The Digest is celebrating our two-year anniversary! Since January 2007 we have grown from a dedicated group of five to a staff of more than twenty-five; this past year we’ve worked to bring our readers a greater quantity and variety of content, including the reintroduction of Flash Digest and Digest Comments. We hope to continue to be a valuable source of law and technology news.
We sincerely hope you’ve enjoyed our coverage this year - Stay Tuned!
- The Digest Staff
It’s once again that time of year: The Digest will be taking a short break from our regular coverage over the coming weeks as our Staff Writers head home for a well-deserved holiday break.
While we take our hiatus from regular coverage, we have the pleasure of re-introducing our Comments feature. Comments are longer opinion pieces on especially significant issues. These pieces are written entirely by members of our staff, on topics they believe warrant closer examination and study. Each week for the rest of December and the beginning of January, we will publish one or two Comments that we have worked on over the semester. We have some especially interesting pieces this winter and we hope you enjoy them!
Also stay tuned for previews of articles that will be published in our print edition next month.
We’ll be back shortly after the New Year with our usual coverage.
We sincerely hope you’ve enjoyed our work this year! Happy holidays!
- The Digest Staff
Dear Readers -
Digest is back! Our site has been down the past 3 weeks due to a server crash, but thanks to our wonderful online editors, it is back up and running. We appreciate your patience and apologize for any inconvenience our downtime may have caused. We will be publishing all of the content we have produced during our time offline in the next couple of days.
Thank you for continuing to read the site – we look forward to a great Fall semester filled with the same quality of content you have come to expect.
Best,
Digest Masthead
Harvard Journal of Law and Technology, vol. 22.2
The Digest Staff is thrilled to announce that the newest volume of the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology, volume 22.2 is now available online, featuring:
Exclusion and Exclusive Use in Patent Law
Adam Mossoff
The conventional wisdom is that the definition of patents as property has been long settled: unlike land and chattels, which secure the traditional “bundle” of rights, patents secure only a negative right to exclude. Professor Mossoff, after exploring early case law and the historical development of patent law, finds that for much of its history a patent was defined by Congress and courts in the same conceptual terms as property in land and chattels. The Article concludes by showing how this conceptual break is affecting the current debates over patent doctrine.
Brand Spillovers
Eric Goldman
Professor Goldman’s article focuses on comparing the economic effects and legal treatment of “brand spillovers” in the online world and the physical world. Brand spillovers occur when consumer interest in a trademark increases the profits of third parties who do not own the trademark. Although online brand spillovers have been the source of heated debate and numerous lawsuits, similar brand spillovers in the physical world (for example, the placing of generic products next to branded products in grocery store aisles) have been permitted by trademark law. Professor Goldman argues that online brand spillovers, like their offline counterparts, should be permitted because such spillovers help to reduce consumer search costs.
Patent Law Uniformity?
Lee Petherbridge
Professor Petherbridge provides an empirical response to a recent article in the Northwestern University Law Review by Professors Nard and Duffy that argued in favor of dismantling the Federal Circuit because its creation has resulted in a lack of diversity in patent jurisprudence, which in turn has seriously suppressed the development of the law. Professor Petherbridge shows that across a number of variables the evidence does not support the Nard and Duffy conclusion that there is a lack of diversity in Federal Circuit patent jurisprudence.
Regulating Search
Viva R. Moffat
As search engines become increasingly powerful gatekeepers of the Internet, academics have begun to debate whether regulation directed at search engines is necessary. Professor Moffat evaluates the initial scholarship and finds that the current debate over search-engine regulation is bipolar, with commentators either advocating a market-based approach or full agency regulation. Professor Moffat proposes a compromise focused on encouraging the federal judiciary to develop a common law to handle those disputes that are unique to search engines.
Data Mining and Antitrust
Douglas M. Kochelek
This Note explores how antitrust law should deal with the rise of data mining, focusing specifically on the potential for price discrimination by online entities.
Protecting Privacy Through a Responsible Decryption Policy
Andrew J. Ungberg
This Note argues that absolute Fifth Amendment protections for computer passwords and encryption keys will ultimately do more harm than good to the cause of privacy by encouraging the government to adopt increasingly more invasive surveillance techniques in order to enforce the law.
Dear Digest Readers,
The Digest will be taking a short break in the coming weeks as our Staff Writers prepare for final exams. We will be back shortly in mid-May with the same quality and coverage you’ve come to expect.
In the meantime, you can now follow JOLT Digest on twitter! We will tweet each time we put up a new post and link to content that may be of interest to our readers. We invite you to follow us at @JOLTdigest!
We look forward to a great summer of law & technology news! Stay tuned!
- The Digest Staff