T - Aff Definitions - CNDI 2024

Aff Topicality
Resolved: The United States federal government should significantly strengthen its protection of domestic intellectual property rights in copyrights, patents, and/or trademarks.
Subsets
2AC – T-Subsets
“In” means within --- this is the core meaning
Encarta 7 – Encarta World English Dictionary, 7 (“In (1)”, 2007, http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/dictionary/DictionaryResults.aspx?refid=1861620513)
in [ in ] CORE MEANING: a grammatical word indicating that something or somebody is within or inside something.
1. preposition indicates place: indicates that something happens or is situated somewhere
He spent a whole year in Russia.
Prefer our definition---courts have found it to be the obvious meaning.
Cullen 52 – Cullen, Court of Appeals of Kentucky, 52, Commissioner, Court of Appeals of Kentucky, November 13, 1952 Riehl et al. V. Kentucky unemployment compensation commission; the judgment is affirmed. Rehearing denied; COMBS, J., and SIMS, C. J., dissenting. http://ky.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.19521113_0040095.KY.htm/qx
We do not find any ambiguity in KRS 341.070(1). It is our opinion that the key word in the statute is the word 'in,' preceding the words 'each of three calendar quarters', and if the word is accorded its ordinary and common meaning, the statute does not require simultaneous employment. According to Webster's New International Dictionary, the word 'in,' used with relation to a period of time, means 'during the course of.' The same meaning, expressed in another way, would be 'within the limits or duration of.' Employing this meaning, the statute says that an employer is subject to the Act if, during the course of, or within the limits or duration of each of three calendar quarters, he had in covered employment four or more workers, to each of whom the required amount of wages was paid. This clearly means that the employment need not be simultaneous. Obviously, the word 'in' does not mean 'throughout' or 'for the entire period of,' because then there would be no point in adding the requirement of the payment of a minimum of $50 in wages. In these times, no worker employed for a full calendar quarter would be paid less than $50 in wages. The appellant seeks to read into the statute the words 'at the same time,' following the words 'had in covered employment'. There is no justification for this, unless the word 'in' means 'during any one period of time in.' We are not aware of any authority for ascribing such a meaning to the word 'in'.
“Rights” include any entitlement to something.
Law.com. "Legal Dictionary". Rights. Law. The People's Law Dictionary by Gerald and Kathleen Hill. https://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=1857
right
1) n. an entitlement to something, whether to concepts like justice and due process or to ownership of property or some interest in property, real or personal. These rights include: various freedoms; protection against interference with enjoyment of life and property; civil rights enjoyed by citizens such as voting and access to the courts; natural rights accepted by civilized societies; human rights to protect people throughout the world from terror, torture, barbaric practices and deprivation of civil rights and profit from their labor; and such U.S. constitutional guarantees as the right to freedoms of speech, press, religion, assembly and petition. 2) adj. just, fair, correct.
1AR – “In” C/I
“In” means “some portion of.”
Judge C. Lynwood Smith 10. United States District Judge. UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ALABAMA NORTHEASTERN DIVISION ABBOTT POINT OF CARE, INC., Plaintiff, vs. EPOCAL, INC., Defendant. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-alnd-5_08-cv-00543/pdf/USCOURTS-alnd-5_08-cv-00543-2.pdf
In addition, three of the many definitions of the word “in” found in contemporaneous general dictionaries include the following: “1. a. Within the bounds or area of . . . b. From the outside to a point within * * * 2. To or toward a destination or goal . . . .” Webster’s II New College Dictionary 557 (Houghton Mifflin Co. 2001, 1999, 1995); see also Webster’s II New Riverside University Dictionary 616 (Houghton Mifflin 1994) (same). Thus, as the Special Master noted, but only in passing: “The word ‘in’ does not require that something be completely and continuously inside of something else.” Doc. no. 96 (Special Master’s Final Report and Recommendation), at 92 n.57 (emphasissupplied). Instead, it is common to use the word to state that something is contiguous to something else, such as saying that a skylight is “in” the room to which it opens and provides natural illumination.
Accordingly, the construction adopted by this court for the phrases “positioned in a conduit” and “positioned in said conduit,” as each is used in Claim 1 of the gas patents, is: a gas equilibration reservoir positioned with respect to the conduit so as to allow contact between at least some portion of the reservoir (or with the reservoir’s gas-permeable membrane, if one is employed) and at least some portion of the aqueous calibrant fluid within the conduit, such that there can be contact between the fluid in the conduit and the equilibration reservoir to allow for gas exchange to occur when the fluid is brought into contact with or exposed to the reservoir.
It’s the ordinary and court interpretation.
Kevin R. Casey 09. Special Master. Abbott Point of Care, Inc. v. Epocal, Inc., 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 140383 (United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, Northeastern DivisionDecember 1, 2009, Filed). https://advance-lexis-com.proxy.library.emory.edu/api/document?collection=cases&id=urn:contentItem:5SP0-2C31-F016-S09F-00000-00&context=1516831.
---FOOTNOTE 57 STARTS---
Webster's defines "in," at 557, as "Within the bounds or area of" and "within," at 1268, as "In or into the inner part: INSIDE." Note that the definition of "within" incorporates "in." The word "in" does not require that something be completely and continuously inside of something else. A component may be "in" another component if it is located, at least in relevant part, in the defined space. See Foster v. Hallco Mfg. Co., 119 F.3d 16, 1997 WL 419391 at *8 (Fed. Cir. 1997) (non-precedential). See also Gemstar-TV Guide Int'l, Inc. v. Int'l Trade Comm'n, 383 F.3d 1352, 1372 (Fed. Cir. 2004) ("General use dictionaries define 'in' as 'used as a functional word to indicate location or position in space or in some materially bounded object.' Webster's Third New International Dictionary 1139 (1993). From these definitions, the ordinary meaning of 'storage means in a data processor' is a device capable of retaining data located within a data processing device or system."); TI Group Automotive Sys. (N. Am.), Inc. v. VDO N. Am., L.L.C., 375 F.3d 1126, 1136 (Fed. Cir. 2004) ("we affirm the district court's construction of the term 'within' as meaning 'inside'," stating "what is not outside is on the inside").
---FOOTNOTE 57 ENDS---
1AR – “Rights” C/I
Rights don’t have to apply to the whole.
Gabriel Lima et al. 20, School of Computing, KAIST, Republic of Korea. CHANGYEON KIM, School of Computing, KAIST, Republic of Korea SEUNGHO RYU, Dept. of Computer Science & Dept. of Mathematics, HKUST, Hong Kong SAR CHIHYUNG JEON, Graduate School of Science and Technology Policy, KAIST, Republic of Korea MEEYOUNG CHA, IBS & School of Computing, KAIST, Republic of Korea “Collecting the Public Perception of AI and Robot Rights.”. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2008.01339.pdf
Rights are freedoms and entitlements granted to certain entities in a defined system, group, or theory. Even though rights are often granted as a bundle, they do not necessarily come all at once; i.e., some entities have rights that others do not. In recent decades, various technological advancements have been deployed and have started to function within society both at an individual and an institutional level. As their functions become common, scholars have begun to debate whether any rights should be granted to these new electronic agents [45, 59]. This discussion has become prominent after the circulation of a European Parliament draft report, where they considered creating “the status of electronic persons with specific rights and obligations”. The final report, however, rephrased the proposal after backslash from experts [2] by proposing to create “a specific legal status” for sufficiently autonomous robots [1].
Rights include any enforcement mechanism.
Merriam Webster. "Definition of LEGAL RIGHT". No Publication. xx-xx-xxxx. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/legal%20right
legal right noun
Definition of legal right
1a: a claim recognized and delimited by law for the purpose of securing it
b: the interest in a claim which is recognized by and protected by sanctions of law imposed by a state, which enables one to possess property or to engage in some transaction or course of conduct or to compel some other person to so engage or to refrain from some course of conduct under certain circumstances, and for the infringement of which claim the state provides a remedy in its courts of justice
2: the aggregate of the capacities, powers, liberties, and privileges by which a claim is secured
3: a capacity of asserting a legally recognized claim
— compare LEGAL DUTY
4: a right cognizable in a common-law court as distinguished from a court having jurisdiction in equity
Significant
2AC – Broad C/I
‘Significant’ is ambiguous---‘considerable’ or ‘large’, especially in the context of US IP law.
Pooley ’23 [James; January 25; IP litigator and foremost global expert in trade secrets, Deputy Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva for five years; IP Watchdog, “New Federal Law and FTC Rule Will Imperil Trade Secret Protection,” https://ipwatchdog.com/2023/01/25/new-federal-law-ftc-rule-will-imperil-trade-secret-protection/id=155759/]
When Adam Smith spoke about an “invisible hand,” he was talking about a good thing – the way that free markets harness the laws of competition, supply and demand and self-interest to improve the economy. But he also could have been thinking of another law. The law of unintended consequences: that actions of people, and especially of governments, always have unanticipated effects. Sometimes these effects can be perverse, reflecting a profound failure of “second-order thinking” (in other words, thinking ahead about “how could this possibly go wrong?”).
On January 5, 2023 – a day that may go down in IP infamy – we saw two bold actions. First, the “Protecting American IP Act” became law; and second, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) proposed a new rule that would invalidate noncompete agreements across the United States. But wait, you might say, that actually sounds great! What’s the problem with protecting American IP, and making the rest of the country join California in unleashing talent to go where it likes? Well, don’t be too hasty. Stay with me on this, and you will see just how shortsighted our government can be.
First, let’s look at the legislation. The generic name is S.1294, and it requires the President to impose sanctions on foreign entities or persons involved in “significant” theft of U.S.-owned trade secrets, as well as others who support them. The new law calls for the President to report to Congress in July (and annually thereafter) identifying “foreign persons” who have “knowingly engaged in, or benefited from, significant theft” of trade secrets, if the activity is “likely to result in . . . a significant threat to the national security, foreign policy, or economic health” of the U.S. The report must also name foreign persons who provide “significant” financial or technical support to, or act on behalf of, the direct offender, including an entity’s CEO and board members. We are given no definition of what the oft-repeated word “significant” means, although possibilities range from “non-trivial” to “considerable” to “large.”
Pick Five From Our List
Having identified all these foreign actors and supporters, the President is required – unless he files a written waiver justified by the national interest – to impose “5 or more” from a list of sanctions, including (1) blocking property transactions, (2) placing on the “entity list,” (3) denying financial assistance or access, (4) disqualification from selling goods or services to the U.S., and (5) banning U.S. sources of investment. Individuals can be denied visas or have their existing visas revoked. Notably, there is no avenue for appeal to any court for relief from the President’s determination.
If this law sounds vaguely familiar, then congratulations, you’ve been paying attention! In June 2021, we published an article about the rush to “decouple” the United States from China. It included several examples of pending bills at the federal and state level that I mocked for their obvious ineffectiveness. One of them was an earlier version of S.1294. Back then, I thought it was silly to think that legislation requiring the President to choose “5 or more” sanctions, like picking dishes from a menu, could actually become law. How naïve I was!
One thing hasn’t changed, however; it should be apparent that this statute won’t really deter trade secret theft. We already have a law, the Economic Espionage Act, that provides up to 15 years in federal prison and $10 million in fines (plus restitution). Trade sanctions don’t amount to much if you’re ready to risk going to jail.
The Cobra Effect
But hold on, you might say—even if S.1292 is ineffective, at least it can’t do any harm, right? Well, that’s where the law of unintended consequences comes into play. I will pause here for a brief digression into how that law has come to be known as the “cobra effect.” During colonial times, the British governor of Delhi was concerned about an infestation of cobras. So he offered a generous bounty on cobra skins, assuming this would reduce their numbers. Instead, people saw a business opportunity and started breeding thousands of the snakes just to kill them and cash in. Horrified, the governor rescinded the bounty, and so guess what? All those breeding farms released their stock, which slithered into the city.
Here, the statute makes no exception for “foreign” entities that are actually subsidiaries of U.S. companies, so we may end up with sanctions applied to U.S. assets. But the bigger worry is that this law, which provides no incremental benefit, becomes inspiration for copycat legislation in other countries. We would hardly be in a position to complain about China arresting U.S. executives (or impounding data belonging to their companies) based only on a government “finding” made without due process.
Okay, let’s hope that remains just a scary risk that never comes to pass. Now we will turn to the other unwelcome news from Washington, the FTC’s new proposed rule that would ban noncompete agreements. Noncompetes are also something we’ve examined before, when the White House asked the FTC to perform a study, following public outrage over contracts being foisted on summer camp counselors and sandwich makers.
FTC Overrides State Noncompete Solutions
Here’s the background: noncompete agreements are (mostly) not allowed in California, while almost all other states permit them under a strict “reasonableness” filter that limits their time, subject matter and geographic coverage. Businesses like them because it’s hard to know when secrets are being used by a departed employee, and trade secret litigation is expensive and unpredictable, for both sides. To address the worst abuses, individual states have considered specific fixes. According to Russell Beck’s scorecard, 11 states have enacted laws that prohibit noncompetes for low-wage employees, and many other states are currently considering similar legislation.
The FTC rule would immediately wipe out all that state-level activity, based on its conclusion that all noncompetes are “unfair,” and that outlawing them would, according to economists, result in higher wages. The FTC justifies much of its logic and confidence on California’s experience; but the causal connection between that state’s restriction of noncompetes and the success of Silicon Valley has never been proven. One thing we are sure of: California leads the nation in trade secret litigation. That should come as no surprise, since its businesses have no other tool to protect their confidential information. It’s fair to question whether a surge in lawsuits in the rest of the country would be acceptable, or whether that outcome was even considered at the FTC.
But the FTC rule does not just copy California. It seems to go out of its way to introduce more uncertainty, burden and risk for industry. For example, consider that California permits noncompetes for someone who sells their interest in a business. This is sensible, because no one would buy a business if they couldn’t be assured that the seller would not open a shop down the street. But the FTC would only allow this “goodwill” exception for a “substantial” owner, which it defines as holding at least 25% of the company. Think about that. Any business with more than four equal shareholders would be unable to guarantee the buyer protection for goodwill, even if everyone agreed that it was necessary. What would that do to the potential liquidity of businesses, not just on Wall Street, but also on Main Street? Did anyone try to add up how many deals would never get done, or the reduced price for sellers not allowed to protect the sale with a noncompete?
It Gets Worse
And there’s more. The term “noncompete clause” is defined by the FTC to include any nondisclosure agreement that “is written so broadly that it effectively precludes the worker from working in the same field.” Employee nondisclosure agreements are widely used across most industries because they make it possible to share confidential information and trust that it won’t leave in the heads of departing staff. And because no one knows at the outset exactly what that shared information will be, the agreements must be drafted broadly. How many of them will be challenged as “de facto” noncompete contracts? The uncertainty and cost – including years of litigation – that this would impose is impossible to calculate, but it would be – ahem – “significant.”
Well, at least there will be a transition, right? Wrong! In fact, the FTC’s rule would not only take effect on day one, but it would be retroactive, requiring employers to give “individualized” written notice that the contract clauses have been “rescinded.” And the notice has to go not just to current “workers” (a term that includes independent contractors), but all past workers at their last address.
The ability of the United States to remain competitive in global markets requires that it enable and encourage innovation. Businesses today rely largely on information assets, but to commercialize those assets, companies have to provide confidential access to hundreds or thousands of employees with the assurance of a robust set of laws to protect trade secrets. For decades, the United States has been promoting that framework to the rest of the world. Now, the federal government seems blind to the ultimate consequences of what seems to some people like a great idea. Watch out for the snakes.
Significantly means large and noticeable
MacMillan Dictionary ’15 [http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/american/significantly]
significantly
1. by a large amount, or in a way that is easily noticeable
As an organization, we’ve grown significantly.
Significantly more people are injured at home than at work.
2AC – Context
Significance is ambiguous.
Davis ’6 [Ronald; Fall; independent antitrust practitioner in Atlanta, Georgia, and has consulted on some of the litigation discussed in this article; ABA Antitrust Magazine, “Reverse Payment Patent Settlements: A View Into th

Preview shortened. Download the file for the full document.