By Alex Hontos. Full text here. Currently, Congress acquires information from the executive branch through two primary methods: the legislative subpoena or an “invitation” for an executive official to testify. These approaches are inadequate, the former often too blunt and subject to majority control while the latter too lenient and irregular. Increased congressional scrutiny of…

By Shata L. Stucky. Full text here. In 1995, Congress passed the Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act (ICCTA) in an effort to relieve the railroad industry of burdensome regulation. The ICCTA preempts local land-use regulations that communities formerly used to protect valuable resources such as drinking water supplies. Under some circumstances, the National Environmental Policy Act…

By Daniel J. Iden. Full text here. Companies may decide to leave patented technologies unused for numerous reasons, a great many of them legal. The patent laws confirm a company’s right to let a patent languish, unpracticed by anyone. But companies with patents on alternative technologies may agree to enter into a joint venture: promoting and…

By Nicole M. Murphy. Full text here. Over the past three years, the Federal Circuit has contributed to the rise in inequitable-conduct defenses by failing to apply the doctrine consistently. First, the court broadened the scope of the doctrine’s materiality element to include information unrelated to patentability and failed to offer guidance on how to apply…

By Nina Liao. Full text here. The U.S. bankruptcy system has served as a safety net for millions of Americans for the last 110 years, but it failed to rescue homeowners in the ongoing recession. Amid fiery allegations and accusations, economists and bankruptcy judges debate the controversial modification of loans, a process called cram-down. Cram-down is…

By David A. Couillard. Full text here. It took nearly a century after the invention of the telephone for the Supreme Court to recognize that the Fourth Amendment could be applied to the content of private telephone conversations. Today, the Internet is in a similar state of limbo, with courts reluctant to grant Fourth Amendment protection…

By Marie Quasius. Full text here. Native American women suffer sexual assault at a much higher rate and with more serious consequences than any other racial or ethnic group in the United States. Further, such rapes are overwhelmingly committed by individuals outside the Native American community. Most non-Indian perpetrators, however, go unpunished. The Supreme Court decision…

By Joseph C. Hansen. Full text here. When Congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA) to create a military commission system to try detainees held at Guantánamo Bay, it granted the Secretary of Defense the authority to detail the procedural and evidentiary rules. In response, the Secretary promulgated the Manual for Military Commissions (MMC),…

By Michael D. Schoepf. Full text here. The judiciary may be the oft-forgotten third-branch of government, but judges still face ample criticism from the media and the public just like their colleagues in the legislative and executive branches. Unlike their colleagues however, judges cannot respond with glossy public relations campaigns because of judicial rules that severely…

By Y. Angela Lam. Full text here. Every year, consumers purchase about $80 billion in gift cards, only to lose $8 billion loaded on those cards because of expiration dates and service fees that deplete the value of the cards. State legislators have tried to protect consumers by passing laws that would prohibit or limit the…