Abstract A standard feature of the private equity industry, “side letters” are confidential agreements between the sponsor and individual investors that give the latter special rights, beyond those that apply to other investors in the private equity fund. Yet side letters have become a flashpoint for prominent critics of the industry, who argue that they allow private equity sponsors to…

Abstract Property often lies idle, even in times of dire need. Property scholars have largely overlooked this enduring social problem. The oversight is surprising, since the same scholars often write that property’s purpose is to help people put things to use. Some even contend that the right to exclude is and ought to be property’s essential core because it helps…

Abstract Each year, state agents search the homes of hundreds of thousands of families across the United States under the auspices of the family regulation system. Through these searches—required elements of investigations into allegations of child maltreatment in virtually every jurisdiction—state agents invade the home, the most protected space in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. Accordingly, federal courts agree that the Fourth…

Abstract Intellectual property is understood to have an economic rationale: supplying incentives for innovation and for the creation and dissemination of knowledge and information. In the modern era, questions of how best to accomplish this have been explored with reference to economic efficiency and other concepts from microeconomics. But why not macroeconomics? In the microeconomic view, the intangibles of innovation,…

Introduction The legal battles in the telecommunications industry are fierce. The fact that no single industrial player is the single global leader in 5G technologies stimulates a sweeping wave of patent cross-licensing throughout the industry.[1] Standard-setting organizations and standard development organizations play important roles in developing 5G technical standards, which provide technical specifications for equipment by different manufacturers.[2] Many technologies…

Introduction Henry Ford’s early twentieth-century breakthroughs in automotive mass production merged the United States into the fast lane toward motor vehicles becoming a dominant mode of personal travel.[1] Today, for an hour a day, ninety percent of Americans over the age of sixteen will buckle into motorized, multi-ton projectiles and propel themselves along a vast infrastructure of roads designed and…

Abstract Surrogacy contracts depend on the exchange of information. Intended parents want information about the surrogate’s pregnancy to make decisions regarding prenatal care, during-pregnancy behavior, and birth. Contract provisions can cater to those desires and support the broader assumption that parents should seek as much prenatal information as possible. Yet surrogates have the right, by statute and as patients, to…