Innovation and Patent Policy

Professor: Jim Bessen
Librarian: Carr Ross ( ) (x3545)
Spring 2005

U.S. Patent Building, ca 1900
[Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Detroit Publishing Company Collection]

Case Law

Sources

In this course, you will be working with federal supreme- and appeals-level court cases. Texts of cases are found in the following sources in the Bowdoin Library:

  • Lexis/Nexis Academic
    - contains both supreme and appeals cases.
  • United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers’ Edition (L. Ed.)
    Gov Doc KF101.A5U5.
    - contains only Supreme Court cases.
  • United States Reports (U.S.)
    Gov Doc JU 6.8:
    - official source for U.S. Supreme Court cases; texts of cases are the same as in Lawyers’ Edition above, except there are no annotations.
  • Federal Reporter (F.; F. 2d; F. 3d)
    Gov Doc KF105.A5F4 (1st series); KF105.A5F42 (2d series); KF105.A5F43 (3d series)
    - contains only federal appeals-level cases.
    - text of case is the same as L/N but has different annotations

How To Read A Citation

Lawyers and law scholars use a specific form of bibliographic citation to identify law cases. To locate an individual law case, you need to know the case's citation. Law cases are consistently cited in this format:

Volume number / Abbreviation of Law Reporter Name / Page number.
21 L. Ed. 2d 731

In the above example "21" is the volume, "L.Ed.2d" is the abbreviation for the law reporter and "731" is the page number.

Samples of citations you may see in this course:

  • 131 L. Ed. 2d 244 (United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers Edition 2nd Series)
  • 32 F.3d 1541 (Federal Reporter, 3d series)
  • 514 U.S. 1032 (United States Reports)

Finding Cases by Citation

  1. Go to Lexis/Nexis Academic, then to the Legal Research section.
  2. Select “Get a Case.”
  3. Type the citation into the search box.
  4. The case will appear on the screen. Occasionally, several cases will appear for a particular citation. These are decisions related to the case.
  5. Alternatively, if you prefer a print version rather than online, use United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers Edition for Supreme Court cases, Federal Reporter for appeals-level cases.

Finding Cases by Name

  1. Go to Lexis/Nexis Academic; then to Legal Research.
  2. Select "Get a Case."
  3. Type the name or names of the litigant(s); press enter.
  4. Full text of the case appears on the screen. Occasionally, several cases will appear for a search by litigants. These will be all related supreme-, appeals-, district- and state-level cases. You will have to determine which is the appropriate case.
  5. The case can be read from the screen, downloaded, printed, or emailed to an account.
  6. Alternatively, if you prefer a print version rather than online, use United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers Edition for Supreme Court cases, Federal Reporter for appeals-level cases.

Law Reviews/Journals and Economics Journals

Lexis/Nexis Academic

  1. Go the Legal Research section
  2. Select either Legal News or Legal Reviews
  3. Type in keywords; use the Guided Search tab to search by a specific publication.
  4. A list of articles meeting your search criteria will be displayed.

EconLit
Econlit is the primary index for the scholarly literature of economics; it covers journal articles, books, and working papers, published from 1969 to the present.

Legislation

Abbreviations

Common abbreviations used in connection with federal legislation:

  • H.R. 3235 (House of Representatives bill number 3235)
  • S. 54 (Senate bill number 54)
  • 108 P.L. 199 or P.L. 108-199 (Public Law number 199 of the 108th Congress)
  • 15 USC 1 (Title 15, Section 1 of United States Code)

Sources

Bills and Public Laws:

  • thomas.loc.gov (free database from Library of Congress)
    -click on Search Bills and Resolutions, search by bill number, keywords, or public law number
    -contains text and status/legislative history
  • Lexis/Nexis Congressional (through Bowdoin Library homepage)
    -click on Bills (for pending legislation) or Laws (for enacted legislation)
    -contains text and status/legislative history (sometimes called Bill Tracking in L/N)

United States Code:

Legal Terminology