32 Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta E C O N O M I C R E V I E W Third Quarter 1998 The ensuing debate about limits of credit union membership has extended, quite naturally, to credit union tax status (see, for example, Bickley 1997; McConnell 1998; Robinson 1998). Meanwhile, the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate have overwhelmingly passed and the President has signed a bill that would sub...

In all relevant patent systems an adversely affected party has the possibility to appeal the patent office’s decision in front of a patent court or Board of Appeal (BoA). Within a European context, the EPO is, in a way, even engaging in de facto competition with national patent offices. As an example, the German Patent and Trademark Office (DPMA) provides quasi identical patent products and off...

It is common in the legal academy to describe trends in judicial decisions leading to new common law rules as the result of conscious judicial effort. Evolutionary models of litigation, in contrast, treat common law as resulting from pressure applied by litigants. One apparent difficulty in the theory of litigation is explaining how trends in judicial decisions favoring one litigant, and biasin...

CONTEXT Under a grant funded by ClearWay Minnesota(SM) and in partnership with nationally recognized experts in tobacco product regulation, the Public Health Law Center investigated how laws at every level apply, or fail to apply, to noncigarette tobacco products--also called "other tobacco products." EVIDENCE ACQUISITION During the years 2010-2011, standard legal research techniques were use...

Cancer and procreation raise a host of novel legal issues involving the rights of those trying to create families after cancer treatment and any resulting children, as well as the responsibilities of those who assist them. Recent court decisions, although neither consistent nor plentiful, highlight the emerging legal issues for patients, providers, and offspring. This article explores a number ...

The system of contract enforcement that emerged under the Soviet dictatorship included two official and one informal institutions: administrative enforcement, the system of arbitration courts, and unofficial relational contracting. Official institutions supported transactions that targeted fulfillment of the dictator’s objective. Legal contract enforcement emerged owing to the dictator, who sou...