Can We Protect How We Do What We Do? A Consideration of Business Method Patents in Australia and Europe

In the long history of monopolies, business method patents area novel and recent edition. In the Digital Age, where time ismoney and speed is everything, innovative methods for undertakingbusiness are as important to a business as the products or servicesit provides to its clients. In recent years several reviews,conducted in both Australia and internationally,⁴ have questionedthe appropriateness of patenting business methods. This paperreviews the availability of business method patents in Australiain light of the 2006 decision of the Full Court of the FederalCourt in Grant v Commissioner of Patents,⁵ which confirmed theneed in Australia for a ‘useful product’ to issuefrom the working of a method (business or otherwise) in orderfor the method to be patentable. This paper will review argumentsboth criticising and defending business method patents and considerwhether business methods warrant special treatment.     

Business Adaptation to Regulation: What Do We Know and What Do We Need to Know?

There is, predictably, a gap between the normative model and empirical pictures of regulation drawn from many societies. We may get an approximation of the goals of much regulation, but often regulatory policy is not carried out exactly as legislated. Agencies pursue enforcement strategies in light of their priorities and resources. They engage in soft law enforcement and bargain with the targets of regulation. Regulated businesses have many tactics available to blunt or evade regulation. We can fashion plausible normative arguments both for and against these common empirical pictures. To a great extent, however, these normative positions rest on unexamined empirical assumptions. Future research might profitably focus on the roles played by those individuals who act for business associations and cope with regulation. Attention should be paid particularly to the roles played by business lawyers in such coping. James Gould Cozzens' novel , Guard of Honor, suggests how lawyers comply narrowly, evade, cover up and otherwise divert the impact of regulation, all in the service of what they see as the greater good. Cozzens' story suggests important empirical and normative questions for future consideration.     

Punishment Drift: The Spread of Penal Harm and What We Should Do About It

It is well documented that the effects of legal punishment tend to drift to the family members, friends, and larger communities of convicted offenders. Instead of conceiving of punishment drift as incidental to legal punishment, or as merely foreseen but not intended by state authorities and thus permissible, I argue that efforts ought to be undertaken to limit or ameliorate it. Failure to confine punishment drift comes perilously close to punishment of the innocent and is at odds with other legal doctrines and broader penal practices that hold offenders, and offenders alone, responsible for their crimes. Numerous arguments urging tolerance of punishment drift, or more assertively defending it, are examined and found wanting.     

Psychological Injuries and Legal Decision Making in Civil Cases: What We Know and What We Do not Know

Civil plaintiffs frequently seek monetary compensation for their psychological injuries. Despite the increased study of psychological injury within the legal system, there has been little empirical examination of how psychological injury evidence impacts legal decisions. To illuminate what is known (and not known) on this topic, this paper reviews legal and empirical research regarding how legal decision makers (judges and jurors) perceive and use psychological injury evidence to render civil judgments. A few themes emerged from this review: (1) Courts generally devalue psychological injury, often making it difficult for plaintiffs to pursue and succeed on these claims; (2) these difficulties are a likely byproduct of legal decision-makers’ misperceptions of mental illness; and (3) despite a recent surge in empirical research on how jurors perceive and use psychological injury evidence to render civil decisions, many unexplored areas remain. Specific recommendations for legal policy and suggestions for future research are highlighted throughout this review.     

Tailoring Representative Democracy to the European Union: Does the European Constitution Reduce the Democratic Deficit?

Abstract Even if the institutions of representative democracy that have developed in the nation‐state context cannot be simply transposed to the European Union, for practical and normative reasons they do provide the main starting point for any reflection on the EU's ‘democratic deficit’. This article draws upon the Constitution prepared by the European Convention to reconstruct the concept of representative democracy in the EU. Drawing on the proposals put forward, it identifies two distinctive challenges that need to be overcome if the concept of representative democracy is to be successfully applied to the EU: the multilevel character of the polity and the shift of the centre of political gravity from legislative to executive politics. The article then examines the extent to which the institutional proposals contained in the Constitution go to meet these two challenges and also highlights some aspects in which these proposals fall short.     

欧美并购控制法实体标准比较研究

实体标准是整个并购控制体系的核心 ,也是反垄断法的重要内容之一。欧盟最新并购控制立法确立的“严重妨碍有效竞争”实体标准与美国奉行的“实质性减少竞争”标准一样都反映着并购控制的本质。欧美采取大同小异的并购实体标准有利于推动国际跨国并购审查结果的一致性 ,促进并购活动的发展。我国应确立“严重妨害正当竞争”实体标准并配套颁布并购评估指南 ,注重并购审查的经济分析     

欧洲近现代历史上宪政民主政制的生成、建构与演进

宪政民主政制与社会经济发展之间的关系,是一个值得深入进行理论探讨和实证研究的新课题。本文对西方宪政民主的起源、生成与演变史做了一个鸟瞰式的回顾,为探究宪政民主与经济发展之间的关系提供一些背景知识。在从词源和辞义上辨析了西方文字中的"constitution"以及以及与之对应的中文"宪法"和"宪政"的基本含义之后,本文对英国、法国和德国近现代宪政民主政制的生成、建构和演变史做了一些简略的历史考察,并在最后一部份对近现代欧洲历史上宪政民主政制下的法律制度的生成原因做了理论的和历史的分析。     

有利的法——实质正义的极端化

我国《涉外民事关系法律适用法》在部分涉外关系的法律适用方面要求选择有利于保护某一方当事人的实体法。这种规定虽然有体现冲突法实质正义追求的积极意义,但也为法院查明和准确适用外国法增加了难度,不利于司法任务的简单化。所谓有利的法,要求法院在众多可适用的法中,通过比较选择一个能最好保护一方当事人利益的实体法,这其实是美国最好的法选法方法的翻版。冲突法实质正义的趋向应当是有限度的,不应取代实体法所应发挥的作用,否则会破坏法律选择的稳定性和可预见性,丧失冲突法的规范价值和存在意义。鉴于该法生效时间不长,一时难以修改,可以考虑通过司法解释对之予以适当矫正。     

Judicial Review in the European Community: The Environment, Subsidiarity and the Question of Intensity

This paper examines the manner in which the EuropeanCourt of Justice has developed certain principles enunciated inthe Treaty into judicial review standards. It focuses on thelimited intensity of that review in relation to subsidiarity andthe environmental principles. The paper contends that reviewcould be intensified by use of institutional declarations on theprinciples as aids to interpretation.     

PROTECTIVE SERVICES FOR THE ELDERLY: Do We Deal Competently with Incompetence?

Protective services are conceptualized as legal safeguards for aged individuals who are incapable of prudent financial or personal self-determination. Despite this protective intent, conservatorship, personal guardianship, and involuntary hospitalization may in fact work against elders' best interests as a result of their limitation of avenues for expressing autonomy and self-worth. In this article, psychological theories of effectance or control are applied to analyzing the effects of protective legal intervention upon older persons. The rationale of parens patriae is examined in terms of its conceptual appropriateness for application to the aged; social and legal sources of bias in protective philosophy are enumerated and discussed. Statutes and procedural conventions governing competency and commitment cases are similarly evaluated, and found from an effectance-theoretical perspective to pose substantial threats to older individuals' psychological and physical well-being. Although recommended statutory and procedural revisions would be helpful in ameliorating these negative effects, they are not sufficient to eradicate them. A conceptual reanalysis not only of the courts' responsibility and role in caring for the infirm, but of social policy in general as it is presently applied to the elderly, is therefore recommended.     

实质性专利法国际协调与我国专利实质性条件设置策略

一、实质性专利法国际协调 (一)背景近百年来,为解决专利权地域性带来的问题,国际专利制度不断进行变革和发展。国际社会缔结了《保护工业产权巴黎公约》(简称巴黎公约)和《专利合作条约》(简称PCT),规定了国民待遇原则、优先权原则等原则,较大程度上统一了国际申请程序。近年来,国际专利制度呈一体化趋势,先后缔结了《与贸易有     

死刑的实体和程序控制

在死刑的正当性问题争论不休之际,如何控制死刑、确保现存死刑的最低程度的正义,是一个不得不面对的重要问题,在此背景下,有必要认真审视检讨我国的死刑制度。一、死刑存废的简要回顾死刑,是剥夺犯罪人生命的刑罚方法,是刑罚体系中最严厉的刑罚方法,故又被称为生命刑、极刑。死     

The Function and Structure of the Substantive Criminal Law

Law and Philosophy -     

When Do We Think About Detection? Structural Opportunity and Taxpaying Behavior

Past studies have generally found that perceptions of the likelihood of formal and informal sanctions have lower explanatory power of noncompliance with laws than do internalized norms. Using data from two telephone surveys, we examined a situational characteristic, structural opportunity, that may prod individuals to think about the likelihood of detection from the Internal Revenue Service for underreporting income. Structural opportunity is the degree to which an individual's economic or social situation provides ways to avoid detection. Individuals with high structural opportunity perceived a lower likelihood of IRS detection and indicated that they were less likely to feel guilty if they engaged in tax cheating. Our data also suggested that some individuals with high structural opportunity may be in social networks which condone tax cheating. As expected, structural opportunity provided a condition under which individuals took into consideration the perceived likelihood of formal and informal detection in formulating intentions to engage in tax cheating. Our findings suggest that an examination of the interaction between situational and individual characteristics will provide a more complete understanding of decisions to engage in illegal behavior. Implications for deterrence theory are discussed.     

Constitutionalising Subsidiarity in Integrated Markets: The Case of Tobacco Regulation in the European Union

Abstract:  The article establishes three propositions. First, if a constitution establishes the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality as legal principles, questions of competencies are closely tied up with questions of regulatory policy. This means that the Treaty carves out a powerful role for the Court of Justice to assess the jurisdictional reasonableness of market intervention when reviewing whether the EU was legally competent to act. Second, general scepticism about courts being able to play such a demanding role in policing jurisdictional boundaries in federal systems are unjustified in the EU. The new procedure established in the Constitutional Treaty, which is likely to be included in any renegotiated constitutional settlement, involves national Parliaments and the Commission building a written record addressing the relevant policy issues on which the court can base its review. Additionally national courts serve as an external check on the Court of Justice, disciplining the Court of Justice to focus on taking competencies seriously or facing the prospect of national courts disapplying EU law on the grounds that it was enacted ultra vires. Third, even though there are some promising points of departure in its case law, the Court of Justice has not yet adopted a doctrinal framework that effectively operationalises the Treaty's commitment to subsidiarity and proportionality in the context of the common market.