Intellectual Property Law Commons^™

Is Turn About Fair Play? Copyright Law And The Fair Use Of Computer Software Loaded Into Ram, Chad G. Asarch

Michigan Law Review

Computer systems, especially those in heavy-use commercial settings, often require routine maintenance to continue functioning properly. Many businesses turn to an independent service organization ("IS0") to provide computer maintenance services because ISOs frequently charge less than the original equipment manufacturer ("OEM") for those services. The tremendous growth in computer use has spawned a multi-billion dollar computer maintenance industry in the United States, and ISOs and OEMs have become engaged in fierce competition for this computer service business. The struggle between ISOs and OEMs to capture this expanding market has spilled over into the courts, spawning a number of recent decisions …

Reviving The Rhetoric Of The Public Interest: Choir Directors, Copy Machines, And New Arrangements Of Public Domain Music, Paul J. Heald

Scholarly Works

The decision to photocopy or not to photocopy has significant consequences for the music consumer's pocketbook. Photocopies cost around three cents per page, while an original printed version of a choral work costs about thirty cents per page. The expense of buying rather than copying public domain sheet music is directly absorbed by the taxpayers who fund music education in public schools, the church congregations who must raise money for the church music budget, and the patrons of the fine arts who finance music ensembles with their admission fees or donations.

To recognize the high cost of sheet music is …

The Year In Review: Accomplishments And Objectives Of The U.S. Copyright Office, Marybeth Peters

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Privileged Use: Has Judge Boudin Suggested A Viable Means Of Copyright Protection For The Nonliteral Aspects Of Computer Software In Lotus Development Corp.V. Borland International , David M. Maiorana

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Fixation On Fixation: Why Imposing Old Copyright Law On New Technology Will Not Work, Douglas J. Mason

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Attorney-Client Privilege Versus The Pto's Duty Of Candor: Resolving The Clash In Simultaneous Patent Representations, Todd M. Becker

Washington Law Review

Patent attorneys play dual roles: they are simultaneously attorneys and patent practitioners. Their dual role causes problems when the rules that govern one role conflict with the rules that govern the other. One such problem is illustrated in Molins PLC v. Textron, Inc., where a patent attorney simultaneously representing two clients was caught between the Patent & Trademark Office's duty of candor and the attorney's duty of confidentiality imposed by the rules of professional responsibility. The Molins decision presents a problem because it creates uncertainty about whether confidentiality can be maintained by using the attorney-client privilege to defeat the …

Dedication To The Honorable William Hughes Mulligan, John D. Feerick

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Global Intellectual Property In The Twenty-First Century, Bruce A. Lehman

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Foreword - Half A Century Of Federal Trademark Protection: The Lanham Act Turns Fifty, H. Peter Nesvold, Lisa M. Pollard

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Lanham Act: A Living Thing, Joseph D. Garon

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Fifty Years Of The Lanham Act: A Retrospective Of Section 43(A), Ethan Horwitz, Benjamin Levi

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Analysis And Suggestions Regarding Nsi Domain Name Trademark Dispute Policy, Carl Oppedahl

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Federal Trademark Dilution Act Of 1995: Substantial Likelihood Of Confusion, Eric A. Prager

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Trademark Office As A Government Corporation , Jeffrey M. Samuels, Linda B. Samuels

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The False Inventive Genus: Developing A New Approach For Analyzing The Sufficiency Of Patent Disclosure Within The Unpredictable Arts, Brian P. O'Shaughnessy

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Anonymity And International Law Enforcement In Cyberspace, Jonathan I. Edelstein

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Baseball’S Antitrust Exemption: Out Of The Pennant Race Since 1972, Anthony Sica

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Tipping The Balance: Hilton Davis And The Shape Of Equity In The Doctrine Of Equivalents, Jonathon Taylor Reavill

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Copyright And Free Speech Rights, L. Ray Patterson, Stanley F. Birch, Jr.

Scholarly Works

By letter of 1 March 1993, the Copyright Compliance Office of the Association of American Publishers (AAP) informed a copyshop that it had “without prior permission, made multiple copies of excerpts of copyrighted works for distribution to students in course anthologies.” Stating that this copying was an infringement of copyright, the letter requested the copyshop to sign an enclosed agreement stating it would not commit such acts again and to pay a penalty of “$2,500 to help defray the costs of the AAP's copyright enforcement program in this matter and to impress on your business the need to operate in …

Copyright Law And Electronic Access To Information, Jessica D. Litman

Articles

At the same time as we have been discovering the Internet’s enormous potential to enhance access to information and revolutionize the ways libraries do business, the Internet’s high profile in popular media has made it the focus of a wide spectrum of fears about the future. This paper focuses on pending proposals to amend copyright law to enhance the control copyright owners wield over the appearance of their works on digital networks. These proposals would stifle libraries’ use of the Internet. Libraries and their supporters must participate in the copyright debate, and think creatively about new models for copyright. The …

China And The Intellectual Property Dispute, Justin Carville

Graduate Student Dissertations, Theses, Capstones, and Portfolios

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Intellectual Property Issues In Genomics, Rebecca S. Eisenberg

Articles

Controversy over intellectual property rights in the results of large-scale cDNA sequencing raises intriguing questions about the roles of the public and private sectors in genomics research, and about who stands to benefit (and who stands to lose) from the private appropriation of genomic information. While the US Patent and Trademark Office has rejected patent applications on cDNA fragments of unknown function from the National Institutes of Health, private firms have pursued three distinct strategies for exploiting unpatented cDNA sequence information: exclusive licensing, non-exclusive licensing and dedication to the public domain.

The New Law On Infringement Of Registered Trade Marks In The United Kingdom: Early Developments, David Llewelyn

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In this article the author considers the infringement provisions of the Trade Marks Act 1994 (UK) and a number of recent decisions in which they have been considered.

Reverse Engineering Of Computer Software And U.S. Antitrust Law, Robert H. Lande, Sturgis M. Sobin

All Faculty Scholarship

This article explores when efforts by firms to restrict reverse engineering of their software, and corresponding agreements by other firms not to reverse engineer this software, could raise significant antitrust issues.

This article provides an overview of how the laws prohibiting certain acts of monopolization, attempted monopolization, refusals to deal, and tying might apply to restrictions and agreements concerning the reverse engineering of computer software. As a necessary predicate to this analysis, the article first briefly describes the contours of intellectual property protection for software, including the fair use and the copyright misuse doctrines.

The Restatement's Rejection Of The Misappropriation Tort, Gary Myers

Faculty Publications

Some legal theories, like the proverbial vampire, refuse to die. The common law tort of misappropriation is one such legal theory, and the recent Restatement (Third) of Unfair Competition (Restatement) may finally lead to the demise of this outdated cause of action. Misappropriation began advisedly enough as a means of protecting certain intellectual property rights from unjust usurpation, often by direct competitors employing improper means. Arising before comprehensive copyright, patent, and trademark laws were fully developed, the tort may have played an important role in protecting intangible proprietary interests.The tort's high water mark was the 1918 Supreme Court decision in …

Genome Research And Traditional Intellectual Property Protection -- A Bad Fit?, Kate H. Murashige

RISK: Health, Safety & Environment (1990-2002)

Dr. Murashige addresses the need for a patent system more closely tailored to the needs of biotechnology. For example, the obviousness requirement may interfere with using patents to recoup high costs of work when it could arguably be done by researchers of ordinary skill.

Defining "Author" For Purposes Of Copyright , Russ Versteeg

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Escaping The World Of I Know It When I See It: A New Test For Software Patent Ability, Brooke Schumm Iii

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

The major thesis presented in this article is a focused standard of software patentability, in particular for pure computational methods or algorithms directed to the manipulation of numbers operating on a computer. The general philosophy is to compel inventors to narrow their claims to an algorithm expressed in terms of its utility and then to require that the particular utility or functionality be expressed in the claim as a limit on the claim, thus precluding the patent monopoly from being overbroad. As a corollary, any person is free to use or perhaps to patent the algorithm for a different utility …

Software Developers Want Changes In Patent And Copyright Law, David A. Burton

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Most software developers do not oppose all software copyrights. There is broad support for basic copyright protection of computer programs which prohibits directly copying computer programs without the author's permission. Nearly all commercial software is copyrighted, and most programmers agree that such protection is necessary in order for software development to be profitable. However, software patents and "look and feel" copyrights go well beyond this to prohibit other programmers from independently writing even programs that are similar to the protected program. Such constraints are strongly resented by many in the software development community who long for the good old days …

Information Wants To Be Free, But The Packaging Is Going To Cost You, Gregory A. Stobbs

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

The question is this: where do we draw the line between private ownership and the public domain? It is not a question of choosing between copyright and patent, of choosing between hardware and software, or of choosing between implementation and algorithm. It is a more fundamental question that reaches back to ancient human values and transcends our current fixation on computers and software. It helps to put things in perspective. When debating where we and the law are headed (as we are now), it helps to know where we have been. In this regard, do not assume that software patents …