Case comment: Moore v. Regents of the University of California.

The increasing use of human tissues in medical research has spawned a host of ethical and legal debates. Legal analysis in this area has almost exclusively focused on the question of property rights in both the tissues used in research and in the resulting products. One illustrative case is Moore v. Regents of the University of California, in which a patient sued his doctor for conversion of his spleen which had been removed for therapeutic purposes. The doctor later used the spleen to develop a patented and profitable cell-line. This Comment examines and rejects the property law approach to this issue. Instead, this Comment proposes two legislative changes which would 1) eliminate any trade in human tissues and 2) require doctors to inform their patients of any research interest in proposed medical procedures. These proposals resolve the problem presented in Moore, and avoid the misleading, and inevitably unanswerable, question of property rights.     

U.S. Industries v. Director: "claim" versus "condition" in the analysis of workers' compensation cases

Under most workers' compensation statutes, an injury must "arise out of " and "in the course of" employment in order to qualify as a compensable disability. In U.S. Industries v. Director, the Supreme Court held that the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act must be strictly construed to avoid transforming the compensation system into a form of social insurance. In U.S. Industries, the Court denied a disability claim based on an arthritic condition which was manifested while the worker was at home in bed. This Note contends that the Supreme Court neglected to consider pertinent medical realities when analyzing the causation question. Thus, the decision undermines the overall rationale behind workers' compensation legislation. Nonetheless, the Note argues that the case does not relax the requirement of adequately scrutinizing the causative elements underlying any reasonable claim for disability benefits. An analysis adequately accommodating both medical and legal facts, instead of relying upon the vagaries of statutory interpretation, is necessary to improve the efficiency and fairness of workers' compensation disability determinations.     

"垂直搜索"的著作权侵权问题研究——谦评"大众点评网诉爱帮网案"及"携程网诉趣拿网案"

“垂直搜索”将从互联网网页中提取的信息内容存储在自身服务器中向公众提供，引发了著作权侵权问题。在“大众点评网诉爱帮网案”及“携程网诉趣拿网案”两案中，被“垂直搜索”引擎所提取的信息均为用户上传的点评。许多点评未达到“独创性”的要求，因此不构成作品。同时点评的集合也未在选择或编排方面体现出“独创性”。但在被提取的信息构成作品的情况下，“垂直搜索”直接复制并向公众提供信息的实质内容．将替代用户对来源网站的访问。这种行为无法被认定为合理使用．而是对来源网站作品著作权的侵权。“垂直搜索”服务提供者应合理地设计其商业模式，限制搜索结果中显示的作品长度，以避免代替用户对来源网站中作品的访问。