事后监督与当庭监督应当兼容并施

任何监督的目的均在于给被监督者施以一种约束力量,以促使被监督者向着监督者指引的方向运行。法律监督就是在解决监督者所要达到的依法状态与被监督者的立法、执法内容或行为是否合乎这种状态的矛盾,从而保证国家的法律能够正确、统一地实施。庭审监督是检察机关作为监督主体为了维护国家的利益和法律不受侵害,保护当事人的合法权益,依据刑诉法规定而对庭审活动的违法情况予以及时纠正,保证审判活动的正常进行。这就是庭审法律监督的价值取向。     

Irish 'Lipitor' litigation: High Court favours broad claim construction

In its first significant judgment on claim construction in over25 years, Ireland's High Court approved the principles laiddown by the English House of Lords in Kirin-Amgen, holding thatWarner-Lambert's ‘Lipitor’ patent is not limitedto a racemic mixture and refusing Ranbaxy a declaration of non-infringement.     

An introduction to the law and economics of class action litigation

The consolidation of similar claims for compensation into a single large class of plaintiffs is referred to as “class action litigation.” This practice can have both social costs and social benefits. For an example of the social benefits of consolidating separate claims, if the facts giving rise to the claims are substantially similar, then there may be significant savings in litigation and court administrative costs from presenting those facts once rather a multitude of times. There may, however, be significant social costs to creating a class of litigants and consolidating their claims. For example, this practice may empower those with frivolous negative expected-value claims to wring an unwarranted settlement from the defendant or defendants. The article surveys other sources of social cost and benefit from class-action litigation, reviews the empirical literature on these actions, and examines recent U.S. policy debates about reforming class-action litigation. The article concludes that class-action litigation can have substantial net social benefits but only if courts assiduously oversee the class certification process so as to identify and forestall the social-cost-generating aspects of class-action litigation.     

Supreme Court finds red cross negligent in screening blood donors

On 19 April 2001, the Supreme Court of Canada released its first judgments in litigation alleging the Canadian Red Cross Society was negligent for inadequately screening blood donors in the early 1980s. It upheld an order that damages in the amount of over $2.5 million be paid to three individuals who contracted HIV between 1983 and 1985 from contaminated blood.     

Article 81 Defence struck out in 'legitimate reasons' infringement action

In an action for trade mark infringement under s 12(2) TradeMarks Act 1994 to prevent the removal of label information andswing tags from premium brand clothing an Article 81 defencepleading hard-core anti-competitive covenants between the proprietorand his distributors was struck out for lack of nexus.