Law Commons^™

Regulatory And Adjudicatory Functions Of The Copyright Office, Joseph Liu

Joseph P. Liu

“Private Ordering Or Public Law? The Legal Character Of Technical Standard Setting”, Joseph Liu

Joseph P. Liu

Copyright Law: Essential Cases And Materials, Alfred Yen, Joseph Liu

Joseph P. Liu

Regulatory Copyright And The Next Great Copyright Act, Joseph Liu

Joseph P. Liu

The Dmca Rulemaking Mechanism: Fail Or Safe?, Maryna Koberidze

Maryna Koberidze

How Much Fuel To Add To The Fire Of Genius? Some Questions About The Repair/Reconstruction Distinction In Patent Law , Arthur Gajarsa, Evelyn Aswad, Joseph Cianfrani

Evelyn Aswad

No abstract provided.

Copyright Law, David Vaver

David Vaver

The explosive growth in communication technologies has put enormous strains on the law, no more so than on the law of copyright. In this book, David Vaver examines how the modern law of copyright and moral rights is coping with the new technologies. He provides a detailed, authoritative analysis of the most recent changes to the Copyright Act and their impact on copyright holders and users, including educational institutions, libraries, and archives. Copyright Law, like its companion volume Intellectual Property Law by the same author, is written in a lively non-technical style. It examines in greater depth than the earlier …

What Belongs In Copyright?, Keynote Address, Joseph Liu

Joseph P. Liu

What Belongs In Copyright?, Keynote Address, Joseph Liu

Joseph P. Liu

Notice Failure, Fair Use, And The Limits Of Copyright As Property, Joseph Liu

Joseph P. Liu

U.S. Should Not Worry About Chinese Leaders Meeting With Tech Titans, Peter K. Yu

Peter K. Yu

No abstract provided.

Regulatory Competitive Shelters, Yaniv Heled

Yaniv Heled

This Article identifies an array of seemingly disparate federal exclusivity regimes as belonging to an increasingly prevalent and relatively new class of highly valuable government benefits, which it names “regulatory competitive shelters” (RCSs). It characterizes RCSs and distinguishes them from other, more traditional kinds of government-instituted properties. The Article then proceeds to describe a particular brand of RCSs established in federal statutory frameworks whose aim—much like patents—is to create incentives for technological innovation. Identifying several common motifs of such RCS regimes, the Article offers a taxonomy of these RCSs and describes the mechanisms by which RCSs instituted under such regimes …

A Method For Reforming The Patent System, Peter Menell

Peter Menell

The principal recent studies of patent reform (NAS (2004), FTC (2003), Jaffe and Lerner (2004)) contend that a uniform system of patent protection must (or should) be available for "anything under the sun made by man" based upon one or more of the following premises: (1) the Patent Act requires this breadth and uniformity of treatment; (2) "discriminating" against any particular field of "technology" would be undesirable; (3) discrimination among technologies would present insurmountable boundary problems and could easily be circumvented through clever patent drafting; and (4) interest group politics stand in the way of excluding any subject matter classes …

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

Naomi Roht-Arriaza

No abstract provided.

Improvement Doctrines, Deepa Varadarajan

Deepa Varadarajan

When one party makes significant but unauthorized improvements to another's land, chattels or informational assets, should the "improving" nature of the act alter the liability or remedy calculus? Traditional property law has long had to resolve conflicts that arise when one person improves another's land or chattels without permission -- for example, if A cuts down B's trees and fashions a chair, or A erects a building on B's land. Ordinarily, A would be liable and subject to an injunction because B has a strict right to exclude that is protected by a property rule. But various doctrines in traditional …

Endogenous Research And Development And Intellectual Property Laws In Developed And Emerging Economies, Aniruddha Bagchi, Abhra Roy

Abhra Roy

The incentive of providing protection of intellectual property has been analyzed both for an emerging economy and for a developed economy. The optimal patent length and the optimal patent breadth within a country are found to be positively related to each other for a fixed structure of laws abroad. Moreover, a country can respond to stronger patent protection abroad by weakening its patent protection under certain circumstances and by strengthening its patent protection under other circumstances. These results depend on the curvature of the research-and-development production function. Finally, we investigate the impact of an increase in the willingness to pay …

The North American Free Trade Agreement And Its Legacy On The Resolution Of Intellectual Property Disputes, James Cooper

James M. Cooper

This essay focuses on NAFTA and the contributions that this regional trade pact made to protect IPR and settle intellectual property (IP) disputes. It also explores the legacy of NAFTA in the context of the eventual WTO, and the rights provided by the TRIPS Agreement that was concluded as part of the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotiations. Section II provides a brief historical background on how NAFTA fit into the world as countries began aligning themselves by creating various trade agreements. Section III surveys the provisions and legacy of NAFTA with respect to …

Trade-Marks And Unfair Competition Law In Canada: Cases And Commentary, Second Edition, Bita Amani, Carys Craig

Carys Craig

The legal protection afforded by statutory and common law to brands, logos, and "source-identifiers" in the marketplace is a significant and growing area of concern. Trade-marks are often among a business's most valuable assets, making trade-mark law a vital component of any corporate or commercial practice. The Amani-Craig collaboration produces a timely and current volume that comprehensively covers the law and jurisprudence on trade-mark protection in Canada, providing background and comparative discussion where relevant, and offering insightful commentary to facilitate reader comprehension.

Trade-Marks And Unfair Competition Law In Canada: Cases And Commentary, Bita Amani, Carys Craig

Carys Craig

This text offers a thorough and accessible survey of the Canadian law of trade-marks and unfair competition. The legal protection afforded by statutory and common law to brands, logos, and "source-identifiers" in the marketplace is a significant and growing area of concern. Trade-marks are often among a business's most valuable assets, making trade-mark law a vital component of any corporate or commercial practice. The Amani-Craig collaboration produces a timely and current volume that comprehensively covers the law and jurisprudence on trade-mark protection in Canada, providing background and comparative discussion where relevant, and offering insightful commentary to facilitate reader comprehension.

Copyright: Cases And Commentary On The Canadian And International Law, Second Edition, Barry Sookman, Steven Mason, Carys Craig

Carys Craig

Copyright law grants exclusive rights for limited terms to the authors of musical, literary, dramatic and artistic works. With the shift towards an information economy and the rapid development of digital technologies, copyright is fast becoming one of the most dynamic, critical and controversial areas of Canadian law and policy. This casebook presents extracts from the leading cases from both Canadian and international jurisprudence to illustrate the legal concepts, doctrinal evolution and current approaches to copyright issues. The revised second edition reflects the important case law and statutory amendments that have taken place over the past five years, including the …

When Trade Secrets Become Shackles: Fairness And The Inevitable Disclosure Doctrine, Elizabeth Rowe

Elizabeth A Rowe

Critics of the inevitable disclosure doctrine decry the inconsistency with which courts rule on these cases, and the difficulty in predicting case outcomes. They contend that courts are left to "grapple with a decidedly ... nebulous standard of 'inevitability."' Further, they claim the doctrine undermines the employee's fundamental right to move freely and pursue his or her livelihood. Ultimately, both the problem and solution here are about fairness: fairness in the employer-employee relationship, fairness in the application of the law, and fairness in providing protection from unfair competition between competing employers. The crux of the opposition to the doctrine, in …

Introducing A Takedown For Trade Secrets On The Internet, Elizabeth Rowe

Elizabeth A Rowe

This Article explores, for the first time, an existing void in trade-secret law. When a trade-secret owner discovers that its trade secrets have been posted on the Internet, there is currently no legislative mechanism by which the owner can request that the information be taken down. The only remedy to effectuate removal of the material is to obtain a court order, usually either a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction. When a trade secret appears on the Internet, the owner often loses the ability to continue to claim it as a trade secret and to prevent others from using …

Striking A Balance: When Should Trade-Secret Law Shield Disclosures To The Government?, Elizabeth Rowe

Elizabeth A Rowe

In 2010, Toyota issued recalls on over eight million vehicles because of faulty acceleration. Assume that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) requests that Toyota allow the government access to the data in black boxes on the recalled cars. The black boxes are operated by proprietary software and can only be accessed with special codes by Toyota. Assume further that Toyota refuses to provide the Black Box data to the government, claiming that it would reveal its trade secrets. How should courts approach what I coin these refusal-to-submit cases? There is a void in the literature and the case …

Trolls Or Great Inventors: Case Studies Of Patent Assertion Entities, Ryan Holte

Prof. Ryan T. Holte

There has been much debate about the economic harms caused by patent infringement lawsuits filed by patent holders who do not make or sell products covered by their own patents—entities pejoratively referred to as “patent trolls.” This debate has thus far been largely theoretical or based on broad industry-wide data. The purpose of this article is to present a focused empirical report that has previously been lacking—detailed information regarding the inventors themselves, the patent assertion entities (PAEs) that represent them, and the stories behind their patents. The research for this article centers on two instructive case studies: (1) MercExchange, L.L.C., …

Privacy, Copyright, And Letters, Jeffrey Harrison

Jeffrey L Harrison

The focus of this Essay is the privacy of letters – the written manifestations of thoughts, intents, and the recollections of facts directed to a person or a narrowly defined audience. The importance of this privacy is captured in the novel Atonement by Ian McEwan and in the film based on the novel. The fulcrum from which the action springs is a letter that is read by someone to whom it was not addressed. The result is literally life-changing, even disastrous for a number of characters. One person dies, two people seemingly meant for each other are torn apart and …

Monopolization, Innovation, And Consumer Welfare, John Lopatka, William Page

William H. Page

While most commentators and the enforcement agencies voice support for the consumer welfare standard, substantial disagreement exists over when economic theory justifies a presumption of consumer injury. Virtually all would subscribe to the theoretical prediction that an effective cartel will likely inflict consumer injury by reducing output and thus increasing prices. But the academic and judicial consensus disappears when the theory at issue predicts that a practice -- a merger or a predatory pricing campaign, for example -- will harm consumers in the future through some complex sequence of events.

In our view, the desire to protect innovation is legitimate, …

A Functional Approach To Copyright Policy, Robert Suggs

Robert E. Suggs

This essay results from a half-century spent observing the development and stagnation of a once vital music form, jazz. Curiosity spurred its evolution when a successor to John Coltrane failed to emerge within a few years of his early death. Over the ensuing decades, I became concerned that advancing technology and the 1976 Copyright Act had fundamentally undermined our cultural ecology. Unnoticed over the past century, technology has changed our experience of expressive culture, (the stories, images, and melodies that copyright most strongly protects), from live performance in social settings to solitary consumption of recorded media. Neurologically and physiologically this …

The Trespass Fallacy In The "Software Patent" Debate, Ryan Holte

Prof. Ryan T. Holte

In The Trespass Fallacy in Patent Law, Professor Adam Mossoff details how patent law jurisprudence and scholarship is dominated by an indeterminacy critique or “trespass fallacy” in two respects. Professor Mossoff’s essay, however, only briefly mentions the now paramount contemporary issue surrounding the more-focused “software patent” debate. In this short essay, I briefly discuss Professor Mossoff’s trespass fallacy analysis as it relates to “software patents” and the Supreme Court’s October 2013 Term case Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l.

Ip Law Book Review: Configuring The Networked Self: Law, Code, And The Play Of Every Day Practice, Frank Pasquale

Frank A. Pasquale

Julie Cohen's Configuring the Networked Self is an extraordinarily insightful book. Cohen not only applies extant theory to law; she also distills it into her own distinctive social theory of the information age. Thus, even relatively short sections of chapters of her book often merit article-length close readings. I here offer a brief for the practical importance of Cohen’s theory, and ways it should influence intellectual property policy and scholarship.

Mark Mckenna Was Quoted Ap Story Jury Selection Begins In Apple-Samsung Case On March 31, Mark Mckenna

Mark P. McKenna

Mark McKenna was quoted AP story Jury selection begins in Apple-Samsung case on March 31 “There’s a widespread suspicion that lots of the kinds of software patents at issue are written in ways that cover more ground than what Apple or any other tech firm actually invented,” Notre Dame law professor Mark McKenna said. “Overly broad patents allow companies to block competition.”