Law Commons^™

Copyright And The Perfect Curve, Julie E. Cohen

Vanderbilt Law Review

Everyone agrees that the purpose of the copyright system is to promote progress.' At the same time, though, skepticism about the law's ability to define the substance of progress runs deep within copyright case law and theory. Legal decisionmakers and scholars have quite properly doubted their own ability to evaluate artistic or literary merit, and have worried that efforts to do so would result in an inappropriately elitist and conservative standard. In addition, there is room for substantial debate about whether the metaphor of forward motion leaves out other important measures of what "progress" is or might be. This agnosticism …

Taking The Protection-Access Tradeoff Seriously, Harvey S. Perlman

Vanderbilt Law Review

Law and economics scholarship has contributed much to our understanding of both the nature of intellectual property rights generally and the features of individual intellectual property regimes. Indeed it is hard to imagine a field other than antitrust law that is so explicitly governed by economic thinking. In authorizing the copyright and patent systems, Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution expressly incorporates a social welfare imperative as the basis for its grant of power.' Certainly economists and economically oriented legal academics have given the field the attention it is due.

I am far from being a sophisticated …

Games Economists Play, Rochelle C. Dreyfuss

Vanderbilt Law Review

When Professor Reichman called me about this symposium, I was intrigued. With the successive introduction of the photocopy machine, the videotape, computerization, digitization, the Internet, as well as a host of biotechnological discoveries, the problems facing the creative industries have changed dramatically. This accumulation of developments has altered the economic foundations on which intellectual property law is based and has pushed those of us in the field into a period of reconceptualization in which economic analysis is particularly fruitful. Thus, I was quite taken with the idea of bringing intellectual property and economics scholars together to promulgate a research agenda …

The Pharmaceutical Industry And World Intellectual Property Standards, F. M. Scherer

Vanderbilt Law Review

When I was a high school student during the late 1940s, the first so-called "wonder drugs"-initially penicillin and then the broad-spectrum antibiotics such as tetracycline-were entering the U.S. market. From their profitable experience developing the broad- spectrum antibiotics, the leading pharmaceutical companies of America and Europe acquired a strong research orientation that led to a cascade of new therapeutic entities, including additional anti-infectives, vaccines, diuretics, and then other agents to reduce heart attack risks, tranquilizers, antidepressants, birth control pills, anti-fungal agents, immuno suppressants, corticosteroids, AIDS inhibitors, powerful pain relief agents, and many other agents effective against specific diseases. Thanks to …

Cruel, Mean, Or Lavish? Economic Analysis, Price Discrimination And Digital Intellectual Property, James Boyle

Vanderbilt Law Review

It is not because of the few thousand francs which would have to be spent to put a roof over the third-class carriages or to upholster the third-class seats that some company or other has open carriages with wooden benches .... What the company is trying to do is to prevent the passengers who can pay the second-class fare from travelling third class; it hits the poor, not because it wants to hurt them, but to frighten the rich .... And it is again for the same reason that the companies, having proved almost cruel to third-class passengers and mean …

Patent Policy Innovations: A Clinical Examination, Josh Lerner

Vanderbilt Law Review

On the domestic front, the dispute has centered on the question of whether the United States should honor commitments made in bi- lateral agreements with Japan to remove idiosyncratic features of its patent system. In particular, legislation to require the publication of pending patent applications and to grant awards to the party that is first to file for an award (as are the practices in most nations) have been fiercely debated in the past few congressional sessions. In the developing nations, the requirements for minimal levels of patent protection in the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariff and …

Elementary And Persistent Errors In The Economic Analysis Of Intellectual Property, Edmund W. Kitch

Vanderbilt Law Review

The literature on the economic analysis of intellectual property rights evidences a broad scholarly consensus on a number of central and important issues. First, intellectual property rights en- able economic actors to capture some of the benefits of the investment they make in establishing a good reputation, creating expressive works, and inventing new and improved technology. Absent intellectual property rights, copiers are free to take for themselves a significant part of the economic benefit generated by these types of investment and to undermine the incentive to make these in- vestments in the first place. Second, the investment activities induced by …

Lessons From Studying The International Economics Of Intellectual Property Rights

Vanderbilt Law Review

When the Uruguay Round negotiations began in 1986, the subject of intellectual property rights ("IPRs") was completely unfamiliar to international trade economists. Presumably the area was ignored because global trade policy concerns had not moved into questions of domestic business regulation. Even today, readers will search in vain for serious treatments of the trade implications of exclusive rights to intellectual property ("IP") in international economics textbooks.

Despite this general inattention, a small but growing literature has emerged in which trade economists have framed specific questions and applied theory and statistical analysis to them. This literature has advanced the understanding of …

Shaping Competition On The Internet: Who Owns Product And Pricing Information?, Maureen A. O'Rourke

Vanderbilt Law Review

Historically, markets have almost always fallen short of satisfying the conditions for and providing consumers with the benefits of perfect competition. Certain characteristics of electronic markets, however, enhance the possibility that e-commerce will be conducted in an environment that comes closer to attaining the perfectly competitive ideal than that of most conventional markets. Essentially, technology analogous to that which users already employ to search the Internet can also enable this retailing revolution by allowing consumers easily to obtain comparative product and pricing information. However, for a number of reasons, on-line merchants (e-tailers), are asserting a variety of legal claims that, …

Lessons From Studying The International Economics Of Intellectual Property Rights, Keith E. Maskus

Vanderbilt Law Review

When the Uruguay Round negotiations began in 1986, the subject of intellectual property rights ("IPRs") was completely unfamiliar to international trade economists. Presumably the area was ignored because global trade policy concerns had not moved into questions of domestic business regulation. Even today, readers will search in vain for serious treatments of the trade implications of exclusive rights to intellectual property ("IP") in international economics textbooks.

Despite this general inattention, a small but growing literature has emerged in which trade economists have framed specific questions and applied theory and statistical analysis to them. This literature has advanced the understanding of …

Comment On "Lessons From Studying The International Economics Of Intellectual Property Rights", Paul Goldstein

Vanderbilt Law Review

Copyright is the "dog that didn't bark" in Keith Maskus's paper, "Lessons from Studying the International Economics of Intellectual Property Rights." Like virtually every other economic study of intellectual property and trade, the Maskus paper confines its examples and analysis to the industrial side of intellectual property-mainly patents and know-how-and leaves the authorial side-copyright-untouched. As a small step toward repairing this imbalance, and toward opening a corner of policy inquiry that has so far been largely unexamined, I would like here to make a few observations on copyright and trade in developing economies.

The regular omission of copyright from economic …

Intellectual Property Rights And The New Institutional Economics, Robert P. Merges

Vanderbilt Law Review

When someone speaks of "the law and economics of intellectual property rights" (IPRs), an image along the lines of the following diagram is apt to come to mind: Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati Professor of Intellectual Property Law, U.C. Berkeley (Boalt Hall) School of Law. For helpful comments, the author wishes to thank members of the Vanderbilt Law School Conference, "Taking Stock: The Law and Economics of Intellectual Property Rights," April, 2000. The usual disclaimer applies.

This is the basic illustration of monopoly price and output, familiar from introductory microeconomic texts. It is often used to explain the effects of …

Who's Patenting What? An Empirical Exploration Of Patent Prosecution, John R. Allison, Mark A. Lemley

Vanderbilt Law Review

Patents are big business. Individuals and companies are obtaining far more patents today than ever before. Some simple calculations make it clear that companies are spending over $5 billion a year obtaining patents in the U.S.- to say nothing of the costs of obtaining patents elsewhere, and of licensing and enforcing the patents. There are a number of reasons why patenting is on the rise; primary among them are a booming economy and a shift away from manufacturing and capital-intensive industries towards companies with primarily intellectual assets. But whatever the reason, it is evident that many companies consider patents important. …

Piracy In Russia And China: A Different U.S. Reaction, Connie Neigel

Law and Contemporary Problems

Both Russia and China refused to adopt international copyright agreements until pressured by other countries, particularly the US. The US has pursued China's copyright abuses more aggressively than it has pursued similar abuses by Russia. Neigel attempts to explain the reasons for this disparate treatment.

2000 Cardozo Life (Summer), Benjamin N. Cardozo School Of Law

Cardozo Life

Table of Contents:

Around Campus, page 3

Faculty Briefs, page 16

An Interview with Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, page 21

Did Elgin Cheat at Marbles?, page 25

Dream Field: Intellectual Property and New Media, page 31

Gift Planning: A Solution for Your Clients, page 36

Alumni News & Notes, page 38

Our Data, Ourselves: Privacy, Propertization, And Gender , Ann Bartow

Ann Bartow

This Article starts by providing an overview of the types of personal data that is collected via the Internet, and the ways in which this information is used. The author asserts that because women are more likely to shop and share information in cyberspace, the impact of commodification of personal data disproportionately impacts females, enabling them to be "targeted" by marketing campaigns, and stripping them of personal privacy. The author then surveys the legal terrain of personal information privacy, and concludes that it is unlikely that the government will step in to provide consumers with substantive privacy rights or protections. …

How Federal Circuit Judges Vote In Patent Validity Cases, John R. Allison, Mark A. Lemley

Florida State University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Statutory Interpretation, Property Rights, And Boundaries: The Nature And Limits Of Protection In Trademark Dilution, Trade Dress, And Product Configuration Cases, Gary Myers

Faculty Publications

This article, however, takes the view that the basic landscape in trademark law is unlikely to change in the near future. Congress has only recently enacted the Trademark Dilution Act, and there seems to be little movement to amend it dramatically, let alone repeal it. There have been several recently enacted amendments to the Lanham Act addressing functionality that make great sense and are consistent with the principles suggested here, as will be discussed below. Moreover, the Supreme Court in Two Pesos, Qualitex, Park ‘n’ Fly, and Samara has recently set forth rules that will allow trade dress claims to …

The First Amendment And Cyberspace: The Clinton Years, James Boyle

Law and Contemporary Problems

Both in terms of speech regulation and in terms of providing raw material for the legal controversies that shape the law of the First Amendment, the legacy of Pres Clinton's Administration is considerable, and nowhere more than in cyberspace. The most visible example of the Clinton Administration's role in cyberspeech regulation are the Communications Decency Act, which was struck down by unanimous vote of the Supreme Court in 1997, and the Child Online Protection Act, which is now before the courts.

The Death Of Cyberspace, Lawrence Lessig

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Use Of Intellectual Property As Collateral: Gap In The Perfection Of A Security Interest, Sofia Benammar

LLM Theses and Essays

The purpose of the present thesis is to let French lawyers know which step they need to take in order to best assist their client in securing a more solid investment. Lenders want to be protected. Lenders want to be sure that they can use the intellectual property rights in a commercial environment free from superior claims by third parties. In other words, a lender who provides a large loan to a borrower wants to know how and where its security interest will be perfected and what is the best way for him to have priority over other claims. This …

Reflections: Beyond Compliance Theory--Trips As A Substantive Issue, Peter M. Gerhart

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

International Intellectual Property Litigation In The Next Millenium, Justice Jacob Hon.

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Intellectual Property Rights And Economic Development, Keith E. Maskus

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

The Trips Agreement Comes Of Age: Conflict Or Cooperation With The Developing Countries, J.H. Reichman

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

The Federal Circuit’S Cruise To Uncharted Waters: How Patent Protection For Algorithms And Business Methods May Sink The Ucita And State Intellectual Property Protection, Ralph D. Clifford

Faculty Publications

The realm of intellectual property law now changes at an incredible pace, with the courts discarding venerable concepts rapidly. This is not surprising as the transition from a goods-based society to one based on information increases the importance of intellectual property law. Nowhere has this been more apparent than the Federal Circuit’s recent reworking of the scope of federal patent law. Today, it is difficult to imagine anything for which a patent cannot be sought and received. Furthermore, the expansion of the patent law’s scope has a corresponding impact on state powers. Because the patent law serves to implicitly preempt …

Collegiality And Collaboration In The Age Of Exclusivity, Lawrence M. Sung

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Licensing Intellectual Property And Technology From The Financially-Troubled Or Startup Company: Prebankruptcy Strategies To Minimize The Risk In A Licensee's Intellectual Property And Technology Investment, Richard M. Cieri, Michelle M. Harner

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Conflicts Between U.S. Law And International Treaties Concerning Geographical Indications, Christine Farley

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

It should not be surprising that the United States is not a major proponent of the protection of geographical indications. Countries that stand to benefit the most from this protection are those that have a long history of traditional industries, such as many European countries. These historical differences may help explain the stance that the United States has taken with regard to the protection of geographical indications, as compared to its stance towards other intellectual property rights negotiated in TRIPs Agreement. But the inability of the U.S. to benefit to the same extent as European countries, because of its apparent …

Square Pegs And Round Holes: Why Native American Economic And Cultural Policies And United States Intellectual Property Law Don't Fit, David B. Jordan

American Indian Law Review

No abstract provided.