Law and Race Commons^™

Color Of Creatorship - Author's Response, Anjali Vats

Articles

This essay is the author's response to three reviews of The Color of Creatorship written by notable intellectual property scholars and published in the IP Law Book Review.

Hip Hop And The Law : Presented By Intellectual Property Law Association 03/31/2022, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

The Racial Politics Of Fair Use Fetishism, Anjali Vats

Articles

This short essay argues that the sometimes fetishistic desire on the part of progressive intellectual property scholars to defend fair use is at odds with racial justice. Through a rereading of landmark fair use cases using tools drawing from Critical Race Intellectual Property (“CRTIP”), it contends that scholars, lawyers, judges, practitioners, and activists would be well served by focusing on how fair use remains grounded in whiteness as (intellectual) property. It argues for doing so by rethinking the purpose of the Copyright Act of 1976 to be inclusive of Black, Brown, and Indigenous authors.

What Is Cultural Misappropriation And Why Does It Matter? 03-31-2021, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Temporality In A Time Of Tam, Or Towards A Racial Chronopolitics Of Intellectual Property Law, Anjali Vats

Articles

This Article examines the intersections of race, intellectual property, and temporality from the vantage point of Critical Race Intellectual Property ("CRTIP"). More specifically, it offers one example of how trademark law operates to normalize white supremacy by and through judicial frameworks that default to Euro-American understandings of time. I advance its central argument-that achieving racial justice in the context of intellectual property law requires decolonizing Euro-American conceptions of time by considering how the equitable defense of laches and the judicial power to raise issues sua sponte operate in trademark law. I make this argument through a close reading of the …

A Taxonomy Of Police Technology’S Racial Inequity Problems, Laura M. Moy

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Over the past several years, increased awareness of racial inequity in policing, combined with increased scrutiny of police technologies, have sparked concerns that new technologies may aggravate inequity in policing. To help address these concerns, some advocates and scholars have proposed requiring police agencies to seek and obtain legislative approval before adopting a new technology, or requiring the completion of “algorithmic impact assessments” to evaluate new tools.

In order for policymakers, police agencies, or scholars to evaluate whether and how particular technologies may aggravate existing inequities, however, the problem must be more clearly defined. Some scholars have explored inequity in …

The Color Of Creatorship: Intellectual Property, Race, And The Making Of Americans (Introduction), Anjali Vats

Book Chapters

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW, the body of legal doctrine and practice that governs the ownership of information, is animated by a dichotomy of creatorship and infringement. In the most often repeated narratives of creatorship/infringement in the United States, the former produces a social and economic good while the latter works against the production of that social and economic good. Creators, those individuals whose work is deemed protectable under copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret, and unfair competition law, create valuable products that contribute to economic growth and public knowledge. Infringers, those individuals who use the work of creators without their permission, steal …

Critical Race Ip, Anjali Vats, Deidre A. Keller

Articles

In this Article, written on the heels of Race IP 2017, a conference we co-organized with Amit Basole and Jessica Silbey, we propose and articulate a theoretical framework for an interdisciplinary movement that we call Critical Race Intellectual Property (Critical Race IP). Specifically, we argue that given trends toward maximalist intellectual property policy, it is now more important than ever to study the racial investments and implications of the laws of copyright, trademark, patent, right of publicity, trade secret, and unfair competition in a manner that draws upon Critical Race Theory (CRT). Situating our argument in a historical context, we …

Identity Property: Protecting The New Ip In A Race-Relevant World, Philip Lee

Journal Articles

This Article explores the relatively new idea in American legal thought that people of color are human beings whose dignity and selfhood are worthy of legal protection. While the value and protection of whiteness throughout American legal history is undeniable, non-whiteness' has had a more turbulent history. For most of American history, the concept of non-whiteness was constructed by white society and reinforced by law-i.e., through a process of socio-legal construction-in a way that excluded its possessor from the fruits of citizenship. However, people of color have resisted this negative construction of selfhood. This resistance led to the development of …

Identity Property: Protecting The New Ip In A Race-Relevant World, Philip Lee

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

This Article explores the relatively new idea in American legal thought that people of color are human beings whose dignity and selfhood are worthy of legal protection. While the value and protection of whiteness throughout American legal history is undeniable, non-whiteness has had a more turbulent history. For most of American history, the concept of non-whiteness was constructed by white society and reinforced by law—i.e., through a process of socio-legal construction—in a way that excluded its possessor from the fruits of citizenship. However, people of color have resisted this negative construction of selfhood. This resistance led to the development …

Race-Ing Patents/Patenting Race: An Emerging Political Geography Of Intellectual Property In Biotechnology, Jonathan Kahn

Faculty Scholarship

This article applies insights from critical race theory to examine an emerging phenomenon in biotechnology research and product development. The strategic use of race as a genetic category to obtain patent protection and drug approval. A dramatic rise in the use of race in biotechnology patents indicates that researchers and affiliated commercial enterprises are coming to see social categories of race as presenting opportunities for gaining, extending, or protecting monopoly market protection for an array of biotechnological products and services. Racialized patents are also providing the basis for similarly race-based clinical trial designs, drug development, capital raising and marketing strategies …