Law Commons^™

What Is The Territorial Scope Of The Lanham Act?, Marketa Trimble

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Since Steele v. Bulova Watch Co., 344 U.S. 280 (1952), the Supreme Court has not addressed the territorial scope of the Lanham Act. Abitron Austria GmbH v. Hetronic International, Inc. is an opportunity for the Court to clarify how its RJR Nabisco extraterritoriality framework applies to the Lanham Act, whether and how current circuit court tests fit into the framework, and whether any of the tests should apply in the second step of the framework.

Of Marks And Markets: An Empirical Study Of Trademark Litigation, Jessica M. Kiser, Sean P. Wright, Benjamin P. Edwards

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Trademarks are increasingly valuable assets, and some companies aggressively enforce and protect these assets. Such aggressive tactics can harm small businesses and chill creativity and speech, but trademark owners are routinely told that the law requires them to stop all similar third-party trademark usage or risk abandonment of their rights. While prior scholarship has discussed how the risk of trademark abandonment is quite low, incentives built into trademark law still push companies to court. This Article presents the results of an event study utilizing an established database of trademark infringement cases to provide insight to decisionmakers on whether the stock …

Unjustly Vilified Trips-Plus?: Intellectual Property Law In Free Trade Agreements, Marketa Trimble

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Intellectual property (IP) law provisions of free trade agreements (FTAs) have attracted much criticism. Critics have argued that FTA negotiators, succumbing to the lobbying of various stakeholders, have eliminated or significantly limited many of the flexibilities that multilateral treaties had created, forced stronger IP protection onto developing countries, and fragmented international IP law. While agreeing with a great deal of the criticism expressed by others, this Article departs from the typical vilification of FTAs by identifying and analyzing the positive features of FTA IP provisions that are worth replicating and expanding in future FTAs. These positive features include provisions concerning …

Joint Authorship And Dramatic Works: A Critical History, Mary Lafrance

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This Article examines the evolution of copyright law pertaining to collaborative authorship and finds that much of the core legal doctrine in this area arose from disputes involving dramatic works. This fresh look at theatrical collaborations reveals a rich history that calls into question the modem judicial presumption that dramatic writing is the product of individual genius. Examining the history of Anglo- American law's response to collaboration in dramatic works offers valuable insight into the development of multiple concepts related to authorship-in particular, the rules governing derivative works, works made for hire, and joint works. It also demonstrates that the …

Apportioning Authorship, Mary Lafrance

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Part II of this Article introduces the restrictive joint authorship tests created by federal courts, and the courts' reliance on the equal ownership principle as a justification for those tests. Part III examines the relevant case law and other authorities addressing the rights of tenants in common under both copyright law and the general law of property, and concludes that, contrary to the views expressed by many courts and commentators, historical precedent and legislative history strongly favor an interpretation of the copyright statutes that apportions joint authorship shares according to the collaborators' respective contributions. Part IV examines the decision of …

The Public Policy Exception And International Intellectual Property Law, Marketa Trimble

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No abstract provided.

Repairing Medical Equipment In Times Of Pandemic, Ofer Tur-Sinai, Leah Chan Grinvald

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The COVID-19 pandemic that has gripped the world since early 2020 has underscored the need for an effective right to repair medical equipment. As healthcare systems have been pushed to the limit, keeping critical medical equipment (such as ventilators) in working order has become a matter of life and death. Unfortunately, the ability of hospitals and other healthcare providers to service and fix their medical equipment is often hindered by the tight control that original equipment manufacturers keep over repair of their products. On top of direct contractual restrictions on repair, one of the major difficulties encountered by hospital-based and …

International Law Association's Guidelines On Intellectual Property And Private International Law ("Kyoto Guidelines"): Recognition And Enforcement, Pedro De Miguel Asensio, Marketa Trimble

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This section of the the chapter "Recognition and Enforcement" of the International Law Association's Guidelines on Intellectual Property and Private International Law ("Kyoto Guidelines") establishes the conditions under which the effects of judgments rendered in a country may be extended to foreign jurisdictions. It seeks to favor international coordination and legal certainty by facilitating the cross-border recognition and enforcement of judgments relating to IP disputes. The Guidelines are based on a broad concept of judgment with restrictions concerning judgments not considered final under the law of the State of origin as well as certain provisional measures. The main provision of …

Smart Cars, Telematics, And Repair, Leah Chan Grinvald, Ofer Tur-Sinai

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Recent years have seen a surge in the use of automotive telematics. Telematics is the integration of telecommunications and informatics technologies. Using telematics in cars enables transmission of data communications between the car and other systems or devices. This opens up a wide range of possibilities, including the prospect of conducting remote diagnostics based on real-time access to the vehicle. Yet, as with any new technology, alongside its potential benefits, the use of automotive telematics could also have potential downsides. This Article explores the significant negative impact that the growing reliance on telematics systems could have on competition in the …

Trademark Enforcement And Statutory Incentives, Leah Chan Grinvald

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The combination of the recent U.S. Supreme Court case, Romag Fasteners v. Fossil Group, Inc., and the diamond anniversary of the Lanham Act provides good grounds to reflect on how trademark enforcement and statutory incentives have evolved through the years. Although enforcement of one’s trademarks through the use of the courts can be traced back to England in the 1790s, trademark litigation and other enforcement activities have exploded, in relative terms, since the enactment of the Lanham Act in 1946. Although not subject to an easy empirical correlation, this trend suggests that the statute has had an impact on …

A Quarter Century Of International Copyright On Software, Marketa Trimble

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No abstract provided.

Public Art, Public Space, And The Panorama Right, Mary Lafrance

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When art is installed in public spaces in the United States, the public's right to capture and share images for commercial or noncommercial purposes is not clearly defined by federal copyright law. This has led to both actual and threatened litigation. In the absence of a specific copyright rule designed to address these disputes, they must be resolved under a patchwork of other doctrines that are uncertain in scope, including fair use, de minimis use, and the statutory exception for images of architectural works, but none of these provide predictable results. In contrast, many foreign jurisdictions have enacted 'freedom of …

The Territorial Discrepancy Between Intellectual Property Rights Infringement Claims And Remedies, Marketa Trimble

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When in Equustek v. Google a Canadian court ordered that Google de-list the pages of a defendant that infringed intellectual property (“IP”) rights under Canadian law, some commentators were surprised not only by the Canadian court’s assertion of personal jurisdiction over Google (a U.S. third party who was not a party to the original Canadian IP rights infringement litigation), but also by the court’s issuance of a remedy with global effects. However, global and other extraterritorial remedies are not unknown in IP rights infringement cases: U.S. courts have granted extraterritorial remedies in a number of such cases. This Article reviews …

Copyright And Geoblocking: The Consequences Of Eliminating Geoblocking, Marketa Trimble

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Geoblocking has become a common companion of copyrighted content on the internet; even streaming services can make streamed copyrighted content available or unavailable according to the location of their users. There are various reasons for geographical restrictions on access to content; copyright issues are not the only reasons, but territorial limitations associated with copyright are significant – and sometimes the primary – reasons for implementing geoblocking. This article reviews the current relationship between copyright and geoblocking, particularly the role attributed to geoblocking in copyright law and law of personal jurisdiction in the United States and the European Union; it considers …

Enforcement Of Intellectual Property Rights At Trade Shows: A Review And Recommendations, Marketa Trimble

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Trade shows (also referred to as trade fairs or exhibitions) are venues for the exchange of information about the newest intellectual property ("IP") and can also be venues where disputes over IP rights arise or escalate. When trade shows become arenas for such disputes, IP right owners seek means to stop infringements of their IP rights on site-at the trade show and with immediate effect. This article reviews from a comparative perspective the options that IP right owners have for immediate relief at trade shows. After considering the limitations that current law imposes on temporary restraining orders in the United …

Intellectual Property Law And The Right To Repair, Leah Chan Grinvald, Ofer Tur-Sinai

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This Article posits that intellectual property law should accommodate consumers’ right to repair their products. In recent years, there has been a growing push towards state legislation that would provide consumers with a “right to repair” their products. Currently, twenty states have pending legislation that would require product manufacturers to make available replacement parts and repair manuals. Unfortunately, though, this legislation has stalled in many of the states. Manufacturers have been lobbying the legislatures to stop the enactment of these repair laws based on different concerns, including how these laws may impinge on their intellectual property rights. Indeed, a right …

Choice Of Law And The Right Of Publicity: Rethinking The Domicile Rule, Mary Lafrance

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Determining the best choice of law principle for right of publicity claims, and persuading courts to adopt this principle, will enhance predictability for potential plaintiffs and defendants in the foreseeable future. To begin this process, this article by Professor Mary LaFrance takes a critical look at the widespread practice of applying the law of the celebrity's domicile to determine the existence of an enforceable right of publicity.

This article suggests that there are strong policy arguments against the domicile rule, and that courts adhering to the rule are confusing disputes over property ownership with disputes over liability for tortious injury …

Territorialization Of The Internet Domain Name System, Marketa Trimble

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A territorialization of the internet – the linking of the internet to physical geography – is a growing trend. Internet users have become accustomed to the conveniences of localized advertising, have enjoyed location-based services, and have witnessed an increasing use of geolocation and geoblocking tools by service and content providers who – for various reasons – either allow or block access to internet content based on users’ physical locations. This article analyzes whether, and if so how, the territorialization trend has affected the internet Domain Name System (“DNS”). As a hallmark of cyberspace governance that aimed to be detached from …

Temporary Restraining Orders To Enforce Intellectual Property Rights At Trade Shows: An Empirical Study, Marketa Trimble

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Infringements of intellectual property (IP) rights by exhibitors at trade shows (also called trade fairs or exhibitions), such as infringements committed through exhibitions of or offers to sell infringing products, can be extremely damaging to IP right owners because of the wide exposure that trade shows provide for infringing IP; the promotion of the infringing IP and the contacts made by infringers at trade shows can facilitate further infringements after a trade show that can be very difficult for IP right owners to prevent. IP right owners therefore seek to obtain emergency injunctive relief to stop trade show infringements immediately—if …

Music Modernization And The Labyrinth Of Streaming, Mary Lafrance

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The shift from record sales to music streaming has revolutionized the music industry. The federal copyright regime, which is rooted in a system of economic rewards based largely on sales, has been slow to adapt. This has impaired the ability of copyright law to channel appropriate royalties to songwriters, music publishers, and recording artists when the streaming of their works displaces record sales. The Orrin G. Hatch-Bob Goodlatte Music Modernization Act of 2018 addresses some of the most significant flaws in the current system. At the same time, it creates significant ambiguities and leaves some existing issues unresolved.

Platform Law And The Brand Enterprise, Sonia K. Katyal, Leah Chan Grinvald

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The emergence of platforms has transformed the digital economy, reshaping and recasting online transactions within the service industry. This transformation, as many have argued, has created new and unimagined challenges for policymakers and regulators, as well as for traditional, offline companies. Most scholarship examining platforms discuss their impact on employment law or consumer protection. Yet trademark law, which is central to the success of the platform enterprise, has been mostly overlooked within these discussions. To address this gap, this article discusses the emergence of two central forms of platform entrepreneurship-the platform, or "macrobrand" and the platform service provider, or the …

U.S. State Copyright Laws: Challenge And Potential, Marketa Trimble

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With copyright law in the United States lying primarily in the realm of federal law, the laws of the U.S. states concerning copyright do not typically attract significant attention from scholars, practitioners, and policy makers. Some recent events have drawn attention to state copyright laws – for example, litigation against a satellite radio provider for infringement of state common-law public performance rights in pre-1972 sound recordings. However, in general, state copyright laws remain largely in the shadow of federal copyright law, and state law is typically not viewed as a particularly useful vehicle for pursuing the policies that copyright law …

Patent Working Requirements: Historical And Comparative Perspectives, Marketa Trimble

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At the beginning of the 20th century, commentators referred to patent working requirements as the most contentious contemporary concept in patent law, and working requirements were at the center of discussions about revisions to the Paris Convention. By the end of the 20th century it seemed that working requirements attracted less attention; the TRIPS Agreement did not expressly mention working requirements at all. However, some TRIPS provisions do arguably relate to such requirements; in fact, some commentators believe that the TRIPS Agreement prevents countries from maintaining such requirements, at least in some forms. Although the lack of interest in working …

Charitable Trademarks, Leah Chan Grinvald

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Charity is big business in the United States. In 2015, private individuals or entities donated over $350 billion, which accounted for approximately two percent of the gross domestic product in the United States. Even though this seems like big money, these donations were split among over 1.5 million organizations. And each year, the number of charitable organizations grows and therefore, the competition for public donations increases. In part to succeed in such competition, some charitable organizations have turned to branding and trademarks as a way to differentiate their entities and to encourage donations. Drawing from the for-profit branding and trademarking …

Undetected Conflict-Of-Laws Problems In Cross-Border Online Copyright Infringement Cases, Marketa Trimble

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This article provides and analyzes data on copyright infringement cases filed in U.S. federal district courts in 2013; it focuses on infringement cases involving activity on the internet and discusses actual and potential conflict-of-laws issues that the cases raised or could have raised. The article complements the report entitled "Private International Law Issues in Online Intellectual Property Infringement Disputes with Cross-Border Elements: An Analysis of National Approaches" (the "Report"), which was published by the World Intellectual Property Organization in September 2015. In the Report its author, Professor Andrew F. Christie, discusses his empirical findings about the intersection of intellectual property …

Contracting Trademark Fame?, Leah Chan Grinvald

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Contracts abound in today's highly digitized society. Did you snap a pic and upload it to Instagram? You entered into a contract. Did you check your friends' statuses on Facebook? Yep, you also entered into a contract. Did you know you entered into a contract or even if you were aware of this fact, did you know the terms to which you agreed? Probably not. But despite this, we are all obligated by these contracts, so long as we are somehow made aware that we could read the terms at some point if we had the inclination to do so. …

Are We Serious About Performers' Rights?, Mary Lafrance

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Do performers have rights in the expressive works they help to create? Historically, the rights of performers have received far less attention that the rights of traditional authors. The law has been reluctant to recognize performers as authors and, to the extent that performers’ rights are recognized, they are secondary to, and more limited than, the rights of traditional authors. Recent developments, however, have brought performers’ intellectual property rights to the forefront. For a number of reasons, performers in the United States have increasingly begun to assert authorship rights in the works they help to create. In addition, recent international …

Advancing National Intellectual Property Policies In A Transnational Context, Marketa Trimble

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The increasing frequency with which activities involving intellectual property (“IP”) cross national borders now warrants a clear definition of the territorial reach of national IP laws so that parties engaging in the activities can operate with sufficient notice of the laws applicable to their activities. Legislators, however, have not devoted adequate attention to the territorial delineation of IP law; in fact, legislators rarely draft IP statutes with any consideration of cross-border scenarios, and with few exceptions IP laws are designed with only single-country scenarios in mind. Delineating the reach of national IP laws is actually a complex matter because the …

The Multiplicity Of Copyright Laws On The Internet, Marketa Trimble

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From the early days of the Internet, commentators have warned that it would be impossible for those who act on the Internet (“Internet actors”) to comply with the copyright laws of all Internet-connected countries if the national copyright laws of all those countries were to apply simultaneously to Internet activity. A multiplicity of applicable copyright laws seems plausible at least when the Internet activity is ubiquitous — i.e., unrestricted by geoblocking or by other means — given the territoriality principle that governs international copyright law and the choice-of-law rules that countries typically use for copyright infringements.

This Article posits that …

Clearing Rights For Entertainment Projects, Mary Lafrance

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No abstract provided.