Patent Infringement as Criminal Conduct
Criminal and civil law differ greatly in their use of the element of intent. The purposes of intent in each legal system are tailored to effectuate very different goals. The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Global-Tech Appliances, Inc. v. SEB S.A., 131 S. Ct. 2060 (2011), however, imported a criminal concept of intent — willful blindness — into the statute for patent infringement, a civil offense, despite these differences. This importation of a criminal law concept of intent into the patent statute is novel and calls for examination. This Article compares the purposes behind intent in criminal law with the purposes behind intent in patent law to demonstrate that this importation does not achieve the policy goals of the patent regime. Criminal law jurisprudence requires an intent element for three reasons: to ascribe a level of moral blameworthiness to an act, to separate criminal from civil liability, and to shield otherwise innocently acting defendants from criminal punishment. Patent infringement actions, by contrast, lack an intent element because they almost exclusively seek to remedy economic harms. The importation of criminal concepts of knowledge into the patent infringement statute may therefore lead to unwanted consequences, particularly, higher-than-warranted burdens of proof for patent holders. To this end, equating criminal mental states to civil ones risks treating patent infringement as criminal conduct. This Article concludes by proposing that courts should examine the purposes of mental state requirements on a statute-by-statute basis.
Nuisance Law: Corrective Justice and Its Utilitarian Constraints
Finally, the tax without compensation cannot protect both parties' entitlements, but otherwise may protect or may violate the factory's and the laundry's entitlements. Obviously, relative to the tax with marginal compensation, entitlement protection is more difficult to accomplish. If the entitlement point is in the first or second region, whether the parties' entitlements are protected still depends on the level of the marginal tax and the parties' behavior. If the entitlement point is in the third region, the factory's entitlement is still violated, but now the laundry's entitlement may not be protected if the parties bargain destructively.
The Last Days of Socrates
'Consider just this, and give your minds to this alone: whether or not what I say is just'. Plato's account of Socrates' trial and death (399 BC) is a significant moment in Classical literature and the life of Classical Athens. In these four dialogues, Plato develops the Socratic belief in responsibility for one's self and shows Socrates living and dying under his philosophy. In "Euthyphro", Socrates debates goodness outside the courthouse; "Apology" sees him in court, rebutting all charges of impiety; in "Crito", he refuses an entreaty to escape from prison; and in "Phaedo", Socrates faces his impending death with calmness and skillful discussion of immortality. Christopher Rowe's introduction to his powerful new translation examines the book's themes of identity and confrontation, and explores how its content is less historical fact than a promotion of Plato's Socratic philosophy.