New Issue of Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review Is Here

Thanks to the outstanding work of its editors and staff members, the Winter 2009 issue of the Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review has just been released to the public! The issue opens with an article from Professor Jerome H. Reichman, the Bunyan S. Womble Professor of Law at Duke Law School, on “Rethinking the Role of Clinical Trial Data in International Intellectual Property: The Case for a Public Goods Approach.”  An early version of this article was presented by Professor Reichman as the 11th Honorable Helen Wilson Nies Momorial lecture at Marquette Law School in March of 2008.  The publication also features two additional articles, one from St. Mary’s University School of Law Professor Robert H. Hu on “International Legal Protection of Trademarks in China,” and one from  Dr. Thomas M. Mackey on “Nanobiotechnology, Synthetic Biology, and RNAI: Patent Portfolios for Maximal Near-Term Commercialization and Commons for Maximal Long-Term Medical Gain.”  Last, but not least, two excellent comments from our own students conclude the issue: Tiffany N. Beaty on “Navigating the Safe Harbor Rule: The Need for a DMCA Compass,” and Jeremiah A. Bryaron on “What Goes Around, Comes Around: How Indian Tribes Can Profit in the Aftermath of Seminole Tribe and Florida Prepaid.”

To all students and authors who put so much work into making this endeavor a success, congratulations again on an excellent Issue of the Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review! And to all others . . . enjoy the readings; they are truly interesting and greatly contribute to the academic and professional dialogue well beyond the intellectual property community!

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U.S. Attorney Candidates Advance

The Federal Nominating Commission for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, which I chair, has forwarded four names to Senators Kohl and Feingold for further consideration as the next United States Attorney.  The four candidates include three current federal prosecutors, Richard Frohling, Mel Johnson, and James Santelle, as well as Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Maxine White, who is a former federal prosecutor.  The Commission is required to supply a list of four to six qualified candidates to the Senators, and does not rank the candidates on that list.

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Seventh Circuit Week in Review: Racial Discrimination in Jury Selection and Improper Closing Arguments

The Seventh Circuit had three new opinions in criminal cases last week.  The most interesting was United States v. McMath (No. 08-2316), which featured the Seventh Circuit’s most extended discussion to date of Snyder v. Louisana, 128 S. Ct. 1203 (2008).  In my view, the Supreme Court’s decision in Snyder represented a real break-through in the Court’s on-again/off-again efforts to eliminate racial bias from the jury-selection process.  In McMath (which was, coincidentally, decided on the exact one-year anniversary of Snyder), the Seventh Circuit seemed to recognize the significance of Snyder and awarded the defendant a remand for further consideration of the racial bias issue in the district court.  McMath also included an interesting discussion of questionable closing arguments made by the prosecutor.

McMath’s jury-selection claim centered on alleged racial bias in the prosecutor’s use of peremptory strikes.  In Batson v. Kentucky, of course, the Supreme Court made clear that prosecutors are prohibited from removing potential jurors from a case on account of their race.  Here are the relevant facts from McMath:

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