Posts

  • Lessons from the United States for Free Use Exceptions and Takedown Notices in Australia

    Conversations over safe harbours and takedown notices have largely been between copyright owners and service providers. Because copyright owners and service providers have been the main participants in the dialogue, the rights and interests of users of copyright material have not featured prominently in the design or operation of takedown notice regimes.
  • Are Embassies Foreign Territory?

    In The Simpsons episode 'Bart vs Australia', the eponymous family visits the Great Southern Land after Bart unintentionally causes a diplomatic incident. When leaving the American embassy in Canberra, a marine stationed there informs them that the embassy is considered 'American soil'. Amusing though the scene is, it does not reflect the true status of embassies in international law.
  • An Overview of Chinese Law

    Those who approach the comparative study of Chinese law will likely do so with a limited knowledge of the Chinese legal system, and the perception of the system as unrefined, authoritarian and inferior to western systems of law. While many of the criticisms of the Chinese legal system are, in practice, justified, the Chinese constitutional and legislative framework is, at least theoretically, surprisingly sophisticated.

  • Stopping the Spread of the Gene Patent Cancer

    In Cancer Voices Australia v Myriad Genetics Pty Ltd, Nicholas J of the Federal Court of Australia applied the principle that an artificially-created state of affairs of economic significance is capable of attracting patent protection. With respect to his honour, Nicholas J applied the law erroneously by holding that the product itself and not the process that resulted in the product could be patented.
  • Australia's Missing Bill of Rights

    The Australian Constitution is distinguished among those of modern democracies in several ways, but perhaps the most glaring difference is the absence of substantial constitutional protections of human rights.

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