Law Commons^™

Letter From Professor Timothy J. Brennan, Timothy J. Brennan

Scholarship Chronologically

Dear Wendy,

Thanks for sending me the recent pair of articles. I just had a chance to read them today while I'm getting my furnace and AC replaced. I enjoyed them very much, both for the chance to think about copyright issues and to read yet again your creative and insightful approach to them.

The most intriguing thing about the Dayton piece was the asymmetric mar- ket failure idea. (I'll come back to the prisoners' dilemma in connection with the LCP paper!) Your point that justifying copyright requires the belief that intellectual property markets won't work without copyright and that …

The Ec Directive On The Legal Protection Of Computer Programs, Linda G. Morrison

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The evolution of computer technology has launched questions regarding the proper scope of protection for computer software. The European Community (EC) recently adopted a Council Directive on the Legal Protection of Computer Programs (the Directive), which protects computer software under the copyright paradigm. The path to final adoption of the Directive, however, was marked by debates between diametrically opposed lobbying groups regarding the propriety of a reverse engineering exception to the exclusive right of reproduction. This Note discusses the lobbying efforts that led to a compromise and analyzes the Directive through a comparison to United States law. Next, the Note …

Reality As Artifact: From Feist To Fair Use, Wendy J. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

Lawyers more than most people should be aware that what language calls "facts" are not necessarily equivalent to things that exist in the world. After all, when in ordinary conversation someone says "it's a fact that X happened," the speaker usually means, "I believe the thing I describe has happened in the world." But when a litigator presents something as a "fact," she often means only that a good faith argument can be made on behalf of its existence. Two sets of factfinders can look at the same event and come to diametrically opposed conclusions-each of which is binding, but …

Asymmetric Market Failure And Prisoner's Dilemma In Intellectual Property, Wendy J. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

When competitors engage in unrestrained copying of each others' intangible products, the structure can resemble a prisoner's dilemma in which free choice leads to unnecessarily low individual payoffs and low social welfare. There are many ways to avoid these low payoffs, such as contract enforcement, direct regulation of copying behavior through IP, and direct government subsidies. All of these modes alter the payoff pattern away from prisoner's dilemma.

When should lawmakers place copyright law or other IP law among the prime options to consider?

Because copyright, patent, misappropriation and the like all work through private-property markets, one key is to …

Cd-Rom Symposium Transcript One - 1992, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

Enclosed are the corrected pages of the transcript. The article itself will follow shortly.

Strategic Management Of Intangible Assets – A Manager’S Overview, Edward E. Frankel, William J. Murphy, Iii, R. Drew Ogden

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Draft Of Reality As Artifact: From Feist To Fair Use - 1992, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

Lawyers more than most people should be aware that what language calls "facts" are not necessarily equivalent to things that exist in the world. After all, when in ordinary conversation someone says "It's a fact that this [ X ] happened," the speaker usually means, "I believe the thing I describe has happened in the world". But when a litigator says something is a "fact" she often means only that a good faith argument can be made on behalf of its existence. Two sets of fact finders can look at the same event and come to diametrically opposed conclusions-- each …

Intellectual Property Protection Or Protectionism? Declaratory Judgment Use By Patent Owners Against Prospective Infringers, Lawrence M. Sung

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Extending The New Patent Misuse Limitation To Copyright: Lasercomb America, Inc. V. Reynolds, Toshiko Takenaka

Articles

This Article examines the decisional history that shaped the misuse doctrine and the interplay between the misuse defense and antitrust liability in patent and copyright infringement litigation. In particular, by examining the public interest and policy considerations underlying patent and antitrust laws, this Article compares and evaluates the new view that misuse must be analyzed by the conventional antitrust theories expressed by Judge Posner in USM Corp. v. SPS Technologies Inc. and the traditional view that was derived from the equity doctrine expressed in Morton Salt v. G.S. Suppiger.

Furthermore, this Article reviews the legislative history and the impact …

It Walks Like A Duck, Talks Like A Duck, . . . But Is It A Duck? Making Sense Of Substantial Similarity Law As It Applies To User Interfaces , Ellen M. Bierman

Seattle University Law Review

This Comment recommends how courts should apply the substantial similarity analysis to user interfaces. Specifically, this Comment (1) delineates the state of the law in the Ninth Circuit and explains how the recent changes should be interpreted with respect to user interfaces; (2) establishes an analytic framework for evaluating proposed substantial similarity tests through the enumeration of a set of goals specific to user interfaces; and (3) uses this analytic framework to evaluate and endorse a test that applies traditional copyright doctrine to a logical and consistent manner.

The Policy, Law, And Facts Of Computer Screen Displays: An Essay, I. Trotter Hardy

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

On The Author Effect: Contemporary Copyright And Collective Creativity, Peter Jaszi

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

As exemplified by the articles in this volume, recent scholarship on "authorship" reflects various influences. Among the most important are Michel Foucault's article, What is an Author?, and Benjamin Kaplan's book, An Unhurried View of Copyright. Since the late 1960s, these two texts have influenced work in literary and legal studies respectively. Only recently, however, have the lines of inquiry that Foucault and Kaplan helped to initiate begun to converge.

Defining The Prisoners' Dilemma, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

Formally, a prisoner's dilemma is defined as follows: There are two participants symmetrically situated. For each player, her payoff if she refuses to cooperate with the other player is higher than her payoff would be if she cooperated, and this is true whether the other chooses to cooperate, or chooses to defect. If both cooperate, her payoff will be higher than if both defect.

The Effect Of Lilly V. Medtronics On The Scope Of 35 Usc 271(E)(1): The Patent Infringement Exemption - Broad Or Narrow, Ajay S. Pathak

Journal of Law and Health

This article undertakes to examine, critically, the case history, legislative history, and the construction of sections 101, 201, and 202 of the Patent Term Restoration Act of 1984 in an effort to analyze the Supreme Court's recent decision in Lilly v. Medtronics and to discern how the scope of section 271(e)(1) is likely to be treated in future cases in light of that recent Supreme Court decision.

The Viability Of The Copyright Misuse Defense, David Scher

Fordham Urban Law Journal

Under the equitable doctrine of "unclean hands," courts will deny an otherwise meritorious claim where the claimant has acted so improperly that the need to punish the claimant’s wrongful behavior outweighs the need to punish the defendant’s allegedly unlawful conduct. The principle underlying the doctrine is that equity presumes harm when an unclean plaintiff obtains relief; consequently, one who desires justice must come into court with a “clean slate.” The theory of intellectual property misuse, which stems from the “unclean hands” doctrine, prevents a plaintiff from enforcing an intellectual property right if that plaintiff is guilty of misconduct with respect …