Digital Commons Network^™

Reexamining Eli Lilly V. Canada: A Human Rights Approach To Investor-State Disputes?, Cynthia M. Ho

Cynthia M Ho

This Article provides valuable insight to the broader discussion of reforming investor-state disputes. Many have noted that the system is in a crisis due to a lack of democratic accountability and inconsistent decisions, which create a chilling effect on legitimate domestic law and policy. Despite substantial discussion in recent years concerning how to reform investor-state disputes, there is only limited discussion concerning the extent to which such disputes challenge domestic intellectual property (IP) limits, as well as global IP norms. Moreover, even among those who recognize the challenge to IP limits, the relevance of human rights is generally not addressed. …

Intellectual Property And Public Health – A White Paper, Ryan G. Vacca, Jim Chen, Jay Dratler Jr., Tom Folsom, Timothy Hall, Yaniv Heled, Frank Pasquale, Elizabeth Reilly, Jeff Samuels, Kathy Strandburg, Kara Swanson, Andrew Torrance, Katharine Van Tassel

Katharine Van Tassel

On October 26, 2012, the University of Akron School of Law’s Center for Intellectual Property and Technology hosted its Sixth Annual IP Scholars Forum. In attendance were thirteen legal scholars with expertise and an interest in IP and public health who met to discuss problems and potential solutions at the intersection of these fields. This report summarizes this discussion by describing the problems raised, areas of agreement and disagreement between the participants, suggestions and solutions made by participants and the subsequent evaluations of these suggestions and solutions.

Led by the moderator, participants at the Forum focused generally on three broad …

Socially Responsible Corporate Ip, Janewa Osei Tutu

J. Janewa Osei-Tutu

Trademark Cosmopolitanism, Sonia K. Katyal

Sonia Katyal

The world of global trademarks can be characterized in terms of three major shifts: first, a shift from national to global branding strategies; second, a shift from national and regional systems to harmonized international regimes governing trademark law; and third, a concurrent shift from local to transnational social movements that challenge branding and other corporate practices. The rise of transnational brands brings with it an attendant series of legal shifts in trademark law. Long considered the stepchild of intellectual property law, today, trademark law has morphed into a powerful global legal phenomenon, revealing a foundational shift from national and regional …

Corporate "Human Rights" To Intellectual Property Protection, J. Janewa Osei Tutu

J. Janewa Osei-Tutu

Adjudicating Trips For Development, Molly Land

Molly K. Land

No abstract provided.

Human Rights Frames In Ip Contests, Molly Land

Molly K. Land

No abstract provided.

Super-Intermediaries, Code, Human Rights, Ira Nathenson

Ira Steven Nathenson

We live in an age of intermediated network communications. Although the internet includes many intermediaries, some stand heads and shoulders above the rest. This article examines some of the responsibilities of “Super-Intermediaries” such as YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, intermediaries that have tremendous power over their users’ human rights. After considering the controversy arising from the incendiary YouTube video Innocence of Muslims, the article suggests that Super-Intermediaries face a difficult and likely impossible mission of fully servicing the broad tapestry of human rights contained in the International Bill of Human Rights. The article further considers how intermediary content-control procedures focus too …

Intellectual Property And Public Health – A White Paper, Ryan G. Vacca, Jim Chen, Jay Dratler Jr., Tom Folsom, Timothy Hall, Yaniv Heled, Frank Pasquale, Elizabeth Reilly, Jeff Samuels, Kathy Strandburg, Kara Swanson, Andrew Torrance, Katharine Van Tassel

Ryan G. Vacca

On October 26, 2012, the University of Akron School of Law’s Center for Intellectual Property and Technology hosted its Sixth Annual IP Scholars Forum. In attendance were thirteen legal scholars with expertise and an interest in IP and public health who met to discuss problems and potential solutions at the intersection of these fields. This report summarizes this discussion by describing the problems raised, areas of agreement and disagreement between the participants, suggestions and solutions made by participants and the subsequent evaluations of these suggestions and solutions.

Led by the moderator, participants at the Forum focused generally on three broad …

Intellectual Property And Public Health – A White Paper, Ryan G. Vacca, Jim Chen, Jay Dratler Jr., Tom Folsom, Timothy Hall, Yaniv Heled, Frank Pasquale, Elizabeth Reilly, Jeff Samuels, Kathy Strandburg, Kara Swanson, Andrew Torrance, Katharine Van Tassel

Frank A. Pasquale

On October 26, 2012, the University of Akron School of Law’s Center for Intellectual Property and Technology hosted its Sixth Annual IP Scholars Forum. In attendance were thirteen legal scholars with expertise and an interest in IP and public health who met to discuss problems and potential solutions at the intersection of these fields. This report summarizes this discussion by describing the problems raised, areas of agreement and disagreement between the participants, suggestions and solutions made by participants and the subsequent evaluations of these suggestions and solutions.

Led by the moderator, participants at the Forum focused generally on three broad …

Intellectual Property And Public Health – A White Paper, Ryan G. Vacca, Jim Chen, Jay Dratler Jr., Tom Folsom, Timothy Hall, Yaniv Heled, Frank Pasquale, Elizabeth Reilly, Jeff Samuels, Kathy Strandburg, Kara Swanson, Andrew Torrance, Katharine Van Tassel

Katharine Van Tassel

On October 26, 2012, the University of Akron School of Law’s Center for Intellectual Property and Technology hosted its Sixth Annual IP Scholars Forum. In attendance were thirteen legal scholars with expertise and an interest in IP and public health who met to discuss problems and potential solutions at the intersection of these fields. This report summarizes this discussion by describing the problems raised, areas of agreement and disagreement between the participants, suggestions and solutions made by participants and the subsequent evaluations of these suggestions and solutions.

Led by the moderator, participants at the Forum focused generally on three broad …

Intellectual Property And Public Health – A White Paper, Ryan G. Vacca, Jim Chen, Jay Dratler Jr., Tom Folsom, Timothy Hall, Yaniv Heled, Frank Pasquale, Elizabeth Reilly, Jeff Samuels, Kathy Strandburg, Kara Swanson, Andrew Torrance, Katharine Van Tassel

Yaniv Heled

On October 26, 2012, the University of Akron School of Law’s Center for Intellectual Property and Technology hosted its Sixth Annual IP Scholars Forum. In attendance were thirteen legal scholars with expertise and an interest in IP and public health who met to discuss problems and potential solutions at the intersection of these fields. This report summarizes this discussion by describing the problems raised, areas of agreement and disagreement between the participants, suggestions and solutions made by participants and the subsequent evaluations of these suggestions and solutions.

Led by the moderator, participants at the Forum focused generally on three broad …

Region Codes And Human Rights, Molly Land

Molly K. Land

No abstract provided.

Rebalancing Trips, Molly K. Land

Molly K. Land

In recent years, global intellectual property scholarship has been preoccupied with “rehabilitating” the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS). With some distance from the polarizing rhetoric that accompanied the early years of TRIPS, contemporary accounts laud the treaty as far more flexible and sensitive to the needs of developing countries than had previously been believed. This article argues that, contrary to these accounts, the fears of developing countries concerning TRIPS have indeed been realized—just not in the manner they imagined at the time of its conclusion. Although TRIPS does contain significant flexibilities, states have largely failed to take …

Special 301 Of The Trade Act Of 1974 And Global Access To Medicine, Sean M. Flynn

Sean Flynn

Since its inception in 1988, the United States Trade Representative’s “Special 301” adjudication of foreign intellectual property law standards has been used to promote policies restricting access to affordable medications around the world. President-elect Obama released a platform promising to “break the stranglehold that a few big drug and insurance companies have on these life-saving drugs” and pledged support for “the rights of sovereign nations to access quality-assured, low-cost generic medication to meet their pressing public health needs.” The 2009 and 2010 Special 301 reports, however, indicate that the Obama Administration has not yet implemented this pledge into administration trade …

Emerging Law Addressing Climate Change And Water, Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

The World Economic Forum recognizes that while restrictions on energy affect water systems and vice versa, energy and water policy are rarely coordinated. The International Panel on Climate Change predicts that wet places will become wetter and dry places will become dryer. Transboundary water, energy and climate coordination can occur through international consensus building.

Intellectual Property Rights And The Right To Participate In Cultural Life, Molly Land

Molly K. Land

Although many contend that human rights law is a justification for intellectual property rights, precisely the opposite is true. Human rights law is far more a limit on intellectual property rights than a rationale for such regimes. In a variety of ways, human rights law requires states to take specific, concrete steps to limit the effects of intellectual property rights in order to protect international human rights. This powerful and emancipatory dimension of human rights law has unfortunately been overshadowed by those who claim human rights as a basis for granting exclusive rights.

The U.N. Committee on Economic, Social, and …

Protecting Rights Online, Molly Land

Molly K. Land

Although the human rights and access to knowledge (A2K) movements share many of the same goals, their legal and regulatory agendas have little in common. While state censorship online is a central concern for human rights advocates, this issue has been largely ignored by the A2K movement. Likewise, human rights advocates have failed to examine the cumulative effect of expanding copyright protections on education and culture. These disparate agendas reflect fundamentally different views about what states should regulate and the role of international institutions. Overcoming this divide is critical to ensuring the movements can draw on their respective strengths to …

Freedom Of Expression (R): Overzealous Copyright Bozos And Other Enemies Of Creativity (Book Review), Matthew Rimmer

Matthew Rimmer

Rising Temperatures: Rising Tides, Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

Transboundary environmental problems do not distinguish between political boundaries. Global warming is expected to cause thermal expansion of water and melt glaciers. Both are predicted to lead to a rise in sea level. We must enlarge our paradigms to encompass a global reality and reliance upon global participation.