IP law and policy in the United States: trends and developments

Many scholars in political science and international relationshave discussed the obvious shift in world politics from theCold War period to the post-9/11 era. Nation-states now sharethe turbulent global stage with other important actors (eg non-governmentalorganizations and multinational corporations). The field ofUS intellectual property (IP) law is no different. The presentforces of globalization and technology have shaped the developmentand direction of IP policy. In a collection of six essays, ProfessorHugh Hansen, as editor of US Intellectual Property Law and Policy,invites readers to explore the trends of American IP law. Thesesix essays, as Professor Hansen rightly     

Thatcher's Legacy

At the time of Margaret Thatcher's fall, conventional wisdom held that Thatcherism was a leadership style that had departed with its author. In significant respects, Thatcher's economic reforms were incomplete, and she and her ideas had never enjoyed a popular majority. But subsequent events have made clear that 1979 was a new point of departure. Thatcher's legacy can be described as two revolutions. The first revolution was an assault on the size of the state sector, including the introduction of privatisation and lower taxes. The second was the centralisation of power in Whitehall; necessary for the achievement of the first, but ultimately in conflict with it. John Major and Tony Blair were strong proponents of both revolutions. Britain now requires a third revolution to decentralise, localise, and pluralise the state.     

Evaluation of the Cozart RapiScan drug test system for opiates and cocaine in oral fluid

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficiency of the Cozart^® RapiScan (CRS) drug test system for detecting opiates and cocaine in oral fluid. Oral fluid samples were collected using the Cozart^® RapiScan collection system from 358 donors who were receiving treatment for their addiction and were monitored for drug misuse. A further 103 oral fluid samples were collected from volunteer donors who were not drug users. The samples were analyzed in the laboratory using the two-panel Cozart^® RapiScan cartridge for opiates and cocaine and confirmed using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS). The samples were stored frozen at −20 °C until analysis by GC–MS. The overall accuracy of the CRS for both opiates and cocaine was 100%. Samples spiked at 50% above and below the cut-off consistently gave negative and positive results respectively. A total of 88 samples were positive for various opiates and 111 samples were positive for cocaine and/or its metabolites. The CRS for opiates and cocaine in oral fluid, using a cut-off of 30 ng/mL morphine or benzoylecgonine equivalents in neat oral fluid, had overall efficiencies of 98% and 99%, respectively, versus GC–MS. A series of potential adulterants of oral fluid were evaluated and shown not to alter the outcome of the test result.     

By-elections,changing fortunes,uncertainty and the mid-term blues

If voters care about the size of the government's majority, then by-election votes should exaggerate national swings. Moreover, if there is uncertainty about the outcome of the general election and if voters” preferences are skewed in such a way as to give more weight to the “downside” outcome (least favourite party wins) than the “upside” (favoured party wins with a larger than preferred majority), then there will be a systematic tendency for governments to lose by-elections, regardless of any changes in national support. These predictions go beyond those generated by conventional explanations. The theory is successfully tested against data from 383 post-War elections.