Search

In an environment in which widely adopted technical standards may each be covered by large numbers of patents, there have been increasing calls for courts to determine "fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory" (FRAND) royalties payable to holders of standards-essential patents (SEPs) using "topdown" methodologies. Top-down royalty approaches begin with the aggregate royalty that should be payable with respect to all SEPs covering a particular standard, and then allocate a portion of the total to individual SEPs. Top-down approaches avoid many drawbacks associated with bottom-up approaches in which royalties for individual SEPs are assessed, often in an inconsistent and piecemeal manner, without regard for the other SEPs that cover the standard. Yet despite the potential benefits of top-down methodologies, one of the most promising means for determining aggregate royalty levels--joint agreement by the members of the relevant standards-development organization (SDO)--has gained little traction. The idea of SDO participants jointly negotiating FRAND royalties attracted the attention of commentators and antitrust agencies about a decade ago, when a handful of SDOs began to explore mandatory ex ante rate disclosure requirements. But few SDOs adopted such policies, and joint negotiations were never incorporated into the mainstream standardization process. One reason that SDOs have been hesitant to endorse joint royalty negotiations is the perceived risk of antitrust liability arising from concerted action among competitors. But as numerous commentators and antitrust officials have reiterated, this fear is largely misplaced in the context of industry standardsetting. Thus, SDOs should follow the lead of patent pools and begin more actively to determine aggregate patent royalty burdens for standards that they develop. In addition, antitrust and competition authorities should assure the market that collective agreement on aggregate royalty rates alone should not give rise to antitrust liability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sentencing literature is replete with studies that have examined the influence of extralegal offender characteristics on two key sentence outcomes: the imprisonment and sentence length decisions. Yet the study of other outcomes, such as the application of intermediate sanctions, is rarely addressed. To date, no studies have been conducted in the federal courts to examine the potential influence of race/ethnicity, age, gender, and educational attainment on the decision to apply intermediate sanctions. Consequently, the present analysis employs U.S. Sentencing Commission data to examine direct and interactive effects of these extralegal characteristics on this understudied outcome. Findings indicate that extralegal effects may play an important role in the use of intermediate sanctions. The implications of this research are discussed in detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous studies have examined the influence of offender characteristics on sentencing outcomes, yet little attention has been afforded to offenders’ educational attainment. The focal concerns theory provides reason to suspect that greater educational attainment may insulate offenders from the effects of criminal stereotypes linked to extralegal factors, including race/ethnicity, age, and sex. The current analysis employs a sample of 115,674 federal offenders to test this assumption on the in/out and sentence length decisions. Results of the in/out models demonstrate a general pattern where the effects of several extralegal factors (i.e., race, ethnicity, age, sex, and detention) are reduced, and in some cases fully moderated, by offenders’ educational attainment. This pattern, however, is not apparent during the sentence length decision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of United States v. Booker and Gall/Kimbrough v. United States, sentencing researchers and legal scholars conducted research designed to identify their impact on the federal sentencing process, with a focus on determining whether the decisions increased unwarranted disparity. In this article, we extend this body of research. Using 10 years of data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission and data from other sources, we assess whether and how these decisions influence sentence severity. Results indicate that sentence severity declined following Booker and, especially, Gall/Kimbrough, but that the decisions’ effects on sentence severity varied significantly across U.S. District Courts. Most importantly, the impact of Gall/Kimbrough sentence severity was conditioned by districts’ percent Black population, level of socioeconomic disadvantage, and degree of political conservatism; each of these factors moderated the decisions’ effects on the harshness of the sentences imposed by the districts’ judges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite recent research demonstrating the impact of inmate perceptions of correctional legitimacy on order maintenance, the extant literature has failed to examine the contextual reality of correctional excessive use of force claims. Utilizing legal cases from the U.S. Court of Appeals and U.S. District Courts, this article examines correctional officer excessive use of non-deadly force and identifies recurring themes in these claims. Findings highlight the common occurrence of retaliatory violence, negative attitudes, failure to listen to inmate concerns, inadequate training, and an inability to decipher reliable threat cues consistently present in correctional officer use of non-deadly force claims. Suggestions for future research and policy implications are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the legal aspects related to the Hatch-Waxman Act for generic drugs in eastern districts of Virginia. Topics include the Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) for generic drugs which requires approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the good speed of trial in the courts of the eastern districts of Virginia as compared to the U.S. District Courts and the Federal Circuit, and experienced judges for patent related cases in eastern Virginia courts.

In 2007, after years of dissatisfaction with the 100-to-1 disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine, the U.S. Sentencing Commission amended the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, reducing by two levels the base offense level assigned to threshold quantities of crack cocaine. The amendment was subsequently made retroactive, which required the federal courts to process approximately 20,000 prisoner motions for sentence reduction. Using data collected from a case study of one particular district as well as a survey of representatives from the 94 federal judicial districts, this study examines the process of “crack retroactivity” implementation. The authors found that court communities varied greatly with respect to their organizational arrangements, procedures, and motivations. Although U.S. Probation and Pretrial Services played an important role in every district, how and why districts organized to respond to crack retroactivity varied. The study findings also indicate that sentencing procedures may be another mechanism through which location affects sentencing outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals, Inc. et al. v. Watson Pharmaceuticals, Inc. et al. 713 F.3d 1369 (Fed. Cir. 2013), the Federal Circuit reversed the District Court's grant of summary judgment and found the asserted patent claims obvious in view of the cited prior art. Neither the Federal Circuit nor the District Court addressed the issue of commercial success despite the fact that the patentee had submitted evidence of commercial success in its opposition to Defendants' motion for summary judgment (but not in support of its own motion for summary judgment). This case report presents the decision of the District Court, the arguments made to the Federal Circuit by the parties and how the Federal Circuit addressed these issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to determine whether offenders’ history of hard drug use and hard drug use at the time of the crime affect case outcomes for offenders in three federal district courts. We focus on three outcomes—whether the offender was in pretrial detention prior to adjudication, whether the offender received a downward departure for providing substantial assistance, and the length of the sentence imposed on offenders who were sentenced to prison—and we hypothesize that the offender’s history of drug use and drug use at the time of the crime will have varying effects on the three outcomes. Our results reveal that use of illegal drugs had multifaceted, but not illogical, effects. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In Novo Nordisk A/S et al. v. Caraco Pharma. Labs., Ltd. et al., 688 F.3d 766 (Fed. Cir. 2012), the Federal Circuit addressed the scope of the injunction issued by the District Court in light of the Supreme Court's decision in Caraco Pharmaceutical Laboratories Ltd. et al. v. Novo Nordisk A/S et al. (U.S. 2012). The Federal Circuit found that the District Court had abused its discretion in issuing its injunction and modified the injunction accordingly. This case report presents the arguments made to the Federal Circuit by the parties and how the Federal Circuit addressed those issues. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article offers a case report presenting the arguments made at the U.S. District Court and Federal Circuit in In re Brimonidine Patent Litigation, and also discussing how each of these courts addressed the issues raised by the parties. In this case, the Federal Circuit reversed the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware's holding that Exela PharmaSci, Inc. literally infringed U.S. Patent No. 6,641,834 and also reversed the District Court's decision.

There has been significant scholarly research on judicial decision making and bureaucratic control but little research on bureaucrats who perform a judicial function, namely, administrative law judges. In this article, we analyze the influences on the decisions of administrative law judges (ALJs) from 1991 to 2006. Using ordered logit, we examine the influence of policy preference and hierarchical and political constraint. We find that ALJs are comparable to Federal District Court judges in that they use ideology in their rulings, are also subject to hierarchical control by higher courts, and that they are constrained by separation of powers influences. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Prior studies hypothesize that judges time their retirements to allow a like-minded president to select their replacements. We propose a modification to this argument and theorize that during the earlier part of a district court judge’s career, it is the likelihood of elevation to an appeals court and other career-oriented concerns that affect whether the judge resigns or stays on the bench. It is during the latter stage of a judge’s career when the desire to be replaced with a like-minded judge affects the retirement decision. Our analysis reveals that judges who are not yet pension eligible are influenced by being passed over for appeals court nominations as well as financial incentives to leave for private practice. Only judges who have attained pension eligibility appear to consider their ideological compatibility with the president when deciding to call it quits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research examining disparities in sentencing outcomes under federal sentencing guidelines has focused almost exclusively on aggregate national data. Although these studies contribute considerably to the criminological literature on sentencing disparity, their findings may have masked contextual variation in relation to case processing across jurisdictions. With data from the U.S. District Courts for Minnesota, Nebraska, and Southern Iowa for 1998 through 2000, this article assesses whether interdistrict variations in sentence outcomes exist and whether the factors that affect these outcomes vary across jurisdictions. It also attempts to determine whether disparities in sentence outcomes can be attributed to downward departures. The findings raise questions about the validity of the assumption of uniformity in the federal sentencing process and the use of aggregate data to study federal sentence outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Federal narcotics sentencing policy, most notably for cocaine, has been criticized in regard to its excessive severity and racially disparate outcomes. Crack cocaine was heavily portrayed in the media during the 1980s as a dire social threat directly worsening the crime rate, a threat taken seriously as indicated by greater legislative enactment of mandatory minimums specifically targeting narcotics offenses. The research here uses a theoretical-mixed methodological symmetry (focal concerns perspective--content/regression analysis) to explore media portrayal of, and case outcomes for, crack versus powder cocaine offenders. Media portrayals of powder and crack cocaine offenders are considered through examination of USA today articles. These media portrayals are compared with official outcomes through a temporally corresponding regression analysis of federal crack and powder cocaine offenders from federal district court. Findings inform discussion of policy implications and invite scrutiny of media construction of crime problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does the hierarchical relationship between the district courts and the courts of appeals influence decision making at the trial level? Do these judges anticipate responses by appellate panels and condition their decisions based on these expectations? Using a sample of district court cases from 1925 to 1996 that were subsequently reviewed by the courts of appeals, and incorporating a strategic choice statistical framework, I discover that the district courts are constrained by the anticipated responses of the appeals courts. However, this conclusion is not apparent if one analyzes the data using traditional maximum likelihood methods. Only when empirical analyses specifically model underlying strategic relationships does one discover this constraint. If the federal trial judges anticipate a negative response on appeal, then they curtail their ideological influences (the magnitude of influence decreases by approximately one-half). This pattern remains consistent when one examines civil liberties and economic cases, but not for criminal cases. Thus, the hierarchical structure of the federal judiciary appears to exert a significant constraint on the district courts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the Aventis v. Lupin Ltd. case in the U.S. The US Court for the Eastern District of Virginia found that Claims 1,2,4 and 5 of US Patent No.5,061,722 were valid and infringed under the doctrine of equivalents by Lupin Ltd and Lupin Pharmaceuticals, Inc.'s proposed generic version of ramipril capsules. On June 5, 2006, the court issued the ruling on the summary judgment motions and declined to find that Lupin's capsules literally infringed.

The article presents a study which investigates the groups' superiority in making decision. It states that federal judges of the U.S District Courts from 1963-1968 were used as the subjects in the study, and their judicial decision as primary datum. Results show little difference between collegial and single-judge court decisions on appeal.

The article provides an update on the Circuit Court Case Jefferson County School District R-1 v. Elizabeth E. including the history of the case, a summary of facts and an analysis on the reasoning behind the Court's decision. Topics discussed an evaluation of Elizabeth who was then found eligible for special education as a student with serious emotional and related services and conclusion that the district failed to provide free appropriate public education (FAPE).