By Sean J. Griffith. Full text here. International financial regulators have sought to contain the systemic risk of OTC derivatives transactions by introducing mandatory clearing. In the absence of a global financial regulator, however, this regulatory approach must be implemented by national actors. Fearing the prospect of regulatory arbitrage, regulators have sought to impose global uniformity…

By Michael Coenen. Full text here. Remedies influence rights, and rights apply across remedies. Combined together, these two phenomena produce the problem of spillover across remedies. The spillover problem occurs when considerations specific to a single remedy affect the definition of a substantive rule that governs in multiple remedial settings. For example, the severe remedial consequences…

By Sean B. Seymore. Full text here. It is axiomatic in patent law that an invention must be useful. The utility requirement has been a part of the statutory scheme since the Patent Act of 1790. But what does it mean to be useful? The abstract and imprecise nature of the term combined with the lack…

By David H. Moore. Full text here. The one-voice doctrine, a mainstay of U.S. foreign relations jurisprudence, maintains that in its external relations the United States must be able to speak with one voice. The doctrine has been used to answer critical questions about the foreign affairs powers of the President, Congress, the courts, and U.S.…

By James Grimmelmann. Full text here. Academic and regulatory debates about Google are dominated by two opposing theories of what search engines are and how law should treat them. Some describe search engines as passive, neutral conduits for websites’ speech; others describe them as active, opinionated editors: speakers in their own right. The conduit and editor…

By Jonathan J. Darrow. Full text here. Pharmaceutical approval today suffers from a serious ethical flaw: newly FDA-approved drugs are de facto “tested” on an unknowing general public in the months and years immediately following drug approval, without either the informed consent of the consuming public or an understanding by the public of the risks that…

By Nelson Tebbe. Full text here. What are the constitutional limits on government endorsement? Judges and scholars typically assume that when the government speaks on its own account, it faces few restrictions. In fact, they often say that the only real restriction on government speech is the Establishment Clause. On this view, officials cannot endorse Christianity…

By Anna Roberts. Full text here. Statutes in forty-eight states permit the exclusion of those with felony convictions from criminal juries; thirteen states permit the exclusion of those with misdemeanor convictions. The reasons given for these exclusions, which include the assumption that those with convictions must be embittered against the state, do not justify their…

By Aaron Perzanowski. Full text here. The U.S. tattoo industry generates billions of dollars in annual revenue. Like the music, film, and publishing industries, it derives value from the creation of new, original works of authorship. But unlike rights holders in those more traditional creative industries, tattoo artists rarely assert formal legal rights in disputes over…

By Deven R. Desai. Full text here. Corporate speech is out of balance. Corporations now enjoy expanded speech rights, but the ability to speak about corporations is restricted. This situation must change. That corporations are people for First Amendment questions is a fait accompli. We can debate the merits or wisdom of that fact, but the…