• Rosen to Deliver Sixth IIT Presidential Lecture

    by  • March 10, 2014 • 0 Comments

    [Via IIT Chicago-Kent News]

    rosen-mark-2014IIT Chicago-Kent Professor Mark D. Rosen will deliver the sixth Presidential Lecture, hosted by IIT President John Anderson. Professor Rosen will address the topic “U.S. Immigration Law: History, Theory and Political Implications” at 3:30 p.m. on March 11 in the Hermann Hall Ballroom, 3241 South Federal Street on IIT’s Main Campus in Chicago.

    Established in 2012, the Presidential Lecture Series is intended to present leading experts to discuss societal challenges. The lecture series is moderated by John W. Rowe, IIT Regent and former chairman of the IIT Board of Trustees, and chairman emeritus of Exelon Corporation.

    Drawing on history, political theory and law, Professor Rosen will consider the connections between immigration and citizenship in liberal democracies. His talk will identify the broad array of immigration criteria plausibly used, and in fact used, by today’s liberal democracies—and over time by the United States. Professor Rosen then will examine what is (and isn’t) entailed in “being a citizen.” He will provide an overview of immigration’s intimate connection to other issues not typically thought of as related to immigration, including education policy and the appropriate scope of religious liberty. Finally, Professor Rosen will discuss what factors should influence immigration policy, and who should decide that policy.

    A member of the IIT Chicago-Kent faculty since 1999, Professor Rosen teaches courses in constitutional law, conflicts of law, election law, local government law, Federal Indian Law, and civil procedure. A prolific writer, Professor Rosen has addressed matters of international and domestic justice, as well as many issues of constitutional law, in his research. He has served as a consultant to Congress, to many state legislatures and attorneys general, and to Native American tribes.

    Prior to joining the IIT Chicago-Kent faculty, Professor Rosen was a Bigelow Fellow and lecturer in law at the University of Chicago Law School. He has worked as an attorney in private practice in Boston, where he focused on complex federal court litigation. Professor Rosen completed his undergraduate education in economics and political science at Yale College. He earned his J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he served as articles editor of the Harvard Law Review. Professor Rosen has also studied Talmudic and comparative law at Shapell’s University in Israel.

    For more information, contact Gwendolyn Osborne, Director of Public Affairs, (312) 906-5251.

    Weekly Faculty in the News, 3/6/14

    by  • March 6, 2014 • 0 Comments

    A roundup of faculty appearances in news sources and media from the last week, 2/27/14 to 3/6/14.

    2/27 – Lori Andrews was quoted in a Public News Service article about the The Media Consortium’s 2014 Conference, which was held at Chicago-Kent last week (“How Illinoisans Can ‘Beat the Spy State’”). Andrews presented on digital surveillance, the right to privacy, and freedom of speech at the conference.

    3/3 – The Spring 2014 issue of IIT Magazine ran a feature article on Bernadette Atuahene and her scholarship, which focuses on the subject of land restitution in South Africa (“A Voice for Justice in South Africa”).

    3/3 – Howard Eglit was quoted in a Bakersfield Californian article on age discrimination and employment (“Hire, retain most valuable employees”).

    3/4 – In a Chicago Daily Law Bulletin headline, Elizabeth De Armond was named director of Chicago-Kent’s legal research and writing program, effective July 1.

    For more information, contact the Office of Public Affairs at IIT Chicago-Kent.

    Steinman — Beyond the Supplements

    by  • March 5, 2014 • 0 Comments

    Removal and Remand—Beyond the Supplements, a new electronic publication by Joan Steinman, is now available on SSRN. The paper is a compilation of case descriptions and citations to law review articles that complements the contents of the 2014 Pocket Parts to volumes 14B and C of the Wright & Miller treatise on Federal Practice and Procedure. Steinman provides an explanation for the compilation in the introduction:

    For many years I have prepared the annual Pocket Parts and Supplements for volumes 14B and C of Wright, Miller, Cooper & Steinman, Federal Practice & Procedure , which address the law of removal and remand of cases from state to federal court and back. As the number of cases in this and many other areas of federal practice and procedure has exploded, the publishers of the treatise have decided that the treatise should be increasingly selective in describing new case developments. In order to further assist lawyers, judges, and professors in their research of the law of removal and remand, I have decided to electronically publish a compilation of cases and law review articles that either are not included at all in the volume 14B and C Pocket Parts or are cited there for different propositions than are reflected in this electronic publication. The cases that are included in this electronic compilation came to my attention between mid-October, 2012, and mid-October, 2013.

    The cases that came to my attention during that same time period and that I deemed sufficiently noteworthy to include in volumes 14B and C of  Federal Practice & Procedure will appear in the 2014 Pocket Parts.

    Download the paper on SSRN here.

    Atuahene — A Voice for Justice in South Africa

    by  • March 4, 2014 • 0 Comments

    The spring 2014 issue of IIT Magazine—now available here—includes a feature article on Bernadette Atuahene, whose scholarship focuses on the subject of land restitution in South Africa. The article outlines Atuahene’s travels to South Africa, which have spawned an award-winning documentary—Sifuna Okwethu (We Want What’s Ours)—and a forthcoming book titled We Want What’s Ours: Learning from South Africa’s Land Restitution Program (Oxford). In both the documentary and book, Atuahene addresses the injustice of land dispossession, a holdover from the country’s apartheid regime, and seeks to combat inequality through a more just implementation of land restitution.

    Read an excerpt from the article below:

    In the South African township of Evaton, a Zulu woman exits the dilapidated shack where she lives with several members of her family and walks a short distance to a plot bearing a solitary, off-white tombstone, where she talks to the spirit of her father, Wine Ndolila.

    “We are here about your land that was taken during apartheid,” Ntombena Ndolila says in her native language while kneeling on all fours on the ground near the memorial. “As your daughters, we have all the rights. This is our father’s land. Halala Ndolila, your land is coming back.”

    The Ndolilas are so confident that their country’s government will return their ancestral land to them that they have chosen to live there as squatters, even after the apartheid government bulldozed their homes and twice evicted them from the property. The family’s tenacity seized the attention of Bernadette Atuahene, associate professor at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law, who has focused on their plight in Sifuna Okwethu, Zulu for We Want What’s Ours, an award-winning documentary she produced and directed on the subject of land restitution in South Africa. The Ndolilas provide a face for a cause Atuahene has embraced since 2002 when she did a clerkship at the South African Constitutional Court as a Fulbright Scholar.

    “The dire inequality in Johannesburg was so striking to me,” says Atuahene, a Los Angeles native whose parents are from Ghana. “I’d never seen so many Lamborghinis, Lotuses, and other exotic cars next to such extreme poverty. I knew that part of what was contributing to this inequality was land theft—where the reigning white regimes replaced an inheritance of wealth with an inheritance of disadvantage…. I knew that this was my issue; it just boiled my blood and I had to do something about it.”

    To continue reading, click here. See more of Professor Atuahene’s scholarship on land restitution at her Selected Works page.

    Weekly Faculty in the News, 2/27/14

    by  • February 27, 2014 • 0 Comments

    A roundup of faculty appearances in news sources and media from the last week, 2/20/14 to 2/27/14.

    2/24 - Douglas Godfrey was featured in a Fox 32 video and article on the arrest of drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman (“‘El Chapo’ charged in Mexico, remains Chicago’s Public Enemy No. 1”).

    Godfrey was also interviewed by WDCB Public Radio for a segment on Guzman (2/26, “Drug Lord’s Arrest Could Put Legal Communities At Risk”). Listen below:

    2/24 – Dean Harold Krent was featured in an ABA Journal article on Chicago-Kent’s new clinical rotation program for 1Ls, a part of the 1L Your Way program (“Chicago law school adds clinical rotation for 1Ls”). According to its website, “the clinical rotation option aims to help students refine their career interests by gaining exposure to diverse areas of law practice early in their schooling.”

    2/27 – Lori Andrews was quoted in a Chicago Tribune story on privacy issues related to classroom technology (“Privacy concerns arise over monitoring software”).

    2/27 - Ed Lee’s scholarship was mentioned in a Reuters article on the intellectual property cases before the US Supreme Court this Term (“U.S. high court sets record for intellectual property caseload”).

    Blogs:

    2/24 – At Nahmod Law, Sheldon Nahmod highlights his newest article on the birth of Section 1983 in the Supreme Court, just published by the Lewis and Clark Law Review.

    For more information, contact the Office of Public Affairs at IIT Chicago-Kent.

    Schwartz on the Value of Open Data

    by  • February 21, 2014 • 0 Comments

    Earlier this week, David Schwartz, Christopher Cotropia (Richmond), and Jay Kesan (Illinois) coauthored a guest post titled “The Value of Open Data for Patent Policy” on the Patently-O blog. The post calls for more publicly available data in the field of empirical legal studies, especially in the study of patent assertion entities—PAEs, commonly known as patent trolls, which the authors have studied and written about. The following is an excerpt from the post:

    Harlan Krumholz, one of the nation’s leading medical researchers, recently wrote an important New York Times Op-Ed piece called Give the Data to the People. Dr. Krumholz praised Johnson & Johnson for making all of its clinical trial data available to scientists around the world. This included not only the conclusions in published articles, but also unpublished raw data. Companies are often reluctant to share raw data because their competitors may benefit. In the medical field, there are also patient privacy concerns. But releasing the raw data permits other researchers to learn from and build upon existing data. It also offers other researchers the ability to replicate and verify the findings of important medical studies. Dr. Krumholz concludes: “For the good of society, this is a breakthrough that should be replicated throughout the research world.”

    We believe that Dr. Kumholz’s call for more publicly available data is applicable to empirical legal studies. It is especially critical, in our view, to the study of patent assertion entities (“PAEs,” which some refer to as patent trolls). There is an important public policy debate underway about the role of PAEs within patent law. There have been reports in the press about PAEs—including a high profile report by the President’s Council of Economic Advisors—that relied upon confidential data. In his State of the Union address, President Obama called on Congress to enact patent reform legislation. The main basis for the reform is alleged abuses by “patent trolls.” Unfortunately, much of the raw data about patent litigation is not publicly available.

    As academic researchers, we are interested in data about PAEs. We have previously studied and written an article about patent infringement lawsuits filed in 2010 and 2012. Because of the importance of the debate about PAEs, we released the raw data from our study to the public (here) to permit others to evaluate and study. Others have downloaded and commented on our data to us, and we have gone back and verified particular classifications in some instances. We believe more publicly available data is necessary.

    Click here to continue reading.

    Weekly Faculty in the News, 2/20/14

    by  • February 20, 2014 • 0 Comments

    A roundup of faculty appearances in news sources and media from the last week, 2/13/14 to 2/20/14.

    2/15 - Lori Andrews was quoted in a New York Times story on criminal investigators’ use of social media to gather evidence (“Social Media, a Trove of Clues and Confessions”). Andrews argued that an unchecked eagerness to use social media in investigations may endanger the right to a fair trial.

    2/17 – Douglas Godfrey was interviewed by phone on CLTV’s Politics Tonight for a story about Florida’s “stand-your-ground” law and the Michael Dunn trial.

    2/18 – Martin Malin was quoted in an MSNBC article on Northwestern football players’ push for unionization rights (“College football players demand right to form a union”). Malin noted that the players face difficult legal challenges on the road to unionization, since the NCAA insists they are “student-athletes” and not employees.

    Blogs:

    2/18 – César Rosado Marzán’s recent thoughts on the Volkswagen unionization defeat were highlighted in a post on the blog In These Times (“What Are the UAW’s Legal Options After the Volkswagen Defeat?”).

    2/20 – Two recent posts by Christopher Schmidt—part of his new “Drama in the Court” series—were featured in the daily roundup on SCOTUSblog.

    2/20 – David Schwartz authored a guest post (with Christopher Cotropia and Jay Kesan) on the Patently-O blog  titled “The Value of Open Data for Patent Policy”. The post calls for more publicly available data in the field of empirical legal studies, especially in the study of patent assertion entities—PAEs, commonly known as patent trolls, which the authors have studied and written about.

    For more information, contact the Office of Public Affairs at IIT Chicago-Kent.

    The Good News from Chattanooga

    by  • February 17, 2014 • 0 Comments

    By César F. Rosado Marzán

    A majority of Volkswagen (“VW”) employees in Chattanooga, Tennessee, voted against unionization last week. Six hundred and twenty-six (626) employees voted in favor of the union. Seven hundred and twelve voted (712) against. Union supporters took the vote as very bad news. The blogs are now saturated with theories of why the vote went the way it did.

    But there is good news! First, the more than six hundred employees that voted in favor of union representation can still bargain collectively with VW as a so-called “minority union.” Second, the UAW and other parties can file a complaint against the United States in the International Labor Organization (“ILO”) for permitting government officials in Tennessee to interfere with workers’ freedom of association rights. The goal of such a complaint would not be to set aside the elections, but to shape a more favorable terrain for unions in the future.

    A minority union is a union that represents only its members. As such, it is different from exclusive representation unions, or the unions that are certified by the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”). Any collective bargaining agreement entered by the minority union and the employer would cover only the members of the union. Under current law, employers may bargain with a minority union if they want to. There is no legal duty for employers to bargain with a minority union under present interpretations of the National Labor Relations Act.

    However, VW, as a model corporate citizen, has pledged to abide by the core labor rights of the ILO. Volkswagen has made such pledges both in its corporate code of conduct and its international framework agreement with Industriall, the global union to which the UAW belongs. One of these core rights is freedom of association. As the IFA states:

    The basic right of all employees to establish and join unions and employee representations is acknowledged. Volkswagen, the unions and employee representatives respectively work together openly and in the spirit of constructive and co-operative conflict management. (more…)

    Weekly Faculty in the News, 2/13/14

    by  • February 13, 2014 • 0 Comments

    A roundup of faculty appearances in news sources and media from the last week, 2/6/14 to 2/13/14.

    2/8 – Professor Ed Lee  appeared on the Hearsay Culture radio show and podcast to discuss his new book, The Fight for the Future: How People Defeated Hollywood and Saved the Internet — For Now.

    2/9 – An ABA News article on a panel titled “The Justice Gap: Legal Access for Clients of Modest Means through Innovative Solutions” quoted participant Gary Laser, Director of Clinical Education at Chicago-Kent (“Panelists explore solutions to justice gap”).

    Blogs:

    2/7 – Professor Sheldon Nahmod added a new post to his running “Know Your Constitution” series on Nahmod Law, which aims to summarize constitutional ideas in everyday language. In this post, he explains the meaning of the Due Process clauses that appear in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.

    2/12 – Prim&r’s Ampersand published a guest post by Visiting Assistant Professor Valerie Gutmann Koch and her colleague Susie Han (“Enrolling the Cognitively Impaired in a Research Study: The Role of a Legally Authorized Representative in Providing Surrogate Consent to Enroll Adults Who Lack Consent Capacity in Research”). The post examines a recent report by the New York State Task Force on Life and Law, the state’s bioethics commission, on which Prof. Koch serves as Special Advisor. Professor Koch has also previously written on the report here.

    For more information, contact the Office of Public Affairs at IIT Chicago-Kent.

    Introducing a New ISCOTUS Series: Drama in the Court

    by  • February 12, 2014 • 0 Comments

    By Christopher Schmidt [reposted from ISCOTUSnow]

    In my new role as Director of the Institute on the Supreme Court of the United States, I am happy to introduce “Drama in the Court,” a new series on ISCOTUSnow. “Drama in the Court” will offer a weekly post in which I revisit interesting moments at oral argument in the Supreme Court. I will look at recently argued cases, older cases that are relevant to issues currently before the Court, as well as some landmark cases from the Oyez archives.

    My goal is to search out exchanges between the Justices and lawyers that are particularly lively, entertaining, humorous, tense, occasionally embarrassing, and always, hopefully, edifying. My posts will place these dramatic moments in context, explaining the basic issues before the Court and the significance of the particular exchange. Each post will include audio clips from Oyez, so readers can hear for themselves these dramatic moments in the Court.

    I hope this series will be of interest to all Court watchers out there, but I particularly hope that it will be of use to educators. I know that teachers at all levels have come to appreciate Oyez’s incredible value as a teaching resource. But I also know that it can be difficult to find the time to listen to an entire oral argument, or to locate just the right clips to present in class, or to get a grasp of exactly what is going on in the Court. “Drama in the Court” is intended to help with that. I choose clips both for their entertainment value and for the way they highlight, in a particularly accessible way, important legal disputes.

    To get an idea of what to expect, you can visit some of my recent posts.

    My two most recent posts focus on recently argued cases. In Constitutional First Principles on Display, I look at NLRB v. Noel Canning. In Hypotheticals Gone Wild, I look at Navarette v. California. And in Pork Chops and Privacy, I look at Smith v. Maryland, a 1979 case that has taken on new relevance with the recent legal challenges to the NSA’s wiretapping program.

    I am always looking for new cases to profile, so please let me know if you have any suggestions. You can reach me at cschmidt@kentlaw.iit.edu.

    Lee on “Hearsay Culture” Radio Show

    by  • February 11, 2014 • 0 Comments

    Professor Ed Lee recently appeared on the Hearsay Culture radio show and podcast to discuss his new book, The Fight for the Future: How People Defeated Hollywood and Saved the Internet — For Now. The show, which airs regularly on Stanford University’s KZSU-FM, is hosted by Dave Levine, an Assistant Professor of Law at Elon University School of Law and a Non-Residential Fellow at the Center for Internet and Society (CIS) at Stanford Law School. It focuses primarily on intellectual property, communication, technology, and cyberlaw issues.

    In the interview, Lee and Levine unpack the many events and people responsible for the downfall of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and other controversial copyright bills like it. Listen here.

    Lee’s book is now available in both Kindle and paperback editions.

    Candy Crush Ragnarok: The Saga of Trademarking “Saga”

    by  • February 10, 2014 • 2 Comments

    By Sam Castree, III, Chicago-Kent College of Law, J.D. Class of 2013*

    On December 27, 2013, King.com (the makers of Candy Crush Saga and other video games) filed a Notice of Opposition with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office against the trademark registration of “The Banner Saga” by video game developer Stoic, LLC. King has caused a bit of an uproar on the Internet recently, not only for this opposition, but also for its attempts to individually register the word “Candy” and the word “Saga.”

    Inadvertently, this ordeal has shown how woefully ignorant the general populace is about intellectual property law. Comments like “I have decided to copyright the word King. Anyone found calling their game or company King will either change their name or pay me royalties. :)” and “So Microsoft can sue the guys who put the Windows in my House?” are nonsensical, legally speaking. Still, there is a semi-legitimate thread running through the rage: “How can King trademark a simple word like ‘candy’?” The off-the-cuff response is, “The same way that Apple Computers has trademarked “Apple.” All trademarks take the form Mark [X] for Brand [Y], where X≠Y. Apple has Apple™ for computers, but not for airliners, lingerie, or fruit. King wants to register “Saga” for “Provision of computer games on line or by means of a global computer network” and similar services. That falls within International Classification (IC) 41, per the Trademark Office.

    Honestly, my initial response to King opposing The Banner Saga was, “That’s ridiculous, there’s no way that’s going to work.” Then I read up a little, saw what was claimed in the opposition paper, and I thought, “Okay, I see where they’re coming from, but that’s still ridiculous and not going to work.”

    King already has several registered trademarks. It has registered the video game titles Bubble Saga, Bubble Witch Saga, Hoop De Loop Saga, Mahjong Saga, Puzzle Saga, Pyramid Saga and Pyramid Solitaire Saga. King has several other titles that are still working their way through the Trademark Office and are not yet registered (including, oddly enough, “Candy Crush Saga”). (more…)