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Full-Text Articles in Law
Expired Patents, Saurabh Vishnubhakat
Expired Patents, Saurabh Vishnubhakat
Faculty Scholarship
This article presents a comprehensive empirical description of the public domain of technologies that have recently passed out of patent protection. From a new dataset of over 300,000 patents that expired during 2008–2012, the study examines technological, geographical, and procedural traits of newly public inventions as a basis for exploring the social value associated with their competitive use. Moreover, comparing these inventions to inventions newly patented during the same period enables more specific discussion of how the balance of innovation in the United States continues to change.
The Growing Public Domain In Medicine, Saurabh Vishnubhakat
The Growing Public Domain In Medicine, Saurabh Vishnubhakat
Faculty Scholarship
This essay describes the growing public domain of inventions associated with drugs and medicine, and geographies associated with identifiable shifts in the balance of innovation that may be especially favorable for promoting wider access to socially useful technologies. To do so, it departs from the largely ex ante perspective that currently informs the intersectional debate regarding human rights and patent rights and, instead, looks backward to inquire what innovations from past patents have already become publicly available in service of the human rights objective of greater access to technology. Ex post analysis of this kind may help public and private …
Betty Boop And The Return Of Aesthetic Functionality: A Bitter Medicine Against "Mutant Copyrights"?, Irene Calboli
Betty Boop And The Return Of Aesthetic Functionality: A Bitter Medicine Against "Mutant Copyrights"?, Irene Calboli
Faculty Scholarship
This article offers a brief overview of the history and developments of the doctrine of aesthetic functionality in the United States and examines the recent decisions in Fleischer Studios, Inc v AVELA, Inc . In particular, the article argues that the courts in Fleischer added an important element to the interpretation of the doctrine, namely the fact that the courts seemed willing to resort to aesthetic functionality to counter the consequences resulting from the practice of using trade mark law as an additional form of protection for copyrighted, or once copyrighted, creative works.