Note: Haute off the Press: Refashioning Copyright Law To Protect American Fashion Designs from the Economic Threat of 3D Printing
By Anna M. Luczkow. Full text here. Though invented in the early 1980s, three-dimensional (3D) printing recently became a topic of discussion when advancements in the field revealed the technology’s ability to transform industries and revolutionize consumer capabilities. In the past few years, society witnessed everything from 3D-printed prosthetic limbs to children’s toys. While many scholars…
Continue ReadingNote: Rejecting Tax Exceptionalism: Bringing Temporary Treasury Regulations Back in Line with the APA
By Eleanor D. Wood. Full text here. The Treasury Department has broad general rulemaking power and has historically used this power to create new regulations promulgated under APA notice-and-comment procedures. However, out of supposed necessity in the 1980s, the Treasury began increasingly using temporary regulations, which follow no such promulgation procedure, yet are binding on taxpayers…
Continue ReadingNote: Same-Sex Marriage and Disestablishing Parentage: Reconceptualizing Legal Parenthood Through Surrogacy
By Michael S. DePrince. Full text here. Parenthood is easily determined when a heterosexual married couple conceives a child through sexual reproduction. The common law marital presumption of parenthood holds that when a child is born into a marriage, the woman, having given birth, is presumed the child’s mother; likewise, the woman’s husband, by virtue of marriage…
Continue ReadingNote: Striking Before the Well Goes Dry: Exploring If and How the United States Ban on Crude Oil Exports Should Be Lifted To Exploit the American Oil Boom
By Sam Andre. Full text here. President Gerald Ford championed the adoption of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA) in 1975 to promote American energy independence through the limiting of American crude oil exports. Through this law and related regulatory provisions, the federal government successfully shielded American energy interests from crises similar to the 1973…
Continue ReadingNote: A Merry-Go-Round of Metal and Manipulation: Toward a New Framework for Commodity Exchange Self-Regulation
By Samuel D. Posnick. Full text here. The 2013 revelation of Goldman Sachs’ unsavory aluminum warehousing practices led to public uproar and political backlash. In November 2014, Congress released a damning report detailing Wall Street’s involvement in numerous commodities markets and finding rampant manipulation. As a result, the Federal Reserve is reexamining its regulation of financial…
Continue ReadingNote: Remodeling “Model Aircraft”: Why Restrictive Language That Grounded the Unmanned Industry Should Cease To Govern It
By Maxwell Mensinger. Full text here. The notion of a “next frontier” is in perpetual flux. Our understanding thereof shifts towards those concepts with the potential for change and growth. A century ago, with the development of commercial flight, airspace seemed to qualify as the next frontier. Today, drone technology has revitalized this same interest in…
Continue ReadingNote: Social Group Semantics: The Evidentiary Requirements of “Particularity” and “Social Distinction” in Pro Se Asylum Adjudications
By Nicholas R. Bednar. Full text here. The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) has turned the particular social group standard into a game of semantics. This Note argues that this game’s evidentiary requirements disfavor pro se asylum applicants by requiring sociological evidence—primarily in the form of expert testimony. An applicant applying for asylum on the basis…
Continue ReadingNote: Bad Blood: An Examination of the Constitutional Deficiencies of the FDA’s “Gay Blood Ban”
By Mathew L. Morrison. Full text here. The LGBT community has made great strides in attaining legal rights, beginning largely with Lawrence v. Texas and, to date, culminating with Windsor v. United States. These decisions have granted a broad array of rights, and many argue that the right of same-sex couples to marry nationwide is inevitable.…
Continue ReadingNote: Clarifying the Standards for Personal Jurisdiction in Light of Growing Transactions on the Internet: The Zippo Test and Pleading of Personal Jurisdiction
By Annie Soo Yeon Ahn. Full text here. Currently, despite the vast and attractive Internet market, the Supreme Court has not ruled definitively on which test should govern personal jurisdiction in cases involving transactions on the Internet. As a result, different tests and diverging results have developed concerning the constitutionality of specific jurisdiction on the Internet,…
Continue ReadingNote: No Longer Available: Critiquing the Contradictory Ways Courts Treat Exclusive Arbitration Forum Clauses when the Forum Can No Longer Arbitrate
By Nicole Wanlass. Full text here. A number of contracts contain clauses mandating that any disputes arising under the contract must be resolved through arbitration by a particular forum. However, disputes over these contracts can end up in court when the exclusive arbitration forum cannot, or will not, arbitrate them. Under 9 U.S.C. § 5, a…
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