Intellectual Property Law Commons^™

Patent Eligibility's Doctrinal Exclusions... Lately, A Scary Movie Too Difficult To Watch: Concrete Solutions And Suggestions, Kristy J. Downing

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

Patent eligible subject matter is defined by the legislature’s 35 U.S.C. § 101 to include “any new and useful process, machine, manufacture or composition of matter.” Since the nineteenth century, however, United States (U.S.) courts have considered certain otherwise eligible subject matter excludable from patent protection. The judiciary’s doctrinal exclusions’ purpose was to protect fundamental building blocks to science and useful arts ensuring that such information could not be monopolized by one entity. Presently, however, the judicial exclusions have been used to exclude fewer fundamental building blocks and more ordinary brick-and-mortar innovations after two U.S. supreme court decisions (Mayo …

Determining Enhanced Damages After Halo Electronics: Still A Struggle?, Veronica Corcoran

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

35 U.S.C. § 284 of the Patent Act allows district courts to use their discretion to award enhanced damages up to three times the amount found or assessed in the case of patent infringement. This Comment will consider how the Supreme court of the United States’ holding in Halo Electronics, Inc. v. Pulse electronics, Inc. changed the landscape of enhanced damages awards in light of willful infringement.

First, this Comment will examine the Federal Circuit’s approach that now embraces both an objective and subjective inquiry in determining enhanced damages, which may resolve the concern over the rigidity in the Seagate …

Keinitz V. Sconnie Nation, Llc: The Seventh Circuit's Necessary Resistance To Defining The Fair Use Doctrine Solely In Terms Of Transformativeness, Alexander Perwich

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

Under the fair use doctrine, use of a copyrighted work is not an infringement on a copyright if, after consideration of four factors, a court considers the use to be fair. The four factors courts are required to consider are: (1) “the purpose and character of the use;” (2) “the nature of the copyrighted work;” (3) “the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole;” and (4) the effect the use has on “the potential market for or value of the original copyrighted work.” A circuit split exists between the Second and …

Clarifying Uncertainty: Why We Need A Small Claims Copyright Court, John Zuercher

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

This article is concerned with the question of whether copyright law in the United States is currently equipped to achieve its original goal, set within the U.S. Constitution, to promote innovation and progress. This article suggests that copyright law is not equipped to achieve this goal because a paradox inherent in copyright law is hindering copyright litigation and causing uncertainty. The paradox is found in 17 U.S.C. § 106, which protects transformative works that are derivative, and 17 U.S.C. § 107, which protects transformative works as fair use. Ideally, the federal courts would solve this dilemma by interpreting the appropriate …

What's Your Story? Every Famous Mark Has One: Persuasion In Trademark Opposition Briefs, Candace Hays

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

A key contention of legal writing scholarship is that the legal resolution is rooted in storytelling. The law consists of an endless telling and retelling of stories. Clients tell stories to their lawyers, who must figure out how to frame their client’s narrative into a legal context. Lawyers retell their clients’ stories to judges using pleadings, motions, and legal briefs. Judges and administrators retell these stories in the form of an opinion or verdict.

Storytelling in the legal context is an important element of persuasion. For the purpose of this comment, legal storytelling is defined as the use of fiction-writing …