By: Stephen Burke Introduction:  The United States International Trade Commission (hereinafter the “ITC”) is a government agency with statutory power to control matters of trade. As a part of this power, the ITC may investigate claims of patent infringement and ban infringing products from being imported into and/or sold in the country. The patent investigation power of the ITC was seldom utilized by litigants before the turn of the 21^st century, who instead preferred to file complaints in federal court. With the technology boom of the 1990s and the mounting international competition into the new millennium, the ITC has seen a steadily increasing volume of patent claims.

By: William Samore Introduction: In the summer of 1956, leaders in the field of computer science met at Dartmouth College and founded the field of Artificial Intelligence. Since then, one branch of Artificial Intelligence—Genetic Programming—has progressed to the point where it could drastically change the way that inventors design and create. Genetic programs (described in more detail in section III.B of this paper) operate by mimicking the biological evolutionary process and have a wide variety of applications. Antenna design, for example, is a field where genetic programming could radically change the nature and pace of innovation. The first antennas were built in the late 1800's by Heinrich Hertz, and an antenna with a specific shape can be designed to emit a desired radiation pattern. As technology progressed, computer programs were designed where an antenna's characteristics could be inputted to the computer program, and the radiation pattern would be calculated and displayed to the user. Now, computer programs have gone one step further, making it possible to do the reverse: input a desired radiation pattern and have the computer program itself design the antenna. The question that this note asks is, can changes in the tools available to inventors render previously patentable ideas obvious and therefore unpatentable? In other words, should an antenna, which could only have been designed by a human at one point but now can be designed by a computer, be patentable?

By: Allison Gaul Abstract:  As technology develops, the spectrum of potential uses for information warfare will broaden. Creation of new applications for weaponized bits and bytes will inevitably result in the generation of new legal questions. The information warfare scenarios discussed in this article are a sample of the possible uses for digital attacks. It does not address every potential legal factor but instead examines the basis for applying the Law of Armed Conflict to information warfare that involves neutral states. Specifically, the article examines whether the Hague Convention of 1907 and subsequent Hague Rules Regarding Aerial Warfare, as pillars of the LoAC, can be reasonably applied to information warfare involving neutral states.

By: Blaine Bassett Introduction: SPOILER ALERT: A revolution is transpiring that will leave television so changed twenty years in the future as to make it unrecognizable to viewers from twenty years in the past. What is more, this proposition is hardly controversial. The ubiquity of the phrase “SPOILER ALERT” itself—now commonly applied in reference to scripted television shows, reality shows, sports contests, and other television programs to warn those who have not yet watched  the referenced program that possibly unwanted plot disclosures are to follow—illustrates the reality of the television revolution as well as anything. When people limited their television viewing to live television programs on the days and times scheduled by television stations, there was no need for such a phrase in the television context. But “SPOILER ALERT" is seen everywhere today because, to exaggerate only slightly, “the nation’s greatest secrets no longer are housed in military installations. They exist in the last seven minutes of . . . television shows. The country’s greatest fear is . . . accidentally hearing what happened 20 minutes into your third favorite television show on Wednesday nights, the ending everyone else watched two days ago.”