. However, a close examination of the actual empirical findings in this paper points to rather different conclusions than those that Mann draws, namely: few software startups benefit from software patents and patents are not widely used by software firms to obtain venture financing. Indeed, among other things, the paper reports that 80% of venture-financed software startups had no acquired any patents within four years of receiving financing

Consumer Debt - Are Credit Cards Bankrupting Americans: Hearing Before the Subcomm. on Commercial & Administrative Law of the H. Comm. on the Judiciary, 111th Cong., April 2, 2009 (Statement of Associate Professor Adam J. Levitin, Geo. U. L. Center)

I urge the Congress to take up a comprehensive program of credit card reform legislation. While repealing parts of the BAPCPA is a key element to creating a fair and sustainable card lending industry, that alone will not eliminate predatory lending models. Instead, I strongly urge the Congress to consider mandating term standardization and price structure simplification for credit cards

Abusive Credit Card Practices and Bankruptcy: Hearing Before the S. Comm. on the Judiciary, 111th Cong., March 24, 2009 (Statement of Associate Professor Adam J. Levitin, Geo. U. L. Center)

The Marquette decision created a regulatory arbitrage possibility that set off a regulatory race to the bottom. Congress should act to close this loophole. There is a reasonable debate to be had on usury regulations, but that is one that should be held in legislatures, not determined by the Supreme Court\u27s interpretation of a hoary statute. A 1970s interpretation of an 1863 law should not be what determines 21st century consumer credit regulation. Congress should permit the states, the laboratories of democracy, to go further than S.257 if they wish in regulating high-interest-rate consumer credit. This essential consumer protection power should be restored to the states. S.257 offers an important protection to consumers and responsible creditors, eliminates an incentive to game the bankruptcy system, and encourages responsible lending. These protections will help ensure fairer, safer, and sounder consumer credit. Now, more than ever, consumers and creditors need reforms that will create a fair and sustainable credit system. I urge the Congress to pass S.257

Making PayPal Pay: Regulation E and Its Application to Alternative Payment Services

In light of the growth of data breaches in both occurrence and scale, it is more important than ever for consumers to be aware of the protections afforded to them under the law regarding electronic fund transfers and alternative payment services. Additionally, it is important that agencies like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”), charged with the protection of unsuspecting and often defenseless consumers, are carefully monitoring these protections to ensure they keep pace with the technological evolution of the payment services they regulate. Alternative payment services, such as PayPal, are conducting an enormous number of payments and providing an extremely beneficial service in the era of e-commerce. This Issue Brief argues that, as currently written, the Electronic Fund Transfer Act, implemented by Regulation E, does not adequately protect consumers using these alternative payment services. Regulation E is insufficiently specific and provides circular language in its key definitions, including those for the terms “financial institution” and “account.” These deficiencies could leave consumers engaged with alternative payment services in the unique position of facing unlimited liability for losses resulting from unauthorized electronic fund transfers from their alternative payment service account. Thus, this Issue Brief argues that in order to ensure that Regulation E is written broadly enough to apply to all the functions of PayPal, the CFPB should clarify its language

Foreword: Path Dependence and Comparative Corporate Governance

This symposium issue of the Washington University Law Quarterly focuses the application of path dependence to corporate institutions on a natural topic: comparative corporate governance

Information Technology and Non-Legal Sanctions in Financing Transactions

This Essay investigates the effect of advances in information technology on the private institutions that businesses use to resolve information asymmetries in financing transactions. The first part of the Essay discusses how information technology can permit direct verification of the information, obviating the problem entirely; the Essay discusses the example of the substitution of the debit card for the check, which provides an immediate payment that obviates the need for the merchant to consider whether payment will be forthcoming when the check is presented to the bank on which it is drawn. The second part of the Essay discusses how advances in information technology can solve information problems indirectly: leaving the problem in place to some degree but mitigating its severity. The Essay uses three examples. First, it dis- cusses how advances in information technology improve the functioning of reputational verification systems, with a special emphasis on the disintermediation of securities issuance. Second, the Essay discusses the rise of intermediation by pooling in the area of securitization. The Essay closes by discussing how information technology has facilitated the rise of the information merchant, which can sell information directly to those who need it for their transactions