On September 16, 2011, President Obama signed into law the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act. It embodies the most substantial legislative overhaul of patent law and practice in more than half a century. Commentators have begun the sizable task of unearthing and calling attention to the many effects the Act may have on the American and international innovation communities. Debates have sprung up over the consequences to inventors small and large, and commentators have obsessed over the Act’s so-called “first-to-file” and “post-grant review” provisions. Lost in the frenzy to understand the consequences of the new Act has been the demise of patent law’s “best mode” requirement. [...]

How should the legal system adjust to our evolving and oftentimes conflicting expectations of privacy? Experts weigh in on this important question in areas ranging from political data to government searches in this 2012 Symposium Issue. [...]

There is a concern among supporters of marriage equality, especially those in the legal academy, that the decision of the Ninth Circuit in Perry v. Brown was too good to be true or, perhaps, too clever to be sustainable. Judges Reinhardt and Hawkins crafted a decision that struck down Proposition 8 with reasoning that applies only to California. All but ignoring Judge Walker’s far-reaching trial court opinion in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, they grounded their analysis in an application of heightened rational basis scrutiny, derived from Romer v. Evans, that emphasized the significance of taking away an important right from an unpopular minority. [...]

The Cybersecurity Act of 2012, which was recently introduced in the Senate Homeland Security and Governance Affairs Committee, is the latest legislative attempt to enhance the nation’s cybersecurity. If enacted, the bill would grant new powers to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to oversee U.S. government cybersecurity, set “cybersecurity performance requirements” for firms operating what DHS deems to be “critical infrastructure,” and create “exchanges” to promote information sharing. In its current form, the bill is a useful step in the right direction but falls short of what is required. Fundamentally the bill misconstrues the scale and complexity of the evolving cyber threat by defining critical infrastructure too narrowly and relying too much on voluntary incentives and risk mitigation strategies. The Act might improve on the status quo, but it will not foster genuine and lasting cybersecurity. [...]