Determining Patent Quality

What are the boundaries of a patent? What factors are involved when determining patent quality? Saurabh Vishnubhakat, Associate Professor of Law, Texas A&M University School of Law, discusses these questions and elaborates on three types of patent quality: technological, economic, and legal value.

The Founding Fathers as Economic Innovators

Adam Mossoff, Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, describes how the Founding Fathers viewed a patent system based on property rights as crucial to the creation and preservation of a flourishing innovation economy.

Are U.S. Colleges and Universities Barring Asian Applicants Based on their Race?

The Regulatory Transparency Project and the Center for Equal Opportunity co-sponsored a discussion on the admissions practices at elite colleges as they affect Asian American applicants.

Linda Chavez and her CEO colleagues presented and released a new study and report entitled “‘Too Many Asian Americans?’ Affirmative Discrimination in Elite College Admissions.” The CEO study illustrates that while Caltech admissions decisions are race-blind, its elite sister institutions Harvard University and MIT have established “ceilings”—or a limit—on Asian American acceptances. In addition to addressing the direct ramifications of their study’s findings, event panelists also discussed the unintended consequences of these admissions practices, whether current regulations are adequate to address issues of racial discrimination in college admissions, and what additional role government or civil society may play in redressing racially discriminatory admissions practices.

Enforcing Patents for Bunch O Balloons

Josh Malone, inventor of Bunch O Balloons, describes his struggle to enforce the patents for Bunch O Balloons. Is Josh’s experience typical for US inventors? Is the process of protecting one’s invention straightforward? How might this process be improved? A number of intellectual property experts join Josh in elaborating on these questions.

Regulating Planesharing: A Conversation on Regulation and Innovation

In a world of drone delivery and self-driving cars, do innovation and regulation need to be at odds with one another? Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao and a variety of other experts weigh in on this critical discussion.

Emerging Technology in Transportation

On Friday, May 18, 2018, the Regulatory Transparency Project and Capitol Hill Chapter of the Federalist Society co-sponsored a panel discussion on emerging technology legislation. Experts explored drone delivery, autonomous vehicles, flight sharing, and more.

Innovation in the US Patent System

How does the US patent system affect inventors and innovators? Does the patent system promote or stifle innovation? Josh Malone, inventor of Bunch O Balloons, and a variety of intellectual property experts weigh in on this important topic.

How the FAA Defines a Common Carrier

How has common carriage traditionally been defined? How has this definition changed over time? Christopher Koopman, Senior Research Fellow and Director of the Technology Policy Program, Mercatus Center, discusses these important questions.

Collaborative Acceleration of Regulation and Innovation

Gregory S. McNeal, Professor of Law and Public Policy, Pepperdine University, and Co-Founder, AirMap, acknowledges that “almost every industry has to have some D.C. touchpoint.” In this video, he discusses “collaborative acceleration” and what it means in practice for both innovators and government agencies.

2018 JLEP Symposium: Financial Innovation and Innovative Financial Regulators

Government regulation is intended to improve the efficiency of markets and protect people from harms they cannot identify or prevent on their own. But, for decades, advocates have debated whether the regulatory process and rules developed through it are too strict or too lax; whether they properly account for all the things society values; and even whether they make society better or worse off on balance. The Journal of Law, Economics & Policy’s Symposium on Regulatory Reform, Transparency, and the Economy explored these and related questions as leading scholars and practitioners examined a number of recent regulatory proposals impacting a broad swath of the American economy – from banking and finance to energy and the environment, and from employment law to the internet economy. Speakers considered and debated how well these proposals would perform their intended functions and how they might be improved.

The symposium featured discussions of research papers prepared by experts working on the Federalist Society’s Regulatory Transparency Project. The proceedings of the Conference were published in a special symposium issue of George Mason’s Journal of Law, Economics & Policy.