Law Commons^™

Did The America Invents Act Change University Technology Transfer?, Cynthia L. Dahl

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University technology transfer offices (TTOs) are the gatekeepers to groundbreaking innovations sparked in research laboratories around the U.S. With a business model reliant on patenting and licensing out for commercialization, TTOs were positioned for upheaval when the America Invents Act (AIA) transformed U.S. patent law in 2011. Now almost ten years later, this article examines the AIA’s actual effects on this patent-centric industry. It focuses on the five key areas of most interest to TTOs: i) first to file priority; ii) broadening of the universe of prior art; iii) carve-out to the prior commercial use defense; iv) micro-entity fees; and …

Restructuring Copyright Infringement, Gideon Parchomovsky, Abraham Bell

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Copyright law employs a one-size-fits-all strict liability regime against all unauthorized users of copyrighted works. The current regime takes no account of the blameworthiness of the unauthorized user or of the information costs she faces. Nor does it consider ways in which the rightsholders may have contributed to potential infringements, or ways in which they could have cheaply avoided them. A non-consensual use of a copyrighted work entitles copyright owners to the full panoply of remedies available under the Copyright Act, including supra-compensatory damage awards, disgorgement of profits and injunctive relief. This liability regime is unjust, as it largely fails …

Brief Amici Curiae Of Intellectual Property Professors In Support Of Petitioner, No. 18-600, Texas Advanced Optoelectronic Solutions, Inc. V. Renesas Electronics America, Inc., Timothy R. Holbrook, Ann Bartow, Andrew Chin, David C. Hricik, Yvette Joy Liebesman, Lucas Osborn

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To comply with the obligations of the Uruguay Round Agreements, particularly the Agreement on the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS), Congress amended 35 U.S.C. § 271(a) to make it an act of infringement to “offer to sell” a patented invention within the United States. See Uruguay Round Agreements Act, Pub. L. No. 103-465, §§ 531-533, 108 Stat. 4809 (1994).

The Federal Circuit has interpreted this provision in a manner contrary to the presumption against the extraterritorial reach of United States laws. The Federal Circuit has held that location of the ultimate sale contemplated in the offer controls the …

Downstream Copyright Infringers, Yvette Joy Liebesman

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The advent of on-line music sales has been a boon to the recording industry as well as for musicians and the general public. Previously unknown artists have found new avenues to showcase their work, and consumers have easy access to an enormous variety of musical genres.

Yet an unintended consequence of the ability to sell songs through internet downloads is a novel, and until now, unnoticed way to infringe on copyrights - which, unless remedied, could lead to new classes of defendants never contemplated or desired to be ensnared in the Copyright Act’s protections for artists, musicians and authors. Unlike …

Best Intentions: Reconsidering Best Practices Statements In The Context Of Fair Use And Copyright Law, Jennifer E. Rothman

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Private ordering is increasingly playing a role in determining the scope of intellectual property rights both as a de facto and a de jure matter. In this essay, I consider the best practices movement and its efforts to use private ordering to limit the scope and enforcement of copyright law. Best practices statements in the copyright context establish voluntary guidelines for what should be deemed fair uses of others’ copyrighted works. I identify some of the de facto successes of the best practices movement, but also raise a number of concerns about the project. As I have discussed elsewhere, the …

Tradable Patent Rights, Ian Ayres, Gideon Parchomovsky

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Patent thickets may inefficiently retard cumulative innovation. This paper explores two alternative mechanisms that may be used to weed out patent thickets. Both mechanisms are intended to reduce the number of patents in our society. The first mechanism we discuss is price based regulation of patents through a system of increasing renewal fees. The second and more innovative mechanism is quantity based regulation through the establishment of a system of Tradable Patent Rights. The formalization of tradable patent rights would essentially create a secondary market for patent permits in which patent protection will be bought and sold.

Yours For Keeps: Mgm V. Grokster, Max Oppenheimer

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In MGM v. Grokster, now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, all parties have made the assumption that most P2P file transfers infringe copyrights. Two theories contradict that assumption: a significant number of individuals who transfer files over P2P networks may have a license to do so, and the Copyright Act itself may exempt the transfer of certain categories of entertainment files over P2P networks from the definition of infringement.

Communicating Entitlements: Property And The Internet, William Hubbard

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No abstract provided.

Current Developments In Cyberspace, Eric Easton

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No abstract provided.