Law Commons^™

Is Turn About Fair Play? Copyright Law And The Fair Use Of Computer Software Loaded Into Ram, Chad G. Asarch

Michigan Law Review

Computer systems, especially those in heavy-use commercial settings, often require routine maintenance to continue functioning properly. Many businesses turn to an independent service organization ("IS0") to provide computer maintenance services because ISOs frequently charge less than the original equipment manufacturer ("OEM") for those services. The tremendous growth in computer use has spawned a multi-billion dollar computer maintenance industry in the United States, and ISOs and OEMs have become engaged in fierce competition for this computer service business. The struggle between ISOs and OEMs to capture this expanding market has spilled over into the courts, spawning a number of recent decisions …

Copyright Law And Electronic Access To Information, Jessica D. Litman

Articles

At the same time as we have been discovering the Internet’s enormous potential to enhance access to information and revolutionize the ways libraries do business, the Internet’s high profile in popular media has made it the focus of a wide spectrum of fears about the future. This paper focuses on pending proposals to amend copyright law to enhance the control copyright owners wield over the appearance of their works on digital networks. These proposals would stifle libraries’ use of the Internet. Libraries and their supporters must participate in the copyright debate, and think creatively about new models for copyright. The …

Intellectual Property Issues In Genomics, Rebecca S. Eisenberg

Articles

Controversy over intellectual property rights in the results of large-scale cDNA sequencing raises intriguing questions about the roles of the public and private sectors in genomics research, and about who stands to benefit (and who stands to lose) from the private appropriation of genomic information. While the US Patent and Trademark Office has rejected patent applications on cDNA fragments of unknown function from the National Institutes of Health, private firms have pursued three distinct strategies for exploiting unpatented cDNA sequence information: exclusive licensing, non-exclusive licensing and dedication to the public domain.

Escaping The World Of I Know It When I See It: A New Test For Software Patent Ability, Brooke Schumm Iii

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

The major thesis presented in this article is a focused standard of software patentability, in particular for pure computational methods or algorithms directed to the manipulation of numbers operating on a computer. The general philosophy is to compel inventors to narrow their claims to an algorithm expressed in terms of its utility and then to require that the particular utility or functionality be expressed in the claim as a limit on the claim, thus precluding the patent monopoly from being overbroad. As a corollary, any person is free to use or perhaps to patent the algorithm for a different utility …

Software Developers Want Changes In Patent And Copyright Law, David A. Burton

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Most software developers do not oppose all software copyrights. There is broad support for basic copyright protection of computer programs which prohibits directly copying computer programs without the author's permission. Nearly all commercial software is copyrighted, and most programmers agree that such protection is necessary in order for software development to be profitable. However, software patents and "look and feel" copyrights go well beyond this to prohibit other programmers from independently writing even programs that are similar to the protected program. Such constraints are strongly resented by many in the software development community who long for the good old days …

Information Wants To Be Free, But The Packaging Is Going To Cost You, Gregory A. Stobbs

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

The question is this: where do we draw the line between private ownership and the public domain? It is not a question of choosing between copyright and patent, of choosing between hardware and software, or of choosing between implementation and algorithm. It is a more fundamental question that reaches back to ancient human values and transcends our current fixation on computers and software. It helps to put things in perspective. When debating where we and the law are headed (as we are now), it helps to know where we have been. In this regard, do not assume that software patents …

Comments In Response To The Patent And Trademark Office's Proposed Examination Guidelines For Computer-Implemented Inventions, Robert R. Sachs

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

The Guidelines reflect a policy decision that computer-implemented inventions require both hardware and software elements. This policy decision and definition present several important issues. First, do the Guidelines accurately reflect and accommodate the practices of the software industry and software engineers? Second, do the Guidelines accurately reflect the current case law?

Sofware Patents And The Information Economy, Michael Perelman

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Modern economists universally acknowledge that information is an essential component of productivity. Moreover, as they begin to focus more and more on the nature of information, their conception of information widens considerably.

Software Patents--Just Make A Good Thing Better, David R. Syrowik

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Some have stated that software is somehow "different" from other technologies and must be treated differently. Others have gone so far as to advocate the abolition of patents for software-related technologies. I disagree with both propositions. I believe a heavy burden rests on those who advocate that a particular field of technology should be exempted from the patent system absent a statutory prohibition. Software-related technology should be treated under the U.S. patent laws as any other technology would be treated. Otherwise, investment in the software industry will be negatively impacted. The current patent system is vital to the protection of …

Rhetoric And Reality In Copyright Law, Stewart E. Sterk

Michigan Law Review

My first objective in this article is to explore the gulf between copyright rhetoric and copyright reality. After examining copyright rhetoric, the article demonstrates how neither the need to generate creative activity nor the desire to reward deserving authors provides a plausible justification for current copyright doctrine.

Why, then, does copyright doctrine continue to expand? The concluding section suggests some answers. Interest-group politics provides an obvious answer and one well-substantiated by the history of copyright legislation. But the story does not end with interest-group politics. Instead, I suggest that the nation's elite, including its lawmakers, has a stake in believing …

The Copyright Act Of 1976 And Prejudgment Interest, Jon M. Powers

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues that prejudgment interest should be presumptively available on damages-plus-profits awards under section 504(b) but should not be available for statutory damages under section 504(c). Part I argues that Supreme Court precedent suggests that the explicit reference to interest found in the Patent Act does not prevent courts from awarding prejudgment interest under the 1976 Copyright Act. Part II asserts that the 1976 Copyright Act's silence regarding prejudgment interest does not represent a congressional choice to exclude this remedy and that, in the face of this silence, the underlying purposes of section 504 should determine the propriety of …

Theft By Territorialism: A Case For Revising Trips To Protect Trademarks From National Market Foreclosure, Beth Fulkerson

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Note will argue that the "well-known mark" standard of the Paris Convention, which is also adopted by the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, Including Trade in Counterfeit Goods (TRIPS), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and the European Community (EC), is an artifact of an era when markets were circumscribed by national borders and granting a monopoly on a trademark in one country on the basis of its use in another was unreasonable because the likelihood of confusion was minimal. Today, however, the trademark originator's intent to expand beyond its original market should be presumed. …

Of Seeds And Shamans: The Appropriation Of The Scientific And Technical Knowledge Of Indigenous And Local Communities, Naomi Roht-Arriaza

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article recasts the debates over access to, and control over, genetic and biological knowledge and resources in terms of the appropriation of indigenous and local communities' knowledge and resources. It first discusses recent examples of appropriation as currently conducted by global biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and agribusiness corporations and their associates in Northern universities, seed and gene banks, and research centers. Second, it describes and exposes the mechanisms of appropriation by focusing on the limited and culturally determined definitions of what is "wild" as opposed to "cultivated," what is "knowledge" and who can possess it, and what are "innovations" and "inventions." …

Patents: Help Or Hindrance To Technology Transfer?, Rebecca S. Eisenberg

Book Chapters

Intellectual property is a broad heading used to refer to a wide variety of rights associated with inventions, discoveries, writings, artistic works, product designs, and designations of the source of goods and services. Patents and trade secrets are the most important of these sorts of intellectual properties in the field of biotechnology. One aspect of intellectual property that distinguishes it sharply from other forms of property-and for some people makes it harder to justify-is that intellectual properties may be possessed and used by many people simultaneously. This is not so for tangible property. If someone borrows my car, I cannot …

Intellectual Property At The Public-Private Divide: The Case Of Large-Scale Cdna Sequencing, Rebecca S. Eisenberg

Articles

The Human Genome Project provides fertile ground for studying the role of intellectual property at the wavering boundary between public and private research science. It involves a major commitment of both public and private research funds in an area that is of significant interest both to research scientists working in university and government laboratories and to commercial firms. It thus provides a wealth of new scientific discoveries that are simultaneously potential candidates for commercial development and inputs into further research. Its obvious implications for human health raise the stakes of getting the balance between private property and public access right, …

Public Research And Private Development: Patents And Technology Transfer In Government-Sponsored Research, Rebecca S. Eisenberg

Articles

This article revisits the logical and empirical basis for current government patent policy in order to shed light on the competing interests at stake and to begin to assess how the system is operating in practice. Such an inquiry is justified in part by the significance of federally-sponsored research and development to the overall U.S. research effort. Although the share of national expenditures for research and development borne by the federal government has declined since 1980, federal funding in 1995 still accounted for approximately thirty-six percent of total national outlays for research and development' and nearly fifty-eight percent of outlays …