In the News

CTIC faculty are frequently in the news on a wide range of topics. Here are some of the latest items:

Prof. Shyamkrishna Balganesh on copyright and digital distribution of textbooks (5/16/2012). Philadelphia Inquirer.

Professor Christopher Yoo on antitrust allegations against Google (4/27/2012). Forbes.

Professor Cary Coglianese writes on management scandals in the Obama administration (4/18/2012). Politico.

Professor R. Polk Wagner on patent laws and social media (4/11/2012). Ars Technica.

Professor Anita Allen comments on privacy, employment, and Facebook (4/3/2012). The Atlantic.

Professor Anita Allen on the Supreme Court's decision to allow jails to conduct strip-searches (4/3/2012). The Take Away.

Professor Anita Allen on Karl Rove's NAACP analogy (4/3/2012). Huffington Post .

Prof. Seth Kreimer comments on the proposed Obama administration contraception mandate. (2/10/2012). Philadelphia Inquirer.

R. Polk Wagner comments on courses and class material on iTunesU. (2/2/2012). The Daily Pennsylvanian.

Energy Dept. website redesign makes some documents hard to find. Cary Coglianese comments may affect other agencies as well: (2/1/2012). Federal Computer Week.

Cary Coglianese on taking regulation seriously @politico: (1/30/2012). Politico.

Anita Allen to lecture Mar. 28 on #privacy and the natural law @FordhamLawNYC: (1/20/2012). Fordham University .

Privacy invasion in home searches? Prof. Anita Allen comments: (1/20/2012). Middletown Journal.

Prof. Cary Coglianese highlighted in The Free State Foundation's "New burden on Public Participation" (1/18/2012). The Free State Foundation.

Prof. Anita Allen discusses privacy protections in the digital age in Philadelphia Inquirer's Time to 'like' new privacy laws? (1/13/2012). Philadelphia Inquirer.

NCPA examines David Abrams working paper on Third-Party Litigation Funding. (1/4/2012). NCPA.

ABA Journal highlights findings of Prof. Cary Coglianese’s study on federal agencies’ use of electronic media and e-rulemaking. (1/1/2012). ABA Journal.

Professor Christopher Yoo comments on AT&T's abandoned bid to acquire T-Mobile USA. "T-Mobile may be able to use its newfound cash and spectrum to bolster its fourth-place position in the wireless industry, just behind Sprint Nextel Corp," said Yoo. (12/20/2011). The Republic .

The Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, including Prof. Anita Allen, releases its report on human subjects protection, concluding that current rules and regulations provide adequate safeguards to mitigate risk. (12/15/2011). Penn News.

Professor Cary Coglianese, director of the Penn Program on Regulation, writes about the Regulatory Accountability Act in "The Arena." (12/3/2011). Politico.

Issuing a statement on behalf of the legal team representing victims who say they were assaulted as children by former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, Professor Seth Kreimer said liability issues in the scandal could expand to police and school districts in central Pennsylvania as well as the state Department of Public Welfare. (11/19/2011). Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Seth Kreimer, Kenneth W. Gemmill Professor of Law, has joined a group of attorneys assessing the legal and constitutional questions involved in the sex abuse scandal involving Jerry Sandusky and Penn State University. (11/15/2011). Centre Daily Times.

If the proposed Commercial Felony Streaming Act aims to create more incentive for prosecutors to go after copyright infringers, it’s missing the mark, said Assistant Professor of Law Shyamkrishna Balganesh. “I personally am not of the view that criminalization is achieving a lot over here,” said Balganesh. “The big problem with copyright law is it’s not providing enough clarity to users of information.” (11/2/2011). Talking Points Memo.

Professor Cary Coglianese speaks of the difficulty in turning public attention to e-rulemaking, a somewhat complex and technical process up to this point. “Ten years ago, people thought that if you put rulemaking materials online, there would be a groundswell of interest, but that has not happened,” said Coglianese. “There is not a lot of prominence to e-rulemaking, which is striking given that it is an essential role of government to create binding laws.” (10/24/2011). Federal Computer Week.

"Your readers should know that any information they give anyone on the Internet should be presumed public and shareable unless the information is provided to a reputable company that has explicitly promised confidentiality," said Professor Anita Allen to Watchdog columnist Dave Lieber. (10/22/2011). Star-Telegram.

An article about the new America Invents Act cites a study by Professors R. Polk Wagner and David Abrams of similar changes to the patent system in Canada twenty-two years ago. (10/20/2011). Tulsa World.

An article about the new America Invents Act cites a study by Professors R. Polk Wagner and David Abrams of similar changes to the patent system in Canada twenty-two years ago. (10/20/2011). Tulsa World.

Commenting on the Pittsburgh Steelers' threat to sue a business owner if he doesn't cease and desist from talking about buying a parking lot that the football team has an option to buy, Professor Anita Allen offered doubts on the strength of the potential case. (10/5/2011). Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Professor Shyamkrishna Balganesh said there's a "huge disparity" in the strength of Deadline's allegations against The Hollywood Reporter (THR). Legal experts agree that proving THR committed copyright infringement by publishing similar news stories as Deadline would be hard to prove, while its claims that THR stole programming code from one of its websites is much more straightforward and precedented. (9/14/2011). Reuters.

A recent study by professors David S. Abrams and R. Polk Wagner suggests that corporations and institutions may benefit at the expense of independent inventors under the proposed America Invents Act of 2011. The act, which will switch the United States from its current first-to-invent standard to a first-to-patent one, is similar to the system adopted by Canada in 1989. (9/14/2011). Toronto Star.

A recent study by professors David S. Abrams and R. Polk Wagner suggests that corporations and institutions may benefit at the expense of independent inventors under the proposed America Invents Act of 2011. The act, which will switch the United States from its current first-to-invent standard to a first-to-patent one, is similar to the system adopted by Canada in 1989. (9/14/2011). Toronto Star.

Speaking to the initial assumption after September 11, 2001 that all bets were off, legally speaking, in the subsequent war on terror, Professor Seth Kreimer said the Supreme Court has remained true to the Constitution. "We have learned that we don't have to abandon our ideals and our system to survive in a world that is uncertain and dangerous," said Kreimer. (9/11/2011). Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

A patent-system overhaul nearly a decade in the making is expected to receive final congressional passage this month, switching the United States from the current “first-to-invent” system to the “first-to-file” system. To gauge the possible effects of this legislation, professors R. Polk Wagner and David Abrams studied the impact of a similar change in Canada's patent filing system in 1989, finding that the number of individual inventors who filed patents dropped and didn't go back up in the following years. "To the extent we think the patent systems in the U.S. and Canada are similar, we might expect to see a similar outcome in the U.S.," says Abrams. (9/7/2011). Wall Street Journal (subscription only).

A patent-system overhaul nearly a decade in the making is expected to receive final congressional passage this month, switching the United States from the current “first-to-invent” system to the “first-to-file” system. To gauge the possible effects of this legislation, professors R. Polk Wagner and David Abrams studied the impact of a similar change in Canada's patent filing system in 1989, finding that the number of individual inventors who filed patents dropped and didn't go back up in the following years. "To the extent we think the patent systems in the U.S. and Canada are similar, we might expect to see a similar outcome in the U.S.," says Abrams. (9/7/2011). Wall Street Journal (subscription only).

Professor Christopher Yoo calls the Justice Department's move Wednesday to block AT&T Inc.'s $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile USA on the grounds that the combination would hurt competition a shock, saying, "With T-Mobile's competitive problems you could reasonably make the case that T-Mobile doesn't have the resources to be a viable player without the merger." (9/1/2011). Wall Street Journal (subscription only).

Anita Allen, Henry R. Silverman Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy, discusses the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues' findings in its investigation of medical experimentation on Guatemalan subjects in the 1940s. Allen, who serves as a member of the commission, calls the experiments that intentionally infected sex workers, prisoners, soldiers and mental patients with syphilis — without their consent — "absolutely outside the scope of what was legitimately considered ethical and humane conduct in the United States." (8/31/2011). Democracy Now! (video).

Speaking of the need for federal agencies to improve their online presentations of rule-making information for the general public, Professor Cary Coglianese says, "This information should be accessible to all Americans, not just to those sophisticated players that know how to navigate through the system to find it." (8/30/2011). Nextgov.com.

The Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues has concluded that researchers who purposely infected unwitting subjects with sexually transmitted diseases in Guatemala in the 1940s knew their conduct was unethical. “The researchers put their own medical advancement first and human decency a far second,” says Penn Law Professor Anita Allen, a member of the commission. (8/30/2011). Washington Post. New York Times.

Cary Coglianese, Edward B. Shils Professor of Law and Professor of Political Science, says the website Performance.gov gives visitors "a picture of what high-level officials in the White House might be seeing when they're managing what's happening across the entire federal government." (8/26/2011). Marketplace.

Working under commission from the Administrative Conference of the United States, Professor Cary Coglianese has published a study with recommendations for federal agencies to improve their use of the Internet for electronic rulemaking. (8/22/2011). Federal Times.

Speaking to the importance of federal agencies providing clear links to rulemaking pages on their websites, Professor Cary Coglianese writes, "Rulemaking may perhaps never be a 'top task' in terms of the numbers of web users, but in a democracy few tasks compare in significance with the ability of government agencies to create binding law." (8/16/2011). FierceGovernment. FierceGovernment Editor's Corner.

Professor Anita Allen discusses privacy concerns related to the use of facial recognition technology by law enforcement and social media websites. (7/21/2011). WHYY.

Professor Christopher S. Yoo calls an impending investigation into Google's search-advertising business by the Federal Trade Commission "a major headache for Google even if they ultimately prevail in court." Yoo says that even though changes in antitrust laws in the United States have made it much harder for the government to prevail, the U.S. investigation "will occupy many, many hours of management's time and attention." (6/23/2011). The Guardian.

Penn Law Professor and Deputy Dean Anita L. Allen joins a discussion of how the "publicness" of the internet may or may not affect civility, privacy rights and free expression. Allen writes, "We shouldn’t let the novelty of Web culture cause us to forget the value of old-fashioned decency toward others." (6/22/2011). New York Times.

In a defeat for Wall Street banks, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday that Theflyonthewall.com Inc. did not misappropriate its stock research by publishing headlines about analyst upgrades and downgrades. Asserting that the enforcement of a ban on the republishing of "hot news" is "not the way to protect research," Penn Law Professor Shyamkrishna Balganesh says, "Wall Street needs to take technological measures or alter its business model to prevent competitors from using information without paying." (6/20/2011). Reuters.