Intellectual Property Law

USDA Decides GM-Alfalfa Is No Little Rascal

Posted on January 31, 2011
Alfalfa (Medicago sativa) is one of the most important crop plants in the world. Its uses range from cattle forage to human food. Worldwide, it is cultivated more than any other legume crop. Monsanto Corporation developed a patented genetically modified ("GM") variety of alfalfa - Roundup Ready Alfalfa - that is resistant to glyphosate (N-(phosphonomethyl) glycine), a powerful herbicide used to eliminate weeds from agricultural fields...

Innovation As An Innovation

Posted on January 28, 2011
On January 25, 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama delivered the 2011 State of the Union Address packed with references to innovation.  In fact, he mentioned "innovation" no fewer than nine times during his speech.  In each of his 2010 and 2009 Addresses, President Obama mentioned innovation only twice...

Biodiversity Law In Paradise - Day Six

Posted on January 21, 2011
Every year, the students in Biodiversity Law travel with Professor Andrew W. Torrance to the Virgin Islands (U.S. and British) for an intensive week-long fieldtrip.  This is their dispatch from January 19, 2011: Today, we got up early to drop our fearless leader and professor off at the airport...

Biodiversity Law In Paradise - Day Five

Posted on January 19, 2011
Every year, the students in Biodiversity Law travel with Professor Andrew W. Torrance to the Virgin Islands (U.S. and British) for an intensive week-long fieldtrip.  This is their dispatch from January 17, 2011: Today, Ron, an experienced sea captain, and the owner of our hotel, took us on his speedboat to the U...

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Biodiversity Law In Paradise - Day Four

Posted on January 18, 2011
Every year, the students in Biodiversity Law travel with Professor Andrew W. Torrance to the Virgin Islands (U.S. and British) for an intensive week-long fieldtrip.  This is their dispatch from January 17, 2011: Today, we drove down to Estate Botany Bay in the far westend of Saint Thomas...

Biodiversity Law In Paradise - Day Three

Posted on January 17, 2011
Every year, the students in Biodiversity Law travel with Professor Andrew W. Torrance to the Virgin Islands (U.S. and British) for an intensive week-long fieldtrip.  This is their dispatch from January 16, 2011:Today, Dr. Richard Nemeth, a specialist in ecology and management of tropical fisheries and coral reefs, and the Director of the Maclean Marine Science Center at the University of the Virgin Islands, took us out on his sailboat...

Biodiversity Law In Paradise - Day Two

Posted on January 17, 2011
Every year, the students in Biodiversity Law travel with Professor Andrew W. Torrance to the Virgin Islands (U.S. and British) for an intensive week-long fieldtrip.  This is their dispatch from January 15, 2011: Today we had the amazing opportunity to visit with the USVI?s most distinguished attorney, Jeff Weiss...

Biodiversity Law In Paradise - Day One

Posted on January 17, 2011
Every year, the students in Biodiversity Law travel with Professor Andrew W. Torrance to the Virgin Islands (U.S. and British) for an intensive week-long fieldtrip.  This is their dispatch from January 14, 2011: Professor Torrance informed us that we would partake in a traditional Saint Thomas Friday night activity;  we went bat catching...

The Foodie Blues - FDA Of Future Passed

Posted on January 08, 2011
On January 4, 2011, President Obama signed into law the Food Safety Modernization Act ("FSMA"), which the U.S. Senate and House both passed in late 2010. The FSMA amends the existing Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act in numerous ways, but four changes stand out in particular: (1) FDA must develop and employ science-based standards that govern the growing and harvesting of fruits and vegetables, and these standards must take into account both anthropogenic and "natural" risks to food safety,(2) Food facilities must produce written assessments that identify risks to the food they handle, and specify prophylactic measures to minimum these identified risks,(3) FDA must greatly step up its inspections of food facilities, both in the U...

Patently Innovative China

Posted on January 03, 2011
China long ago became a manufacturing superpower.  However, its earlier-industrialized competitors have consoled themselves that China is merely a copycat of others' innovation.  The government of China is not content with such a role.  Even though the evidence that patents best spur innovation is far from conclusive, the Sunday New York Times today (January 2, 2011) reports that patents are a central pillar in the official Chinese strategy to foster a culture of home-grown invention...

Freedom For A Pound Of Flesh

Posted on January 02, 2011
Express'd in the condition, let the forfeit Be nominated for an equal pound Of your fair flesh, to be cut off and taken In what part of your body pleaseth me. -The Merchant of Venice (Act I, Scene III) As one of his final acts in office, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour has suspended the sentences of two sisters, Gladys and Jamie Scott, convicted of assisting in an armed robbery...

The Evolution And Development Of Biolaw

Posted on December 30, 2010
For those interested in a fuller description of the origins, progress, and ambit of "biolaw," below is one recent view, entitled "The Evolution and Development of Biolaw": Biolaw has come of age as an academic discipline. This rapidly growing legal discipline possesses a Janus nature that encompasses both the law of biology and the biology of law...

Biolaw Holds Its Coming Of Age Party In San Francisco

Posted on December 30, 2010
Theodosius Dobzhansky, the legendary Drosophila geneticist, famously stated that "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." Similarly, nothing in law makes sense except in the light of biology. Like cyberlaw before it, biolaw has become a recognized academic discipline...

Genetically Modified Food For Legal Thought

Posted on December 28, 2010
he United States Department of Agriculture ("USDA") justifies the Plant Protection Act ("PPA")(7 U.S.C. §7701 et seq.) as "necessary because of the major impact plant pests currently have and could have on the agriculture, environment, economy, and commerce of the United States...

FDA Slams Brakes On Avastin's Accelerated Approval

Posted on December 27, 2010
Sunday New York Times editorials are often the venue for weighty issues of broad interest, such as war, peace, growth, recession, and politics.  Seldom do they tackle the technical considerations of the drug approval process administered by the U...

Nutcracker v. Mouse King

Posted on December 24, 2010
In addition to the Sugar Plum Fairy and Gingerbread Soldiers, the traditional Christmas ballet, The Nutcracker, has a dark side:  a shockingly violent scene of nutcracker-on-rodent violence.  Are the Nutcracker's martial actions wholly unconstrained by law?  Even with respect to muriregicide, the U...

Lex Libris

Posted on December 23, 2010
A number of exceptional books relating to genes, demes, or memes have been published in 2010.  Here is the LEXVIVO list of the top three: Genes.  The $1,000 Genome:  The Revolution in DNA Sequencing and the New Era of Personalized Medicine...

Senate Votes For Mom And (Safer) Apple Pie

Posted on December 21, 2010
In a surprise to many, late on December 19, 2010, the United States Senate unanimously passed a modified version of S.510, the "FDA Food Safety Modernization Act," by voice vote.  If passed by the House, this bill will constitute perhaps the most significant overhaul to the food regulation provisions of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act since its inception in 1938...

House Passes The FDA Food Safety Moderization Act

Posted on December 21, 2010
Today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the "FDA Food Safety Modernization Act" by a decisive 215 to 144 vote margin.  As discussed yesterday, in "Senate Votes For Mom And (Safer) Apple Pie," this legislation represents the most significant overhaul to food-related regulation in the history of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act...

The Scopes Trial Through The Looking Glass

Posted on December 20, 2010
On July 21, 1925, in The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes, judge John T. Raulston found biology teacher John Scopes guilty of teaching evolution under the state's Butler Act.  Although opponents of teaching evolutionary biology still exist, cases such as Tammy Kitzmiller, et al...

Prometheus Patents Unbound

Posted on December 19, 2010
The Titan Prometheus suffered from a chronic liver condition.  The diagnosis was fairly straightforward:  every day, a great eagle would devour his liver, which then regenerated, affording the eagle its next meal.  Preventive medicine to avoid this condition might have involved Prometheus not stealing fire from the gods, and then giving it to humanity, since these actions caused Zeus to impose his brutal aquiline punishment...

Council Of Europe Reports Human Organ Atrocities

Posted on December 17, 2010
The Council of Europe is an organization with 47 member countries that "seeks to develop throughout Europe common and democratic principles based on the European Convention on Human Rights and other reference texts on the protection of individuals."  On December 16, 2010, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe released a chilling report entitled "Inhuman treatment of people and illicit trafficking in human organs in Kosovo...

PCSBI Report: Synbio Much Ado About Not Much Yet

Posted on December 16, 2010
In its first report, released today, the Obama administration's Presidential Commission for the Study Bioethical Issues ("PCSBI") largely ratifies the current legal environment in which synthetic biology operates, while also urging close monitoring and future study of this rapidly evolving field...

CBD COP-10 and the Eve of UNFCCC COP-16

Posted on December 15, 2010
The Earth Negotiations Bulletin notes that for some, the CBD COP-10 in Nagoya ?marked the re-birth of environmental multilateralism? and suggests it ?exorcise the ghost of Copenhagen.? Unfortunately, Nagoya?s successes, while significant, do not resonate that profoundly...

Environmental Disasters: Linking Law, Science, & Policy

Posted on November 16, 2010
Biolaw readers may be interested in viewing the presentations at the 12th Annual Northeast Florida Environmental Summit, which addressed the theme "Environmental Disasters: Linking Law, Science, & Policy." The excellent opening keynote address by Jurisdynamics creator Jim Chen has the most direct relevance for biolaw, but a number of the presenters discussed themes that will prove important to addressing the drivers of biodiversity loss (especially climate change)...

Article on Biodiversity & Human Well-Being in Climate Forest Governance

Posted on October 26, 2010
Biolaw readers may be interested in the article Global Climate Governance to Enhance Biodiversity & Well-Being: Integrating Non-StateNetworks and Public International Law in Tropical Forests (forthcoming in 41 Environmental Law, 2011), which is available for free download here...

Psychological Interventions For Post Disaster Trauma

Posted on October 17, 2010
The world sighed a collective breath of relief when all 33 of the miners trapped in a Chilean mine for over two months were rescued this week. But the health risks for some of these minors may not be over. As I blogged previously here in the context of the serious emotional distress suffered by children affected by Hurricane Katrina, those who survive disasters are at significant risk of psychological problems such as post-traumatic-stress-disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety and substance abuse...

The Use of Best Management Practices to Reduce Nutrient Pollution in the Everglades Agricultural Area

Posted on October 11, 2010
It is only after my recent move to South Florida where I routinely drive on the Sawgrass Expressway that I appreciate how the wild beauty of the South Florida Everglades lives cheek to jowl with the buzz and press of busy city life.William H. Owen captures this juxtaposition in a recent Earth Magazine article:As the sun rises over the vast Florida Everglades, the endangered Florida panther quietly stalks a white-tailed deer in the tall grass...

GE Eucalyptus Experiments in the Southern US

Posted on July 26, 2010
USDA has approved plantings of genetically engineered eucalyptus tress at sites in seven states. Center for Biological Diversity and other organizations are suing to set aside the approval. Eucalyptus is a fast-growing tree that dominates tropical timber plantations...

Long-Term Biodiversity Impacts of the Gulf Oil Spill

Posted on July 23, 2010
The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill's impacts on biodiversity are sure to go beyond harm to the charismatic mega-fauna featured in front-page photographs. A much longer term threat exists in regard to impacts on lower levels of the food chain. The extent of future impacts remains uncertain, but may be closely linked with the extensive use of dispersants...

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