Intellectual Property Law Commons^™

The Dmca Rulemaking Mechanism: Fail Or Safe?, Maryna Koberidze

Maryna Koberidze

The Irrelevance Of Nanotechnology Patents, Emily Michiko Morris

Emily Michiko Morris

Once the stuff of science fiction, nanotechnology is now expected to be the next technological revolution, but despite millions of dollars of investment, we still have yet to see the brave new world of cheap energy, cell-specific drug delivery systems, and self-replicating nanobots that nanotechnology promises. Instead, nanotechnology seems to be in a holding pattern, perpetually stuck in the status of “emerging science,” “immature field,” and “new technology” for over three decades now. Why? Professor Mark Lemley and a number of others have suggested that the answer to this puzzling question is simple: nanotechnology differs from the all of the …

Promoting “Academic Entrepreurship” In Europe And The United States: Creating An Intellectual Property Regime To Facilitate The Efficient Transfer Of Knowledge From The Lab To The Patient, Constance Bagley, Christina Tvarno

Constance E. Bagley

In 2014, the European Commission announced the launch of a study of knowledge transfer by public research organizations and other institutes of higher learning “to determine which additional measures might be needed to ensure an optimal flow of knowledge between the public research organisations and business thereby contributing to the development of the knowledge based economy.” As the European Commission has recognized, the EU needs to take action to “unlock the potential of IPRs [intellectual property rights] that lie dormant in universities, research institutes and companies.” This article builds on our earlier work on structuring efficient pharmaceutical public-private partnerships (PPPPs) …

Social Innovation, Peter Lee

Peter Lee

This Article provides the first legal examination of the immensely valuable but underappreciated phenomenon of social innovation. Innovations such as cognitive behavioral therapy, microfinance, and strategies to reduce hospital-based infections greatly enhance social welfare yet operate completely outside of the patent system, the primary legal mechanism for promoting innovation. This Article draws on empirical evidence to elucidate this significant kind of innovation and explore its divergence from the classic model of technological innovation championed by the patent system. In so doing, it illustrates how patent law exhibits a rather crabbed, particularistic conception of innovation. Among other characteristics, innovation in the …

Changing Places: A New Role For Creators In The Digital World, Rodolfo C. Rivas Rea Esq., Maria Alejandra Lopez Garcia Esq.

Rodolfo C. Rivas

The authors provide a brief overview of the author’s role in exploiting their creations and how new technologies have made authors and publishers explore new business models. In the article, the authors take a look at the innovative business models implemented by J.K. Rowling, Stephen King, Radiohead and Frank Ocean amongst others./////////////////////////////////////////////////// Los autores proporcionan una breve descripción de la función del autor en la explotación de sus creaciones y cómo las nuevas tecnologías han obligado a los autores y editores explorar nuevos modelos de negocio. En el artículo, los autores echan un vistazo a los modelos de negocio innovadores …

Region Codes And Human Rights, Molly Land

Molly K. Land

No abstract provided.

Beneficiaries Of Misconduct: A Direct Approach To It Theft, Andrew Popper

Andrew Popper

Stolen information technology (IT) is a domestic and global problem. Theft of IT by upstream producers has a pernicious effect on the competitive market and violates fundamental policies designed to protect those who create and invent such assets. Companies profiting from stolen IT are not just free-riding on the successes of those who design and produce the products and ideas that are a driving force in the U.S. economy – they are destabilizing rational pricing and distorting lawful competition by virtue of outright theft. Current legal recourse is insufficient to address such misconduct; new approaches are needed at the state …

Beneficiaries Of Misconduct: A Direct Approach To It Theft, Andrew Popper

Andrew Popper

Stolen information technology (IT) is a domestic and global problem. Theft of IT by upstream producers has a pernicious effect on the competitive market and violates fundamental policies designed to protect those who create and invent such assets. Companies profiting from stolen IT are not just free-riding on the successes of those who design and produce the products and ideas that are a driving force in the U.S. economy – they are destabilizing rational pricing and distorting lawful competition by virtue of outright theft. Current legal recourse is insufficient to address such misconduct; new approaches are needed at the state …

Innovation Cooperation: Energy Biosciences And Law, Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

This Article analyzes the development and dissemination of environmentally sound technologies that can address climate change. Climate change poses catastrophic health and security risks on a global scale. Universities, individual innovators, private firms, civil society, governments, and the United Nations can unite in the common goal to address climate change. This Article recommends means by which legal, scientific, engineering, and a host of other public and private actors can bring environmentally sound innovation into widespread use to achieve sustainable development. In particular, universities can facilitate this collaboration by fostering global innovation and diffusion networks.

Die Institutionalisierung Von Wissensbeständen In Österreich. Die Diskrepanz Zwischen Wirtschaftlicher Realität Und Politik (The Institutionalization Of Knowledge In Austria: Coming To Grips Between Economic Reality & Policy), Roya Ghafele

Roya Ghafele

The University Act 2002 redefines ownership structures over intellectual property in Austria, thus paving the way for enhanced knowledge transfer and knowledge commercialization from public research institutions. This study discusses the various featers of the different models of generating and leveraging knowledge. It does so, by explaining the characteristics of technology markets and assesses the strengths and weaknesses of proprietary versus open knowledge generation from a perspective of new institutional economics. Particular emphasis is being put on the preservation of the public interest, deemed particularly important in the context of publicly funded research. The paper concludes by offering a rough …

Accounting For Intellectual Property?, Roya Ghafele

Roya Ghafele

Accounting constitutes a very specific form of language, which is highly standardized, mathematical in nature and seeks to uniformly and systematically describe events while avoiding expressions of individual creativity or explicit political positions. In this sense, accounting is a social, cultural and historical artefact rather than a natural or technical phenomenon and can therefore be viewed as the decisive instrument to create and maintain imagined business communities. On the balance sheet, IP experiences a specific form of authorization. It is represented in the discourse of accounting by ‘intangibles’, an imprecise term associated with the increasingly observed ‘gap between the market …

User Innovator Community Norms At The Boundary Between Academic And Industrial Research, Katherine J. Strandburg

Katherine J. Strandburg

In this essay, I consider norms of sharing research tools and materials in what has been called Pasteur’s Quadrant, in which basic science and applied research overlap. I employ a user innovation paradigm, along with a rational choice approach to social norms, to address the issue. The convergence of academic research with commercial interests has two different types of consequences for sharing norms. First, a research tool or material developed in a nonprofit research context may be a dual-purpose innovation with both research and nonresearch uses. Thus, for example, a genetic assay may be useful in research and as a …

Internet Killed The Copyright Law: Perfect 10 V. Google And The Devastating Impact On The Exclusiive Right To Display, Deborah B. Morse

Deborah Brightman Morse

Never has the dissonance between copyright and innovation been so extreme. The Internet provides enormous economic growth due to the strength of e-commerce, and affords an avenue for creativity and the wide dissemination of information. Nevertheless, the Internet has become a plague on copyright law. The advent of the digital medium has made the unlawful reproduction, distribution, and display of copyrighted works essentially effortless. The law has been unable to keep pace with the rapid advance of technology. For the past decade, Congress has been actively attempting to draft comprehensible legislation in an effort to afford copyright owners more protection …

Third Party Copyright After Grokster, Alfred C. Yen

Alfred C. Yen

This Article studies the construction of third party copyright liability after the recent Supreme Court case Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. This inquiry is important because third party copyright liability has become a controversial area of law that affects the viability of entire industries. Unfortunately, the law governing third party copyright liability is unclear. Grokster involved a claim of third party liability against defendants whose technology supported the sharing of music over the Internet, and it represents the Supreme Court’s attempt to bring coherence to the relevant law.

Grokster is a difficult case to understand. It added a new …

Internet Infoglut And Invisible Ink: Spamdexing Search Engines With Meta Tags, Ira Nathenson

Ira Steven Nathenson

This Article addresses 'spamdexing,' namely, the practice of stuffing invisible keywords into webpages in order to try to get more favorable listings with search engines. For instance, some website owners will stuff the trademarks of competitors into a webpage’s code, particularly by using 'meta tags,' indexing keywords that can be hidden in a webpage’s source code. Although meta tags are not typically viewed by users, the code can be read by search engines, with the result that webpages may be improperly boosted in search engine rankings. Such practices can confuse the public and have also spurred trademark lawsuits. But the …