Statutory Construction Blog

Article on Interpreting SOX

Jarod Gonzales, SOX, STATUTORY INTERPRETATION, AND THE SEVENTH AMENDMENT: SARBANES-OXLEY
ACT WHISTLEBLOWER CLAIMS AND JURY TRIALS, 9 U. Pa. J. Lab. & Emp. L. 25 (Fall 2006). It's not on the journal's site, unfortunately, in full text.

Interesting New Articles

Timothy J. Miano, Formalist Statutory Construction and the Doctrine of Fair Warning: An Examination of United States v. Councilman, 14 Geo. Mason L. Rev. 513 (2007). The question of what constitutes "interception" under the ECPA is something I've followed for years. This author gives the issue, and case, thorough examination.

Carlos E Gonzalez, The 2006 David J. Stouffer Lecture: Statutory Interpretation: Looking Back, Looking Forwad, 58 Rutgers L. Rev. 703 (2006). This provides a narrative examination of trends and issus in statutory interpretation, and scholarly reaction.

Crack Cocaine Follow-up

The DC Court of Appeals held that district judges can take into account the fact that even though there's a 100 to 1 disparity in sentencing for crack cocaine, compared to other types, there's no difference between the two. You can read the opinion here. This was the subject of an earlier post.

IP Profs consider Amicus Brief in Google TM Case

Google's caching, adwords, adsense, and other activities have made it the subject of a number of trademark suits. One is Rescuecom v. Google, a district court decision available here.

A group of IP profs is proposing an amicus brief, which you can find here. Eric Goldman from Santa Clara is one of the authors.

The issue of whether the kind of use that inarguably occurs when a user searches Google with the trademark owner is a "use" in terms of the Lanham Act is something my class at Mercer happens to be studying right now. The courts split, with the majority finding for Google (no doubt reflected in its stock price!). Yet, there is something amiss, I suggest, where a third party is able to divert customers from the trademark owner's site to related, competing sites, by using the trademark. We'll see.