Online

Brian Christopher Jones

Another turbulent Supreme Court term has left liberals pleased and conservatives disenchanted; exactly the opposite of last year’s conclusion, when liberals were gloomy and conservatives elated. And while the Court is certainly no stranger to controversy, at this point in the Roberts Era, something is different. The difference appears not through the divisiveness of the Court’s docket, which has remained consistent throughout the years, but in the way the American public, including journalists and others, now thinks and speaks about the institution. As its political nature becomes more easily discerned—both because of the issues it is deciding and the language used in the Court’s decisions—reverence to the institution, its Justices, and more importantly, its decisions, appears to be increasingly scarce.

Is the Constitution failing? In what ways and how should we respond? Is it time to rewrite the Constitution?

On November 7, 2014, scholars from across the country met at the University of Wisconsin Law School to consider these crucial questions during a Symposium hosted by the Wisconsin Center for the Study of Liberal Democracy. Participants were invited to submit pieces on the topic, and Wisconsin Law Review is publishing the essays in its first-ever WLR Online Symposium. WLR Online is publishing the articles throughout the Spring 2015 semester, so please continue to check back for new additions.

Michael A. Carrier

In Limelight Networks, Inc. v. Akamai Technologies, Inc., the Supreme Court addressed the relationship between direct infringement under § 271(a) of the Patent Act and induced infringement under § 271(b). The Court held that a defendant could be liable for inducing infringement of a patented process only if a single party would have been liable for performing all of the steps constituting direct infringement. In this short article, I provide the background to the opinion, discuss the ruling, and offer four lessons.

Michael A. Carrier is a Distinguished Professor at Rutgers School of Law.

Jonathan C. Lipson

Say what you will about Justice Clarence Thomas: unlike the protagonist in Elvis Costello’s paean to libidinal frustration, his unanimous opinion in Executive Benefits Insurance Agency v. Arkison (In re Bellingham), certainly resists many temptations left by its predecessor, Stern v. Marshall, to define what bankruptcy courts can and cannot do. Rather than take on Stern’s grand systemic concerns—the nature of the Article III “judicial power” —Bellingham whimpers out on a technicality, concluding that problems created by Stern can be statutorily “severed” and thus resolved with the slice of a judicial knife. [. . .] This essay briefly summarizes the problems created by Stern and five ways in which Bellingham failed to fix them.

Jonathan C. Lipson is the Harold E. Kohn Professor of Law at Temple University, Beasley School of Law.

Brian J. Levy

In January 2014, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit became the fifth circuit court to hold that a habeas corpus procedural rule — exhaustion — bars habeas petitioners from advancing all cumulative error arguments when they failed to raise cumulative error in their state court proceedings. Only one circuit — the Fifth Circuit — allows petitioners to raise cumulative error for the first time in his or her habeas appeal. This Essay argues that the plurality has erred.

Matthew L.M. Fletcher & Nicholas J. Reo

This is a reply to Jason Sanders’s student comment, Wolves, Lone and Pack: Ojibwe Treaty Rights and the Wisconsin Wolf Hunt, 2013 Wis. L. Rev. 1263.

Professor Matthew L.M. Fletcher is Professor of Law, Michigan State University College of Law, and Director of the Indigenous Law and Policy Center, and an Enrolled Member of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians. Professor Nicholas J. Reo is Assistant Professor at Dartmouth College in the Native American and Environmental Studies Departments. Professor Reo is also an Enrolled Member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians.

Shubha Ghosh

This is Professor Ghosh’s reply to Mark A. Lemley’s article, Software Patents and the Return of Functional Claiming, 2013 Wis. L. Rev. 905.

The subject of Professor Lemley’s article, software patents, is timely and of social relevance. Software is everywhere, serving as tools to control and direct the flow of information and as modern-day gears and pulleys to operate everyday consumer products. As a critical input to many aspects of our contemporary life, the ability of a company to exclude others from software raises questions about the competitiveness and innovativeness of many industries. Since the 1960s, software patents have been a source of suspicion among those who want to keep software out of the clutches of big business.

Professor Shubha Ghosh is the Vilas Research Fellow & Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin Law School.

Michael A. Carrier

This is Professor Carrier’s reply to the series of responses for his article, “Copyright and Innovation: The Untold Story”, published in WLR Online Issues 4-6.

I begin by noting how Marks’s response overemphasizes old business models and insufficiently appreciates the synergy between technological and creative innovation, while offering an ironically upbeat assessment of new technologies the record labels tried to quash and a newfound unsupported interpretation of the Constitution. I then explain how Picker’s emphasis on an ideal solution that would maximize copyright-related distribution innovation runs aground on the realities of copyright enforcement today. Finally, I highlight Masnick’s recounting of the themes I described in my article in settings ranging from ringtones to videogames to cable television alternatives.

Michael A. Carrier is a Distinguished Professor at Rutgers School of Law.

Randal C. Picker

This is the third and final piece in a series of responses to Professor Michael Carrier’s article, “Copyright and Innovation: The Untold Story.”

The history of copyright and technology is one of conflict as each new means of distribution has emerged. We have seen this repeatedly with piano rolls, the phonograph, radio, TV, cable TV, and, perhaps most recently, the Internet. As has been noted before by me and others, copyright law establishes the framework in which new tools of distribution can be introduced. Copyright can kill technology, as perhaps occurred with digital audiotape and the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992. And copyright itself can be changed to make possible entry as occurred when statutory licenses were introduced to deal with Aeolian’s possible piano roll monopoly and to make possible the rise of cable television.

Michael Carrier considers this pattern again in his piece, “Copyright and Innovation: The Untold Story,” where he focuses on the rise and fall of Napster. Through a series of interviews with industry participants, Carrier argues that the technology industry—meaning here the entrepreneurs and their venture capital financers—reduced its efforts at producing new music innovations in response to litigation over Napster.

Professor Randal C. Picker is James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law at The University of Chicago Law School and Senior Fellow at The Computation Institute of the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory.

Mike Masnick

This is the second piece in a series of responses to Professor Michael Carrier’s article, “Copyright and Innovation: The Untold Story.”

Innovation is a difficult thing to measure or spot at the moment it is occurring. There are so many moving variables, and any innovation, inevitably, unseats an incumbent of some sort, and often that incumbent fights back against innovation, sometimes making compelling arguments that the innovation will cause more harm than good. But holding back innovation is rarely an effective long-term strategy. At the moment innovation occurs, it is often derided, and rarely is it seen for the benefits that eventually emerge. Measuring it directly is equally troublesome.

Mike Masnick is Founder and CEO of Floor64 and Founder and Editor in Chief of Techdirt.