Intellectual Property Law Commons^™

Are Internet-Implemented Applications Of Block-Chain Technology Patent-Eligible In The United States?, Gurneet Singh

Chicago-Kent Journal of Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Copyright Infringement’S Blurred Lines: Allocating Overhead In The Disgorgement Of Profits

BYU Law Review

In Williams v. Bridgeport Music, Marvin Gaye’s estate alleged that the popular song “Blurred Lines” infringed Gaye’s 1977 song “Got to Give It Up.” As part of the remedy for the infringement, the Gaye estate sought to disgorge the profits derived from defendants’ infringement, but the parties disagreed about how to calculate those profits. Specifically, they disagreed about whether the infringing song’s revenues should be offset by the infringers’ $7 million in overhead costs allocable to the song. The district court determined that the infringers’ ability to offset overhead costs would depend on whether their infringement was ...

Intellectual Property And Public Health: A White Paper, Katharine A. Van Tassel

Katharine Van Tassel

On October 26, 2012, the University of Akron School of Law’s Center for Intellectual Property and Technology hosted its Sixth Annual IP Scholars Forum. In attendance were thirteen legal scholars with expertise and an interest in IP and public health who met to discuss problems and potential solutions at the intersection of these fields. This report summarizes this discussion by describing the problems raised, areas of agreement and disagreement between the participants, suggestions and solutions made by participants and the subsequent evaluations of these suggestions and solutions. Led by the moderator, participants at the Forum focused generally on three ...

The Substantial Identity Requirement Of Patent Infringement, Samuel F. Ernst

Publications

No abstract provided.

Regulating Data As Property: A New Construct For Moving Forward, Jeffrey Ritter, Anna Mayer

Duke Law & Technology Review

The global community urgently needs precise, clear rules that define ownership of data and express the attendant rights to license, transfer, use, modify, and destroy digital information assets. In response, this article proposes a new approach for regulating data as an entirely new class of property. Recently, European and Asian public officials and industries have called for data ownership principles to be developed, above and beyond current privacy and data protection laws. In addition, official policy guidances and legal proposals have been published that offer to accelerate realization of a property rights structure for digital information. But how can ownership ...

Anti-Innovation Norms, Stephanie Plamondon Bair, Laura G. Pedraza-Fariña

Northwestern University Law Review

Intellectual property (IP) scholars have recently turned their attention to social norms—informal rules that emerge from and are enforced by nonhierarchically organized social forces—as a promising way to spur innovation in communities as diverse as the fashion industry and the open-source software movement. The narrative that has emerged celebrates social norms’ ability to solve IP’s free-rider problem without incurring IP’s costs.

But this account does not fully consider the dark side of social norms. In fact, certain social norms, when overenforced, can create substantial barriers to the most socially beneficial creative pursuits. Because IP scholars have ...

Non-Discrimination And Frand Commitments, Jorge L. Contreras

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

A pledge to license standard essential patents (SEPs) on a non- discriminatory basis is a common element of SDO IPR Policies, part of the larger commitment to license on Fair, Reasonable, and Non- Discriminatory (FRAND) terms. In this chapter we consider what non-discrimination pledges imply for SDO member conduct. We review the basic variants of such pledges, how they may be informed by broader legal and economic defi nitions of discrimination, and recent cases and agency guidance interpreting such commitments. We conclude with open questions regarding the legal implications of non-discriminatory licensing pledges.

Whitewashing Expression: Using Copyright Law To Protect Racial Identity In Casting, Brandon Johnson

Northwestern University Law Review

Porchlight Music Theatre, a non-equity theatre company in Chicago, decided to capitalize on the popularity of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s smash hit Hamilton by producing one of Miranda’s earlier works, In the Heights. This earlier work tells the story of a predominantly Latinx community in New York’s Washington Heights neighborhood. Porchlight’s production, however, received significant negative attention when it was revealed that the lead character—Usnavi, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic—would be played by a white actor. While casting white actors in nonwhite roles is nothing new and has been a persistent (and persistently criticized) practice ...

The Public Knowledge Project: Reflections And Directions After Two Decades, Juan Pablo Alperin, John Willinsky, Brian Owen, James Macgregor, Alec Smecher, Kevin Stranack

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

The Public Knowledge Project (PKP) is entering its third decade. Like any project that has been around this long, PKP is facing the substantial responsibilities of maturity, seeking ways that will enable it to best serve the thousands of people who utilize our software to operate and index the journals and presses with which they work. It is out of this sense of responsibility that PKP, in the fall of 2017, submitted a proposal to the Laura and John Arnold Foundation boldly entitled “Sustaining Open Access’ Most Widely Used Publishing Software.” With this planning grant, PKP contracted the consulting services ...

Allocating Patent Litigation Risk Across The Supply Chain, Michael J. Meurer

Faculty Scholarship

The paradigmatic defendant in a patent lawsuit is a vertically integrated manufacturer. But much economic activity is conducted collaboratively by a supply chain of vertically disintegrated firms, and sometimes multiple firms are implicated in infringing activities, by making, selling, or using patented technology, or by contributing to or inducing another firm’s infringement. Often patent owners have the option of suing some or all of the members of a supply chain who contribute to the design, creation and marketing of a new technology.

Businesses increasingly contemplate the risk of patent infringement when they negotiate contractual relations to form a supply ...

Quick Decisions In Patent Cases, Paul Gugliuzza

Faculty Scholarship

Patent litigation is notoriously expensive and time consuming. In the past decade, however, patent law has changed in many ways that expedite resolution of infringement disputes. This article identifies and evaluates this trend toward quick decisions in patent cases. Balancing the savings in litigation costs against the potential for error, the article defends many recent and controversial developments, including the Supreme Court’s invigoration of the patent eligible subject matter requirement, the new administrative proceedings created by the America Invents Act, and changes in the requirements for pleading patent infringement. These developments permit defendants to obtain rulings of invalidity or ...

Rejecting The De Minimis Defense To Infringement Of Sound Recording Copyrights, Michael G. Kubik

Notre Dame Law Review

Part I of this Note examines the history of sound recording copyrights, the role of digital sampling in the music industry, and the basic principles and functions of the de minimis defense. Part II carefully dissects the Bridgeport and VMG opinions. Part III then considers the merits of each opinion and concludes that Bridgeport reached the correct conclusion. This argument rests on the statutory scheme of Title 17 of the U.S. Code and the plain text of its applicable provisions, bolstered by their legislative history, giving life to a unique statutory creature that thrives in a manner inconsistent with ...

Pathways To Open Access, University Of California Libraries

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

Pursuant to the University of California (UC) Council of University Librarian’s (CoUL)1 3 August 2017 charge, this Pathways to OA Working Group2 has identified the current universe of Open Access (OA) approaches, and has analyzed the suite of strategies available for effectuating those approaches. Each approach described within this Pathways document offers unique and, in some cases, overlapping challenges, opportunities, and room for experimentation. The strategies examined here create space and freedom for the campuses to pursue both individualized and connected paths toward a large-scale transition to OA—though as we highlight below, collective action on implementing the ...

Ontario's New Invasion Of Privacy Torts: Do They Offer Monetary Redress For Violations Suffered Via The Internet Of Things?, Sarit K. Mizrahi

Western Journal of Legal Studies

In the age of the Internet of Things, we are all susceptible to countless privacy violations. Society’s prevalent use of interconnected devices enables companies to collect and manipulate users’ personal data for their own monetary benefits. While the law grapples with how best to protect users from such privacy risks, another significant danger has emerged: by besting the often-weak security measures employed by companies that create interconnected devices, hackers can compromise the integrity of these electronics by remotely accessing them. This allows hackers to gain unauthorized access to the personal data of users and potentially hold their devices for ...

What Is (And Isn't) Fair Use In Music Sampling?, Devin Mckinney

Musselman Library Staff Publications

"Fair use" is a principle embedded in copyright law which permits -- under circumstances governed by a set of considerations commonly known as "the four factors" -- the borrowing of material from copyrighted works to create new works. Created for Fair Use Week 2018, this poster highlights the principle as it has applied to three controversial cases involving music sampling. For each case, the observer is given the essential facts; shown which of the four factors (represented by icons) were most central; and told the real-world outcome of each case. As an interactive display, the poster covered each "Outcome" column with a ...

Fair Use And Social Media, John Dettinger

Musselman Library Staff Publications

This poster was created in a collaborative effort by Musselman Library’s Copyright Committee as part of a display for Fair Use Week 2018. The poster was intended to get viewers to think about the 4 factors of fair use in the context of two art projects that used social media photos: Yolocaust by Shahak Shapira and New Portraits by Richard Prince. It was also intended to get viewers thinking about the ways their social media content might get used beyond the original intention.

By Reading This Title, You Have Agreed To Our Terms Of Service, Brian Larson

Brian Larson

Serving Pets In Poverty: A New Frontier For The Animal Welfare Movement, Amanda Arrington, Michael Markarian

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

How Fast Is Too Fast? Osha’S Regulation Of The Meat Industry’S Line Speed And The Price Paid By Humans And Animals, Israel Cook

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

The Farts Heard ‘Round The World: Where Cow-Tapping Falls On The International Agenda Of Sustainable Development, Alexandra C. Nolan

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.