Law Commons^™

Ai, Artists, And Anti-Moral Rights, Derek E. Bambauer, Robert W. Woods

UF Law Faculty Publications

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools are increasingly used to imitate the distinctive characteristics of famous artists, such as their voice, likeness, and style. In response, legislators have introduced bills in Congress that would confer moral rights protections, such as control over attribution and integrity, upon artists. This Essay argues such measures are almost certain to fail because of deep-seated, pervasive hostility to moral rights measures in U.S. intellectual property law. It analyses both legislative measures and judicial decisions that roll back moral rights, and explores how copyright’s authorship doctrines manifest a latent hostility to these entitlements. The Essay concludes with …

Everything You Want: The Paradox Of Customized Intellectual Property Regimes, Derek E. Bambauer

UF Law Faculty Publications

Special interest groups share a dream: enacting legislation customized for, and hopefully drafted by, their industry. Customized rules created via legislative capture, though, are the worst case scenario from a public choice perspective: they enable narrow interests to capture rents without generating sufficient societal benefits. American intellectual property law offers useful case studies in legislative capture: special interests have created their own rules three times in the past forty years with the Semiconductor Chip Protection Act, Audio Home Recording Act, and Vessel Hull Design Protection Act. Paradoxically, though, these customized IP systems have consistently disappointed their drafters: all three of …

Snapshot Of Trade Secret Developments, Elizabeth A. Rowe

UF Law Faculty Publications

As we enter the second year post enactment of the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act, this Paper presents a snapshot of developments to assess whether there appear to be any significant doctrinal changes afoot in trade secret litigation, both civil and criminal, during the past year. I take a qualitative look at some of the substantive rulings from 2017 to date. My assessment based on this limited sampling is that there do not appear to be any dramatic changes to the doctrinal development of the law to date.

The paper highlights some noteworthy civil cases from select federal and state …

Merging Offensive-Speech Cases With Viewpoint-Discrimination Principles: The Immediate Impact Of Matal V. Tam On Two Strands Of First Amendment Jurisprudence, Clay Calvert

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article examines flaws with the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2017 decision in Matal v. Tam that equated giving offense with viewpoint discrimination. Already, the Court’s language in Tam that “giving offense is a viewpoint” is being cited by multiple lower courts. This Article argues, however, that giving offense is not synonymous with viewpoint discrimination. This Article contends that the Court in Tam conflated two distinct strands of First Amendment jurisprudence—namely, its offensive-speech cases with principles against viewpoint discrimination. The Article proposes two possible paths forward to help courts better clarify when a case such as Tam should be analyzed as …

Debating Employee Non-Competes And Trade Secrets, Sharon K. Sandeen, Elizabeth A. Rowe

UF Law Faculty Publications

Recently, a cacophony of concerns have been raised about the propriety of noncompetition agreements (NCAs) entered into between employers and employees, fueled by media reports of agreements which attempt to restrain low-wage and low-skilled workers, such as sandwich makers and dog walkers. In the lead-up to the passage of the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (DTSA), public policy arguments in favor of employee mobility were strongly advocated by those representing the “California view” on the enforceability of NCAs, leading to a special provision of the DTSA which limits injunctive relief with respect to employee NCAs.

Through our lens …

Beyond Trademarks And Offense: Tam And The Justices’ Evolution On Free Speech, Clay Calvert

UF Law Faculty Publications

In Matal v. Tam , the Supreme Court threw out the “disparagement clause” of the Lanham Act, the federal trademark law, because trademarks are private speech and thus regulating them based on government determinations of offensiveness violates the First Amendment. The solid outcome here contrasts with the narrow, incremental results in some other recent First Amendment cases that reached the Court.

Exhausting Patents, Wentong Zheng

UF Law Faculty Publications

A bedrock principle of patent law — patent exhaustion — proclaims that an authorized sale of a patented article exhausts the patentee’s rights with respect to the article sold. Over one hundred and fifty years of case law, however, has produced two conflicting notions of patent exhaustion, one considering exhaustion to be mandatory regardless of whether the patentee subjects the sale to express patent restrictions, and another treating exhaustion as a default rule that applies only in unconditional sales. The uncertainty surrounding the patent exhaustion doctrine casts a significant legal cloud over patent licensing practices in the modern economy and …

Copyright As Contract, Jeffrey L. Harrison

UF Law Faculty Publications

Copyright is essentially a contract between the author and the public with the government acting as the agent of the public. The consideration received by authors is defined by duration and breadth of exclusivity. The consideration for the public is the creation of a "work" that will be available on a limited basis for the life of the author plus 70 years and then available without limit after that. If there were no transaction costs at all, it would be possible to "pay" authors different amounts of exclusivity. Perhaps a greeting card would get one holiday season of exclusivity, if …

Trade Secrets, Trade, And Extraterritoriality, Elizabeth A. Rowe, Daniel M. Mahfood

UF Law Faculty Publications

When a foreign individual or company misappropriates the trade secrets of an American company, and the acts of misappropriation occur entirely outside of the United States, the trade secret law of the United States generally will not apply. This represents the principle of extraterritoriality, and identifies a major vulnerability for companies that choose to conduct operations or engage in other business abroad. In such situations, the substantive and procedural laws of another country are likely to define whether the allegedly misappropriated information is protected and has been misappropriated.

Providing a domestic forum to prosecute extraterritorial infringement would substantially benefit domestic …

Deconstructing And Reconstructing Hot News: Toward A Functional Approach, Jeffrey L. Harrison, Robyn Shelton

UF Law Faculty Publications

Hot news is factual, time-sensitive information ranging from baseball scores to the outbreak of war. In recent years, hot news has found its own niche among legal scholars and courts. When deconstructed, though, hot news is simply information and, like most information, it has a public good character. The problem ultimately is that news is non-excludable and non-rivalrous – discoverers or creators of hot news cannot exclude others from using the news and hot news is not destroyed when used. This means it may be produced at levels that are less than optimal.

The critical element in hot news is …

Intellectual Property And Employee Selection, Elizabeth A. Rowe

UF Law Faculty Publications

In today’s marketplace, companies from Disney to Hooters are increasingly integrating their image into the service that they provide. This has come to be known as “branded service.” The human wearing the trade dress merges with the brand image. When a company chooses this strategy to differentiate itself from its competitors in the marketplace, it will often incorporate some intellectual property, and the result then necessarily influences hiring decisions. If a business decides not to hire a prospective employee because she does not fit the company’s image, and that decision is challenged under the antidiscrimination laws, to what extent should …

Problems In Sharing The Surplus, Roger D. Blair, Thomas Knight

UF Law Faculty Publications

Dennis Carlton and Allan Shampine have addressed opportunistic and strategic behavior by standard-essential patent owners. After a standard has been specified, and sunk investments have been made by those who would implement the standard, the holder of a standard-essential patent can demand more for the patent license than it could have demanded ex ante. This sort of ex post opportunism can lead to economically inefficient outcomes. The solution is to limit such patent holders to “fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory” (FRAND) patent license fees. Carlton and Shampine have advanced our understanding of precisely what this means.

The remainder of this article …

Privacy, Copyright, And Letters, Jeffrey L. Harrison

UF Law Faculty Publications

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 …

Privacy, Copyright, And Letters, Jeffrey L. Harrison

UF Law Faculty Publications

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 …

Ip Injury And The Institutions Of Patent Law, Paul R. Gugliuzza

UF Law Faculty Publications

This paper reviews Creation Without Restraint: Promoting Liberty and Rivalry in Innovation, the pathbreaking book by Christina Bohannan and Herbert Hovenkamp (Oxford Univ. Press 2012). The Review begins by summarizing the book’s descriptive insights and analyzing one of its important normative proposals: the adoption of an IP injury requirement. This requirement would demand that infringement plaintiffs prove -- before obtaining damages or an injunction -- an injury to the incentive to innovate. After explaining how this requirement is easy to justify under governing law and is largely consistent with recent Supreme Court decisions in the field of patent law, …

Patents, Genetically Modified Foods, And Ip Overreaching, Elizabeth A. Rowe

UF Law Faculty Publications

Genetically engineered plants and animals have become and will continue to constitute a large part of the food we consume. The United States is the world's largest producer of genetically modified foods, making American consumers the most exposed population to these products. Agricultural biotechnology patents spur and support innovation. Accordingly, patent law is one of the main contributors to this phenomenon that has changed not only the kinds of food we eat, but the nature of the agri-business industry that produces these foods. This Article takes on an area of concern involving the patenting of food that has remained unexplored: …

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

UF Law Faculty Publications

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 …

A Sociological Approach To Misappropriation, Elizabeth A. Rowe

UF Law Faculty Publications

Social science and law are not strangers. In analyzing legal issues, scholars have often utilized theoretical or methodological approaches from the social sciences. While economics appears to be the prevalent branch of social science in legal analysis, sociology, with its focus on group (as opposed to individual) behavior, can be a suitable approach where, for instance, the application and interpretation of the law is based largely on contextual factors and on behavior. Trade secret law is one of these areas. Public policy arguments and value judgments loom large in these cases. Trade secret law regulates commercial ethics and morality, and …

Contributory Negligence, Technology, And Trade Secrets, Elizabeth A. Rowe

UF Law Faculty Publications

In tort law, the doctrine of contributory negligence captures conduct by the plaintiff that falls below the standard to which he should conform for his own protection. Whether one has been contributorily negligent is determined by an objective standard of reasonableness under the circumstances. This Article, for the first time, applies contributory negligence principles to trade secret law. It draws upon this doctrine to frame and analyze a challenge posed by modem technology. The very technological tools in use today that increase the efficiency with which companies do business also create challenges for trade secret protection. What might have been …

Technology And Intellectual Property: New Rules For An Old Game?, Elizabeth A. Rowe

UF Law Faculty Publications

This foreword to the first issue of 2009 for the Journal of Technology Law and Policy discusses the questions presented by the merger of technology and intellectual property and considers how best the two areas should co-exist.

Trade Secret Litigation And Free Speech: Is It Time To Restrain The Plaintiffs?, Elizabeth A. Rowe

UF Law Faculty Publications

Trade secret misappropriation litigation is often criticized for its negative effects on competition and speech. In particular, some accuse plaintiff trade secret owners of filing complaints for the purpose of running competitors out of business, or restraining individuals from discussing matters which are unfavorable. This Article enters the discussion to critically assess whether there is reason to consider restricting these actions. It concludes that trade secret litigation on the whole does not inappropriately impinge on speech rights. Even if certain cases come closer to offending defendants' free speech rights, these occasions and the concerns they raise are not unique to …

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

UF Law Faculty Publications

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 …

Trademark Law And Status Signaling: Tattoos For The Privileged, Jeffrey L. Harrison

UF Law Faculty Publications

The motivations for buying a good or service are highly complex. At the most basic level, people buy goods because of what the goods do or because of the aesthetic elements they embody. More technically, buyers derive utility from the "functional" quality of these goods. Another motivation relates to what the goods "say" about the buyer. Here, the good is a signaling device. Signaling is not new, of course, and can indicate anything from social class to political leanings.

This Essay addresses the issue of whether it should be public policy to subsidize this type of person-to-person status signaling. This …

Saving Trade Secret Disclosures On The Internet Through Sequential Preservation, Elizabeth A. Rowe

UF Law Faculty Publications

When an employee discloses an employer's trade secrets to the public over the Internet, does our current trade secret framework appropriately address the consequences of that disclosure? What ought to be the rule that governs whether the trade secret owner has lost not only the protection status for the secret, but also any remedies against use by third parties? Should the ease with which the Internet permits instant and mass disclosure of secrets be taken into consideration in assessing the fairness of a rule that calls for immediate loss of the trade secret upon disclosure? Given that trade secret law …

Liberating Estates Law From The Constraints Of Copyright, Lee-Ford Tritt

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article addresses a disturbing statutory phenomenon of enormous importance to any artist, composer, writer, scholar, scientist or innovator. The phenomenon, which I have termed “estate-bumping,” has driven an unintended wedge between copyright law and estates law by effectively preventing authors of copyrights from disposing of their copyright interests through common estate planning mechanisms. Current copyright law imposes a unique restraint on the testamentary freedom of copyright authors, a restraint not imposed on any other type of property owner. In effect, this restraint enables unintended beneficiaries to rewrite, or “bump”, an author’s estate plan. Thus, it is copyright law – …

The Experimental Use Exception To Patent Infringement: Do Universities Deserve Special Treatment?, Elizabeth A. Rowe

UF Law Faculty Publications

The experimental use exception is a common law exception to the patent-holder's exclusive right of use. It permits the use of another's patented device when such use is for philosophical inquiry, curiosity, or amusement. It has recently come under attack by many who consider it too narrow. They fear that the courts' "narrowing" of the experimental use exception will stifle research and innovation. Much of the discontent with the doctrine has been spurred by a relatively recent Federal Circuit opinion, Madey v. Duke University, which makes clear that a research university does not receive immunity under the experimental use …

A Positive Externalities Approach To Copyright Law: Theory And Application, Jeffrey L. Harrison

UF Law Faculty Publications

The basic goal of copyright law is, at a general level, fairly well understood, yet the law itself seems untethered to any consistent analytical approach designed to achieve that goal. This Article has two goals. The first is to explain in some detail what copyright law might look like if it reflected economic reasoning. The second is to put to the test the question of whether copyright law is as far out of sync with economic guidelines as White-Smith Music and Eldred suggest.

In order to understand the economic approach and the inconsistency of copyright law, as well as the …

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

UF Law Faculty Publications

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 …

Rationalizing The Allocative/Distributive Relationship In Copyright, Jeffrey L. Harrison

UF Law Faculty Publications

It is the position of this article that the benefits of a regime of copyright law can be maintained while shedding at least some of the wastefulness of monopolistic competition. This article cuts against the grain of modem copyright law by making the case that a more substantive approach to the issues of creativity and authorship would lower costs, streamline the system, and raise the level of socially beneficial creativity. In Section II, I will elaborate on the allocative/distributive distinction and their interconnectedness. In Section III, I will focus on an enhanced creativity standard and argue that an elevated standard …

Toward A Trademark-Based Liability System, Lynn M. Lopucki

UF Law Faculty Publications

No general rule of law renders trademark owners liable for products sold or business conducted under the trademark. This essay proposes the adoption of such a rule. The rationale for the change is that businesses are known by their trademarks, not their entity names, in the marketplace. The vast majority of customers - both businesses and consumers - select the persons with whom they will deal, and contract with those persons, on the basis of trademarks. The entity structures of businesses (corporate groups, franchises, joint ventures, etc.) are generally invisible to customers. Yet under current law the businesses' liabilities to …