Tag: Academia

Bookman’s Alley

Borges would approve. Stack upon stack of used books. A labyrinth tucked inside an alley. You enter and see a Tiffany lamp cast shadows on the dark wooden stacks. An older gentleman peers over his book.  Ancient maps, esoteric histories, musty Persian rugs and philosophical tracts. A vintage chair invites you to sit.

Those are the fragments of my recollection of Bookman’s Alley bookstore in Evanston, Illinois.

During my Northwestern days, I would occasionally stroll into to that singular bookstore.  One day, I walked in and picked up a copy of “History of the Yale Law School: The Tercentenary Lectures“  Little did I know that this obscure book (as randomly obtained as can be obtained by any stochastic process) would re-shape my entire outlook on the law as a subject rich in realism and experience.

I was sad to learn that Bookman’s Alley, as reported by Chicago Today, is scheduled to close in July.

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Research Spotlight: Administrative Patent Levers

My most recent article, Administrative Patent Levers was accepted for publication in the Penn State Law Review. This article looks at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) and how they implement rules that are technology-specific and policy-oriented. This is a major departure from the PTO’s prior role since they have historically been limited to procedural rule making by the courts. The PTO’s implementation of administrative patent levers signals a potential new era of greater policy making by the PTO.

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Huber Hurst Legal Studies Research Symposium

Once a year, the legal studies group at the University of Florida’s Warrington College of Business provide an opportunity for legal studies scholars to meet and share their research at the Huber Hurst Legal Studies Research Symposium. A few weeks ago, I had the honor and pleasure of serving as a discussant at the Hurst Seminar. Papers were presented on a variety of topics, including: advertising law, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, corporate law, tax law, international civil procedure and the deregulation of the legal profession.

A wonderful thing about being an academic is being able to travel to interesting places, like Gainseville. My wife and I enjoyed the city from the get go, stopping to dine at eclectic, fun places like Boca Fiesta. The outdoor patio at Boca Fiesta is worth visiting and their fusion cuisine tacos are out of this world. Next door, the Palomino Pool Hall offers an opportunity to spot local pool sharks and townies out for a night of leisure.

To top things off, my wife bought me a painting from a local sidewalk artist named Bill Peglar. I immediately fell in love with the painting since, to me, it perfectly represents Florida. The artist even said that he could “feel the humidity” in the painting.

Artist: Bill Peglar
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Research Spotlight: Friends of the court: Using Amicus Briefs to Identify Corporate Advocacy Positions in Supreme Court Patent Litigation

Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management profiled my recent publication, co-authored with Kellogg faculty member James Conley. This work examines amicus (friend of the court) briefs submitted during U.S. Supreme Court patent litigation, and published in the University of Illinois Journal of Law, Technology & Policy.

by Categories: Intellectual property controversies, Patents, Policy, ResearchTags: , Leave a comment

Research Spotlight: Beyond the Board of Directors

In a Wake Forest Law Review article, FSU Law professor Kelli Alces provides a novel and intriguing recommendation to re-shape how corporations are governed in America. Her recommendation is to eliminate the board of directors as the ultimate decision-maker. From a legal realism perspective, which looks at human behavior as a driver of legal outcomes, it is worth rethinking the value and efficacy of the board as the supreme governing body in Corporate America. As professor Alces mentions:

“A firm’s investors and other influential constituents use their contract rights against the firm to influence management and monitor management more carefully than the board can to protect their interests and investments in the firm.”

Delaware corporate law and other statutes, however, require that corporations be governed by a board with some independent members. Investors and entrepreneurs who want to opt out of this structure may opt for the limited liability company, or LLC. LLCs, unlike corporations, do not require a board as the ultimate overseers of business decisions. Under LLC law, the owners may delegate or assign responsibility among themselves, or to managers.

Professor Alces’ paper is accessible on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN), here.

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Research Spotlight: Empirically Testing Scotchmer’s Theory of Sex-Based Risk Aversion

This post will inaugurate a new feature of this blog. At times, whenever I come across a paper or research talk that poses an interesting legal finding or issue, I’ll profile it as a research spotlight. To kick off this feature, I’ll discuss a paper written by a colleague at Florida State University.

Today I attended a talk at the FSU Law School at which Professor Dino Falaschetti presented his paper: “A Difficulty in the Concept of Affirmative Action: Evidence from Females in Legislatures”. The paper empirically tests Suzanne Scotchmer’s theory, which posits that: “(1) winner-take-all games (e.g., promotions in hierarchies) favor inherently risk-taking males, but (2) successful females maintain greater skill on average and (3) see this skill-advantage depreciate with repeated play.”

The paper makes a contribution since the theory has rarely ever been empirically tested. A clever experiment was designed using elections in legislatures in both majoritarian (winner take all) vs. proportional election systems. The U.S. follows the majoritarian electoral system, where the candidate who garners the majority (> 50%) votes wins. Many, if not most, countries follow a proportional system whereby parties and their candidates obtain representation in proportion to the votes they obtain.

The article’s findings suggest a statistically significant result that demonstrates a negative correlation between elected female legislators and winner take all (majoritiarian) electoral systems across time and 130 countries . Ultimately, the author positions these findings as challenging the outcomes of affirmative action programs, since gender may ultimately lead to unintentional results due to the outcomes generated by risk preferences unique to gender type.  I think the paper may also raise some interesting questions related to institutional economics, given that similar outcomes were seen across a broad spectrum of societies and cultures

The link to the article on SSRN is here.

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