http://stlr.stanford.edu/ en Copyright 2008 Sat, 02 Feb 2008 00:22:09 +0000 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss In the wake of the California energy crisis of 2000-2001, the California Energy Commission (CEC) and California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) are aggressively pursuing “demand response” (DR) energy programs aimed at reducing peak energy demand. Demand response systems convey information about market conditions through pricing or reliability signals to customers, who in turn, hopefully, alter their electricity consumption choices. In particular DR programs are aimed at shifting the time at which customers use energy through the implementation of time-varying tariffs. Armed with information about the time-varying cost of electricity residential and commercial customers are expected to reduce energy usage and/or shift their usage to non-peak, less costly, hours. Such shifts, even absent reductions in overall consumption, will reduce the likelihood of energy brown and black outs and provide direct savings to consumers. Technologies to enable the demand response system, including advanced metering research and development [OpenAMI] and sensor and control technologies development [DRETD], are under development. These technologies will be coupled with a communication and network infrastructure that supports the multicast of real-time pricing information, and the aggregation of energy usage and billing information. http://stlr.stanford.edu/2008/02/taking_the_long_view_on_the_fo.html http://stlr.stanford.edu/2008/02/taking_the_long_view_on_the_fo.html 2007 Symposium Symposium Articles Sat, 02 Feb 2008 00:22:09 +0000 The Fourth Amendment's Seizure clause is mired in the Eighteenth century. Its counterpart, the Search clause, has evolved through a steady progression of Supreme Court cases from Katz to Berger to Kyllo, no longer to be confined to the property-based notions of privacy embodied in Olmstead v. United States. Instead it is sensitive to modern privacy concerns by extending Constitutional protection to situations that satisfy the reasonable expectation of privacy test. While imperfect, the evolved Search clause has kept the protections of the Fourth Amendment relevant in an age of digital evidence, ubiquitous communication networks, and increasingly sophisticated and invasive surveillance capabilities. http://stlr.stanford.edu/2008/01/the_olmsteadian_seizure_clause.html http://stlr.stanford.edu/2008/01/the_olmsteadian_seizure_clause.html 2007 Symposium Symposium Articles Mon, 28 Jan 2008 17:42:00 +0000 The ACLU of Northern California has been a leader in generating public and legislative attention to the privacy, personal safety, and financial security risks associated with the use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology in government-issued identification documents, such as drivers' licenses and student ID cards. http://stlr.stanford.edu/2008/01/rfid_technology.html http://stlr.stanford.edu/2008/01/rfid_technology.html 2007 Symposium Symposium Articles Working Papers Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:45:07 +0000 Under current Fourth Amendment doctrine, parties to a communication enjoy constitutional protection against government surveillance only when they have a reasonable expectation of privacy in those communications. This paper discusses the insufficiency of the reasonable expectation of privacy test in the context of modern communications. Significantly, courts have required that communications media be virtually invulnerable before affording them Fourth Amendment protection. http://stlr.stanford.edu/2007/06/a_first_principles_approach_to.html http://stlr.stanford.edu/2007/06/a_first_principles_approach_to.html 2007 Symposium Symposium Articles Mon, 18 Jun 2007 22:06:00 +0000 Pharmaceutical sales constitute a $600-billion-per-year global industry. Less well-known is that more than half of the drugs listed in the U.S. Pharmacopoeia contain a class of compounds known as chiral molecules as the active pharmaceutical ingredient. Chiral molecules have special chemical and pharmacological properties that raise questions as to their patentability. When chiral molecules are synthesized in the laboratory, two distinct mirror-image molecules are formed called “enantiomers.” Although each enantiomer may have different levels of therapeutic activity and toxicity, technical challenges to separating the enantiomers caused most early chiral drugs to be sold as mixtures of the two molecules, or racemic mixtures. http://stlr.stanford.edu/2007/02/the_patentability_of_enantiome.html http://stlr.stanford.edu/2007/02/the_patentability_of_enantiome.html Feature Articles Tue, 27 Feb 2007 03:19:43 +0000 The radio spectrum is a scarce resource that has been historically allocated through command-and-control regulation. Today, it is widely accepted that this type of allocation is as inefficient for spectrum as it would be for paper or land. Many commentators and scholars, most famously Ronald Coase, have advocated that a more efficient allocation would be achieved if government sold the rights to the spectrum and allowed a free market in radio property to develop. http://stlr.stanford.edu/2007/02/the_spectrum_commons_in_theory.html http://stlr.stanford.edu/2007/02/the_spectrum_commons_in_theory.html Feature Articles Sat, 10 Feb 2007 19:06:13 +0000 The principles behind the Fourth Amendment's Search and Seizure clause are found throughout Anglo-American jurisprudence. This body of law reflects a history of attempting to harmonize the seemingly conflicting governmental goals of communication privacy on the one hand, and protecting the public safety and national security on the other. Nations adopt surveillance doctrines, driven largely by the realities of the technology. As technologies change, assumptions behind doctrines can become outdated. http://stlr.stanford.edu/2007/01/anticipatory_electronic_survei.html http://stlr.stanford.edu/2007/01/anticipatory_electronic_survei.html 2007 Symposium Symposium Articles Tue, 23 Jan 2007 23:20:38 +0000 It is largely uncontroversial that the "creative" effort in a database will be protected by copyright. However, any effort to extend protection to purely factual databases creates difficulties in determining the proper method and scope of protection. This Paper argues that antitrust law can be used to supplement intellectual property law in maintaining the "access-incentive" balance with respect to databases. It starts from the premise that a trend toward "TRIPs-plus" rights in databases, whatever its form, is inevitable. The reason is a simple, but compelling one: business needs shape the law. Various means of database access regulation are explored and contrasted with antitrust law. This Paper concludes that antitrust offers an alternative that more accurately reflects commercial expectations. However, regulators need to be aware of the limitations of applying antitrust law to a regime delicately tuned with pre-existing endogenous checks as well as the effects of their application on innovation by those spurred on the assurance of monopoly profits. In this regard, antitrust law must prove itself to be capable of sophisticated regulation if its interference in the database industry is to be justified. http://stlr.stanford.edu/2006/11/regulating_access_to_databases.html http://stlr.stanford.edu/2006/11/regulating_access_to_databases.html Feature Articles Mon, 06 Nov 2006 20:40:47 +0000 In today's Internet economy, search engines play an increasingly important role in helping consumers locate goods and services. However, search engines may also allow unauthorized online retailers to misuse trademarks as keywords and metatags in ways that can boost their placement in search engine results and increase online sales. For instance, a person other than a trademark holder may purchase a trademarked word or phrase as a search engine keyword (keyword misuse), or may insert them as hidden HTML code on webpages (metatag misuse). Where a website that misuses trademarks in this manner then offers the trademarked goods or services for sale online without a license from the original producer, consumers may be deceived as to the source of those goods and services, and the value of the trademark might be diminished. http://stlr.stanford.edu/2006/10/the_search_engine_economys_ach.html http://stlr.stanford.edu/2006/10/the_search_engine_economys_ach.html Feature Articles Fri, 06 Oct 2006 20:42:22 +0000 This Note presents an empirical study of district court opinions that reached the question of obviousness--one of the core requirements for patent validity--n patent suits. The doctrine of obviousness has befuddled courts and litigants since the Supreme Court's 1851 statement that patentable invention requires some nebulous level of ingenuity and skill. By the 1970s, frustration with the obviousness doctrine had reached fever pitch, and Congress responded by centralizing patent appeals in the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. http://stlr.stanford.edu/2006/07/new_insights_on_the_death_of_o.html http://stlr.stanford.edu/2006/07/new_insights_on_the_death_of_o.html Student Notes Thu, 06 Jul 2006 19:07:10 +0000 Morality, an individual's subjective sense of right and wrong, is the biggest influence in shaping law-related behavior. And not surprisingly, both psychologists and legal theorists have begun to explore the links between personal morality and large-scale copyright infringement. But to date, this analysis has not rigorously answered some basic questions. Why do people believe that theft is immoral? And why do so many differentiate theft from infringement? http://stlr.stanford.edu/2006/07/the_immorality_of_theft_the_am.html http://stlr.stanford.edu/2006/07/the_immorality_of_theft_the_am.html Student Notes Sat, 01 Jul 2006 18:30:27 +0000 Interpreting Grokster: Limits on the Scope of Secondary Liability for Copyright Infringement, a perspective by the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT).]]> http://stlr.stanford.edu/2006/06/interpreting_grokster_limits_o.html http://stlr.stanford.edu/2006/06/interpreting_grokster_limits_o.html Perspectives Tue, 06 Jun 2006 00:00:00 +0000 Deference Overcome: Courts' Invalidation of Patent Claims as Anticipated by Art Considered by the PTO by J. Michael Buchanan. ]]> http://stlr.stanford.edu/2006/04/deference_overcome_courts_inva.html http://stlr.stanford.edu/2006/04/deference_overcome_courts_inva.html Feature Articles Thu, 06 Apr 2006 17:43:20 +0000 No Analog Analogue: Searchable Digital Archives and Amazon's Unprecedented Search Inside the Book Program as Fair Use by Jonathan Kerry-Tyerman. ]]> http://stlr.stanford.edu/2006/02/no_analog_analogue_searchable.html http://stlr.stanford.edu/2006/02/no_analog_analogue_searchable.html Student Notes Mon, 06 Feb 2006 17:45:05 +0000 This article argues that corporate law firms do not appreciate the changing world of legal recruiting. The rise of information technology means that law students function as sophisticated consumers of information on law firm life. Given that monetary compensation at major corporate firms is almost identical, students' perception of lifestyle can have a major influence on their valuation of firms. Consequently, firms need to adapt by more carefully managing the type of information that might be accessible to students, and their general reputation within the student community. http://stlr.stanford.edu/2005/09/managing_risk_to_reputation_th.html http://stlr.stanford.edu/2005/09/managing_risk_to_reputation_th.html Feature Articles Tue, 20 Sep 2005 20:44:15 +0000