Shore v. Parklane Hosiery Co.: The Seventh Amendment and Collateral Estoppel

Civil Jury: the Supreme Court's Assault on the Seventh Amendment

The decision of the Supreme Court in Atlas Roofing Co. v. Occupational Safety & Health Review Commission 1 has seriously weakened the protection afforded by the seventh amendment to the United States Constitution.2 In Atlas the Court considered the constitudonality of the enforcement procedure established by the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA).3 This was the first time the Court had c...

Pregnant with Embarrassments: An Incomplete Theory of the Seventh Amendment

Causality and collateral estoppel: process and content of recent SSRI litigation.

In Tobin v. SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals a jury in the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming found that the medication Paxil "can cause some individuals to commit homicide and/or suicide," and that it was a legal cause of the deaths in this case. A motion was recently put before the United States District Court for the District of Utah to adopt the findings of the Tobin case--vi...

Rethinking Prosecution History Estoppel

Under the rule of prosecution history estoppel, patent applicants who amend their claims during the course of patent prosecution assume a significant risk: the risk that a court will later construe the changes as concessions that should be read to limit patent scope. This risk is exacerbated by strong evidentiary presumptions under which courts are to assume, unless the patentee presents suffic...

The seventh amendment to the cosmetics directive: what does DG enterprise want from ECVAM?

A short overview is given of the current situation regarding the draft seventh amendment to the EU cosmetics directive, Directive 76/768/EEC. Future perspectives are discussed.