Law Commons^™

The Times They Are A-Changin': Innovation In The Modern Music Festival, Molly R. Madonia

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

Musical festivals are, and have always been, a way for friends and families to gather together to celebrate the latest and greatest in music, food, and entertainment. From large festivals in major metropolitan cities to small, intimate shows, music festivals have long been a source of enjoyment to music fans and a source of inspiration to up-and-coming musicians. This Article will explore innovation within the modern music festival, including legal, political, and operational changes that affect festivals across the country. So, as Emerson, Lake, and Palmer so eloquently expressed, “Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends, we’re …

Celebrating Wisconsin Entrepreneurs: Lessons Learned From Wisconsin Entrepreneurs And Businesses, And Future Prospects For A Healthcare Sector That Is Healthcare Reform, Daniel S. Sem, Si Gou, Taleb Aljabban

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

Wisconsin has a rich history of entrepreneurial activity, which is often not appreciated beyond its well-recognized strength in the beer and cheese industries. However, Wisconsin’s entrepreneurial nature has been called into question. Recently, Wisconsin was ranked fiftieth in the United States for startup activity by the Kauffman Foundation. In contrast, Wisconsin ranks at the top of the country for startups that are local and established business with more longevity. The first half of this article will review some of the challenges and opportunities that have faced Wisconsin entrepreneurs, and will provide an overview of over 150 Wisconsin companies (Table 1), …

The Right To Creative Illegitimacy: Art And The Fallacy Of Proprietary Legitimation, John Baldacchino

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

When we speak of the arts, and more so when one engages with the arts as a practitioner in their various contexts, the questions of legitimacy and legitimation take a very different turn. This spans across a wide horizon, whether it is that of art-making in the studio; of showing in the gallery; of performing in the hall; or of teaching, learning and unlearning in schools, colleges or universities.

To start with, one needs to understand and find a way of differentiating between legitimacy and legitimation. Legitimacy implies a degree of conformity, whether it is with the law, agreed rules, …

The Mystery Of Section 253(B), Matthew Gagnier

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

In 2014, Elon Musk, the renowned and socially-minded CEO of Tesla Motors, Inc., posted a blog on Tesla’s website that stated the company would be freeing up many of its patents involved in the creation of the company’s electric cars to any interested party. Yet again, Musk astounded the public by choosing the betterment of society over corporate profits—stirring up a more positive image than any other corporate personality. But there are numerous questions that Musk’s positive PR have drowned out: Where can you access the patents?; How did freeing up the patents get past the other executive officers and …

Congress Does Not Hide Elephants In Mouse-Holes: How Vimeo Paid No Heed To That Caution, Mitch Bailey

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

With the passage of the 1976 Copyright Act, sound recordings fixed prior to February 15, 1972 remained under the protection of the state copyright laws where the works were registered. Some incredible culturally significant songs were fixed before February 15, 1972, including songs from “The Beatles, The Supremes, Elvis Presley, Aretha Franklin, Barbara Streisand, and Marvin Gaye.” To date, state law protects the owner’s rights without interference from federal law, including the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”).

Given its location, the Second Circuit significantly influenced the development of intellectual property law in the United States, especially copyright law. Many businesses …

Inspiration Versus Exploitation: Traditional Cultural Expressions At The Hem Of The Fashion Industry, Elizabeth M. Lenjo

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

The fashion industry is a multitrillion dollar global industry. In 2016, consumers in the United States of America alone, spent almost $380 billion on apparel and footwear. Some may deride the fashion industry as lacking substance and mere “fluff,” but the numbers validate that it is important and extremely valuable “fluff.” After all, clothing and footwear are human necessities and are the main output from this sector that spans from high-end luxury brands to low-end necessities.

Clothing and fashion help define a culture and reflect individual identity. Throughout most of human history, regional variations in style and clothing served as …

What's Your Story? Every Famous Mark Has One: Persuasion In Trademark Opposition Briefs, Candace Hays

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

A key contention of legal writing scholarship is that the legal resolution is rooted in storytelling. The law consists of an endless telling and retelling of stories. Clients tell stories to their lawyers, who must figure out how to frame their client’s narrative into a legal context. Lawyers retell their clients’ stories to judges using pleadings, motions, and legal briefs. Judges and administrators retell these stories in the form of an opinion or verdict.

Storytelling in the legal context is an important element of persuasion. For the purpose of this comment, legal storytelling is defined as the use of fiction-writing …

The Defend Trade Secrets Act: Why Interpreting The New Law On Its Own Terms Promotes Uniformity, Patrick Ruelle

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

Trade secrets, a category of intellectual property recognized at state and federal law, are integral parts of many corporations’ intellectual property portfolios. A trade secret is a type of intellectual property that is not disclosed by its owner, and is therefore unlike patents, trademarks, or copyrights—all types of information that are disclosed to the public. As a result, trade secrets may represent a viable alternative to patents and copyrights since its value is derived from its secrecy.

In the United States, the laws governing trade secrets have typically been the offspring of the state common law. As each state developed …

Reverse Engineering Ip, Tonya M. Evans

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

With the advent of the Internet and digital technology, the twenty-first century has ushered in a quantum increase in the ways to create, disseminate, and commercially exploit creativity. Digital technology allows anyone to create perfect digital copies of protected works in the comfort of their homes and to distribute them to tens, hundreds, thousands, and even millions of people with the click of a hyperlink via a handheld device. Indeed, copyright touches more ordinary people in substantial ways in this age of information than at any other time in American copyright history. READ MORE, download the article.

The Immorality Of Strict Liability In Copyright, Steven Hetcher

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

I will argue for a fundamental reconceptualization of liability for copyright infringement. Specifically, I will argue that the essentially unchallenged orthodoxy that copyright infringement is a strict liability tort is false. From the Supreme Court on down, it does not even appear to be questioned that copyright infringement applies a strict liability standard. Upon reflection, this is peculiar, given that this is anything but an innocuous doctrine. It is just the opposite; it is a doctrine that strongly favors copyright owners who may more easily prevail in infringement suits, as it will always be easier to establish strict liability as …

The End Of Ownership?, Donald F. Jankowski Ii

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

Imagine for a moment that you are in the market for a new car. You find a sports car that you like, talk with a salesperson and ultimately purchase a new automobile. This car is effectively the same as thousands of other cars. It is a copy. You were not under the impression that you were buying the rights to the design of the car or to reproduce the car to the exact specifications as your own copy. However, you believe that you can do with this car what you will. You can put bigger wheels on it, put stickers …

Free Fashion, Ashley M. Marshall

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

Our current vision of fashion is viewed as a shared art form that may be enjoyed by all social classes. Fashion encourages a melting pot of collaboration from people that are influenced by creativity. At its core, fashion is innovative and it inspires people to foster that same self-expressive conduit. Traditionally, fashion was a privilege and greatly restricted from certain classes. Indeed, Georg Simmel has proposed that in an open class society, the high class seeks to distinguish itself by adorning distinctive forms of dress, and in turn, the middle class adopts this form of dress to identify with the …

Beneficiaries Of Misconduct: A Direct Approach To It Theft, Andrew F. Popper

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

Almost a century ago, the United States Supreme Court declared that the prohibition against unfair competition serves to protect fundamental values and important rights. “[T]he right to acquire property by honest labor or the conduct of a lawful business is as much entitled to protection as the right to guard property already acquired. It is this right that furnishes the basis of the jurisdiction . . . of unfair competition.” The idea is simple: it is unfair to competitors and inconsistent with basic notions of market competition to allow market actors to steal the work or property of another and …

The National Institutes Of Health, Patents, And The Public Interest: An Expanded Rationale Of Justice Breyer’S Dissent In Stanford V. Roche, Nida Shakir

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

In February 2010, the Alzheimer’s Institute of America (AIA) filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Jackson Laboratory, the largest repository of research mice in the world. AIA sued Jackson Laboratory for infringing on AIA’s patent covering a DNA mutation linked to Alzheimer’s disease. Jackson Lab allegedly violated that patent by distributing mice especially bred for Alzheimer’s research. READ MORE, download the article.

Websites And Intangible Asset Amortization Under 26 U.S.C. § 197: A Marriage That Bears Little Fruit, Christopher H. Bowen

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

Websites are not only an important part of our electronic lives, they are an important financial and business asset in their own right. With the growth of the internet as a commercial, informational, and recreational resource, companies utilize websites as an important part of their corporate financial portfolio and structure. The increased value of websites that comes from this growth has made websites a valuable asset that companies seek to use as they would other business assets. One important consideration is how the value of websites will be treated upon sale or exchange. In other words, is the website an …

International Intellectual Property Scholars Series: Using Intellectual Property Rights To Create Value In The Coffee Industry, Daphne Zografos Johnson

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

Coffee is the single most important tropical commodity traded worldwide. It is produced in over 50 developing countries, and it is estimated that some 20 million rural families, or 125 million people, depend on growing coffee throughout the world for their livelihoods. Over the past decade, coffee producers have been facing considerable difficulties because of low and unstable coffee prices. In 2002, coffee prices collapsed to 100-year lows in real terms, leading to a world coffee crisis. Meanwhile, the coffee economy in high income countries has been moving in the opposite direction, and the crisis is hardly visible from Starbucks-type …