May Book 2016 | University of Richmond Law Review

COMMENT: Lost in Translation: How Practical Considerations in Kirtsaeng Demand International Exhaustion in Patent Law

Dustin Knight

The right of exclusivity powers the engines of innovation within the United States. Patent law is designed to reward the inventor with a monopoly over his or her creation. The scope of the monopoly a patent holder enjoys, however, has historically been limited in time and space to control its anticompetitive effect. The exhaustion doctrine is a key tool used by courts to police this effect and protect consumers.

COMMENT: Waging the War Against Unpaid Labor: A Call to Revoke Fact Sheet #71 in Light of Recent Unpaid Internship Litigation

Rachel Willer

In the pilot of her television show Girls, Lena Dunham satirizes unpaid internships by depicting the protagonist, Hannah Horvath, asking her employer to pay her after more than a year of unpaid work.1 Her employer responds with a quip about the competitive nature of her internship at a New York publishing firm and distinguishes her from another employee who the firm hired after a year of interning. While flagrant violations of U.S. labor laws are breezed over as a matter of comedic relief in today‘s media, they represent very real controversies for nearly a million unpaid interns every year.