Law Commons^™

Recent Development: Craigslist And The Cfaa: The Untold Story, Clark S. Splichal

Florida Law Review

There is one area in which Craigslist Inc. appears particularly invested these days: its legal bills. Notoriously cutthroat, this online classified marketplace has steadfastly clung to its bare-boned business blueprint while resisting any form of growth or innovation over the years. Craigslist has not, however, shied away from taking on its would-be competitors in court, oftentimes those attempting only to “add[] a layer of value” to the Craigslist formula. Not surprisingly, Craigslist’s arsenal of litigation weapons has become quite vast in recent years: claims arising under the Copyright Act, the Lanham Act, and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), …

Regulating Digital Trade, Sapna Kumar

Florida Law Review

Under § 337 of the Tariff Act, the International Trade Commission (ITC) has jurisdiction over articles that enter the country and infringe intellectual property rights. Recently, the ITC vastly expanded its powers, asserting jurisdiction over imported digital files that infringe intellectual property rights. This Article examines the limits of the ITC’s authority, arguing that it lacks jurisdiction over digital information, because information in the abstract cannot be controlled by a court or an agency. It maintains that the ITC has misconstrued the breadth of its statutory authority under the Tariff Act and that the traditional tools of statutory interpretation show …

I'M A Little Treepot: Conceptual Separability And Affording Copyright Protection To Useful Articles, Sonja Wolf Sahlsten

Florida Law Review

To determine if a useful article—generally ineligible for copyright protection—has pictorial, graphic, or sculptural features that are copyrightable, the Copyright Act and the legislative intent expressed through the Act’s legislative history require that those artistic features be identified separately and capable of existing independently of the utilitarian function of the work. If the artistic features are either physically or conceptually separable from the utilitarian function of the work, then they are copyrightable. However, determining if artistic features are conceptually separable from the utilitarian function of the work has proven to be extremely difficult.

Since Mazer v. Stein, the U.S. Supreme …

Antitrust Limits On Targeted Patent Aggregation, Alan Devlin

Florida Law Review

Patent-assertion entities (PAEs) are non-technology-practicing companies that aggregate and license patents under threat of suit. Their activities have drawn fire, including presidential condemnation, and spurred proposed legislation to protect operating firms against them. PAEs leverage flaws in the patent system to extort firms that independently invent and sell technological goods to consumers. Since PAEs tax innovators and appear to restrict rather than facilitate wealth transfer to original patentees, their worst rent-seeking practices almost certainly reduce net incentives to innovate and harm consumers. This result is more likely if the principal desirable incentive that PAEs create is to file patents rather …

Inventive Application: A History, Jeffrey A. Lefstin

Florida Law Review

The Supreme Court’s recent cases on patent-eligible subject matter have struggled to draw the line between unpatentable fundamental principles, such as laws of nature and abstract ideas, and patentable inventions. In Mayo v. Prometheus, the Court suggested that only “inventive applications” of fundamental principles fall within the domain of the patent system. Both Mayo and its intellectual forebear, Parker v. Flook, anchored this doctrine in Neilson v. Harford, the famous “hot blast” case decided by the Court of Exchequer in 1841. But the Supreme Court has founded the inventive application doctrine on a basic misapprehension. Neilson’s patent on the hot …

I'M A Little Treepot: Conceptual Separability And Affording Copyright Protection To Useful Articles, Sonja Wolf Sahlsten

Florida Law Review

To determine if a useful article—generally ineligible for copyright protection—has pictorial, graphic, or sculptural features that are copyrightable, the Copyright Act and the legislative intent expressed through the Act’s legislative history require that those artistic features be identified separately and capable of existing independently of the utilitarian function of the work. If the artistic features are either physically or conceptually separable from the utilitarian function of the work, then they are copyrightable. However, determining if artistic features are conceptually separable from the utilitarian function of the work has proven to be extremely difficult.

Since Mazer v. Stein, the U.S. Supreme …

Antitrust Limits On Targeted Patent Aggregation, Alan Devlin

Florida Law Review

Patent-assertion entities (PAEs) are non-technology-practicing companies that aggregate and license patents under threat of suit. Their activities have drawn fire, including presidential condemnation, and spurred proposed legislation to protect operating firms against them. PAEs leverage flaws in the patent system to extort firms that independently invent and sell technological goods to consumers. Since PAEs tax innovators and appear to restrict rather than facilitate wealth transfer to original patentees, their worst rent-seeking practices almost certainly reduce net incentives to innovate and harm consumers. This result is more likely if the principal desirable incentive that PAEs create is to file patents rather …

Inventive Application: A History, Jeffrey A. Lefstin

Florida Law Review

The Supreme Court’s recent cases on patent-eligible subject matter have struggled to draw the line between unpatentable fundamental principles, such as laws of nature and abstract ideas, and patentable inventions. In Mayo v. Prometheus, the Court suggested that only “inventive applications” of fundamental principles fall within the domain of the patent system. Both Mayo and its intellectual forebear, Parker v. Flook, anchored this doctrine in Neilson v. Harford, the famous “hot blast” case decided by the Court of Exchequer in 1841. But the Supreme Court has founded the inventive application doctrine on a basic misapprehension. Neilson’s patent on the hot …

I'M A Little Treepot: Conceptual Separability And Affording Copyright Protection To Useful Articles, Sonja Wolf Sahlsten

Florida Law Review

To determine if a useful article—generally ineligible for copyright protection—has pictorial, graphic, or sculptural features that are copyrightable, the Copyright Act and the legislative intent expressed through the Act’s legislative history require that those artistic features be identified separately and capable of existing independently of the utilitarian function of the work. If the artistic features are either physically or conceptually separable from the utilitarian function of the work, then they are copyrightable. However, determining if artistic features are conceptually separable from the utilitarian function of the work has proven to be extremely difficult.

Since Mazer v. Stein, the U.S. Supreme …

Antitrust Limits On Targeted Patent Aggregation, Alan Devlin

Florida Law Review

Patent-assertion entities (PAEs) are non-technology-practicing companies that aggregate and license patents under threat of suit. Their activities have drawn fire, including presidential condemnation, and spurred proposed legislation to protect operating firms against them. PAEs leverage flaws in the patent system to extort firms that independently invent and sell technological goods to consumers. Since PAEs tax innovators and appear to restrict rather than facilitate wealth transfer to original patentees, their worst rent-seeking practices almost certainly reduce net incentives to innovate and harm consumers. This result is more likely if the principal desirable incentive that PAEs create is to file patents rather …

Inventive Application: A History, Jeffrey A. Lefstin

Florida Law Review

The Supreme Court’s recent cases on patent-eligible subject matter have struggled to draw the line between unpatentable fundamental principles, such as laws of nature and abstract ideas, and patentable inventions. In Mayo v. Prometheus, the Court suggested that only “inventive applications” of fundamental principles fall within the domain of the patent system. Both Mayo and its intellectual forebear, Parker v. Flook, anchored this doctrine in Neilson v. Harford, the famous “hot blast” case decided by the Court of Exchequer in 1841. But the Supreme Court has founded the inventive application doctrine on a basic misapprehension. Neilson’s patent on the hot …

Exhausting Patents, Wentong Zheng

UF Law Faculty Publications

A bedrock principle of patent law — patent exhaustion — proclaims that an authorized sale of a patented article exhausts the patentee’s rights with respect to the article sold. Over one hundred and fifty years of case law, however, has produced two conflicting notions of patent exhaustion, one considering exhaustion to be mandatory regardless of whether the patentee subjects the sale to express patent restrictions, and another treating exhaustion as a default rule that applies only in unconditional sales. The uncertainty surrounding the patent exhaustion doctrine casts a significant legal cloud over patent licensing practices in the modern economy and …