Law Commons^™

Wrongful Improvers As A Guiding Principle For Application Of The Ftc’S Ip Deletion Requirement, Emma Elder

Washington Law Review

The 2021 Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigation into cloud storage app developer Everalbum resulted in a consent decree that required Everalbum to delete not only unlawfully collected data, but also algorithms created using that data. The FTC had imposed this kind of penalty only once before. Questions remain about how the FTC will apply this so-called intellectual property (IP) deletion requirement in the future. This Comment argues that situations where companies develop intellectual property from misappropriated consumer data are analogous to cases where courts seek to apply the property law rule of the wrongful improver, i.e., where one party knowingly …

Amplifying The Washington Pro Bono Patent Network Through Legal Consults, Jennifer S. Fan

Presentations

The USPTO hosted a series of presentations related to patent pro bono work. This presentation discusses how the legal consult structure the University of Washington School of Law Entrepreneurial Law Clinic developed brings more visibility to the work of the Washington Pro Bono Patent Network.

Patents And The Pandemic: Intellectual Property, Social Contracts, And Access To Vaccines, Peter Lee

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

Through enormous public support and private initiative, biopharmaceutical firms developed safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines in record time. These remarkable vaccines represent humanity’s best chance to end the devastating pandemic. However, difficult questions about ownership and access have arisen alongside the development and deployment of these vaccines. Biopharmaceutical companies have patented many of the technologies underlying these vaccines, thus seeming to pit intellectual property rights against the objective of wide and rapid dissemination of these critical resources. While prevailing debates have been framed in the language of intellectual property, this Article suggests that contract principles can help break the impasse …

Cyber-Silencing The Community: Youtube, Divino Group, And Reimagining Section 230, Layla G. Maurer

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

Social media platforms, once simple messaging boards, have grown to colossal size. They are now a vital source of communication and connection, particularly for marginalized groups such as the LGBTQ+ community. Social media holds incredible sway over the news, political discourse, and entertainment that we consume, and the platforms we use are now able to sculpt conversations simply by allowing or disallowing (i.e., moderating) specific types of speech or content.

One indirect form of moderation is demonetization, a means by which content creators are disallowed revenue from advertisements on their hosted media. The consequence of improper demonetization is not just …

Tiktok The Musical: Copyright Issues Raised By The "Ratatouille" Musical, Paige V. Gagliardi

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

TikTok the Musical: Copyright Issues Raised by the “Ratatouille” Musical, explores the growing trend in derivative works and the failures of current copyright law to address it. This article asserts that while derivative works are excellent creative outlets, a safe haven in a tumultuous world, allowing appropriation of copyrights via the fair use doctrine conflicts with the foundations of copyright law. This article argues that IP giants such as the Walt Disney Company have sent a dangerous message to the general public by allowing the TikTok trend of the #ratatouillemusical to become an actual musical: that unlicensed derivative works …

Copyright Protection For Works In The Language Of Life, Nina Srejovic

Washington Law Review

In 2001, the DNA Copyright Institute sought to capitalize on the fear of human cloning by offering celebrities the opportunity to use copyright to secure exclusive rights in their DNA. At the time, a Copyright Office spokesperson pointed out that a person’s DNA “is not an original work of authorship.” That statement is no longer self-evident. A scientist claims to have used CRISPR technology to create a pair of twin girls with human-altered DNA that may provide immunity to HIV infection and improved cognitive function. Through gene therapy, doctors can “author” changes to patients’ DNA to cure disease. Scientists “edit” …

The New Bailments, Danielle D’Onfro

Washington Law Review

The rise of cloud computing has dramatically changed how consumers and firms store their belongings. Property that owners once managed directly now exists primarily on infrastructure maintained by intermediaries. Consumers entrust their photos to Apple instead of scrapbooks; businesses put their documents on Amazon’s servers instead of in file cabinets; seemingly everything runs in the cloud. Were these belongings tangible, the relationship between owner and intermediary would be governed by the common-law doctrine of bailment. Bailments are mandatory relationships formed when one party entrusts their property to another. Within this relationship, the bailees owe the bailors a duty of care …

Copyright Licensing And The Regulation Of China's Music Market: Searching For Transactional Efficiency And Fair Compensation, Chien-Chih (Jesse) Lu

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

China’s music copyright collecting society and its new music platforms, find points of commonality through constructing more efficient and profitable systems to generate more users and greater income. By undertaking a comparison of the various copyright regulations, cases, and statistics, this research aims to contribute to academic science by extracting frameworks and solutions from the United States and European licensing models and examining them in the context of China’s music market. It aims to discover rational approaches to connect rising technology and emerging economic incentives.

Appropriate solutions are proposed based on the influence of international treaties and legislative progress driven …

Book Review: Research Handbook On Design Law, Toshiko Takenaka Prof.

Book Reviews

Although recent US case law significantly increased the value of design patents, the European industry has long acknowledged the commercial value of product designs and developed EU-wide protection for the designs regardless of registration. According to recent statistics, both US and EU design patents and community design rights outperform utility patents on validity and infringement. The result of the community design rights is particularly surprising because both registered and unregistered design rights issue without any examination of substantive requirements. Effective product design protection is a key to success for consumer goods manufacturers to complete in the global market. However, there …

The Supreme Court’S Chief Justice Of Intellectual Property Law, Bob Gomulkiewicz

Articles

Justice Clarence Thomas is one of the most recognizable members of the United States Supreme Court. Many people recall his stormy Senate confirmation hearing and notice his fiery dissenting opinions that call on the Court to reflect the original public meaning of the Constitution. Yet observers have missed one of Justice Thomas’s most significant contributions to the Court—his intellectual property law jurisprudence. Justice Thomas has authored more majority opinions in intellectual property cases than any other Justice in the Roberts Court era and now ranks as the most prolific author of patent law opinions in the history of the Supreme …

Unravelling Inventorship, Toshiko Takenaka

Articles

Inventorship, who made an invention, is one of the most important concepts under the U.S. patent system. Incorrect inventorship determinations result in patent invalidity not only because U.S. Constitution requires granting patents to true inventors, but also first-inventorto- file novelty inherited many aspects of first-to-invent novelty which depended on inventorship whether to include prior inventions as prior art. Correcting inventorship may result in sharing patent exclusivity with competitors, which forfeits profits necessary to recover expensive development costs. However, the standard to determine inventorship has been called muddy by judges and commentators because neither the Patent Act nor case law provide …

Taxing Creativity, Xuan-Thao Nguyen, Jeffrey A. Maine

Articles

The recent sell offs of song catalogs by Bob Dylan, Stevie Nicks, Neil Young, and Mick Fleetwood for extraordinarily large sums of money raise questions about the law on creativity. While patent and copyright laws encourage a wide array of creative endeavors, tax laws governing monetization of creative works do not. The Songwriters Capital Gains Equity Act, in particular, solidifies creativity exceptionalism, exacerbates tax inequities among creators, and perpetuates racial disparities in the tax Code. This Article asserts that the law must encourage creativity from all creators. It is time to eliminate tax exceptionalism for musical compositions or expand its …