Digital Commons Network^™

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 …

Invisible Labor, Invisible Play: Online Gold Farming And The Boundary Between Jobs And Games, Julian Dibbell

Julian Dibbell

When does work become play, and play work? Courts have considered the question in a variety of economic contexts, from student athletes seeking recognition as employees to professional blackjack players seeking to be treated by casinos just like casual players. Here I apply the question to a relatively novel context: that of online gold farming, a gray-market industry in which wage-earning workers, largely based in China, are paid to play online fantasy games (MMOs) that reward them with virtual items their employers sell for profit to the same games’ casual players. Gold farming is clearly a job (and under the …

Holding Standards For Randsome: A Remedial Perspective On Rand Licensing Commitments, Layne S. Keele

Layne S. Keele

In Apple, Inc. v. Motorola, Inc., 757 F.3d 1286 (Fed. Cir. 2014), the four federal judges who considered the case—Judge Posner by designation at the trial level, and three Federal Circuit judges on appeal—all expressed differing opinions on the question of whether and to what extent extraordinary patent remedies should be available for the infringement of standard-essential patents. This article aims to simplify this muddled and confusing topic.

The article employs a teleological approach, examining the purposes behind remedies in general, the purposes of extraordinary remedies in patent law, and the purposes of RAND commitments (commitments to license standard-essential …

The Evolution Of The Digital Millennium Copyright Act; Changing Interpretations Of The Dmca And Future Implications For Copyright Holders, Hillary A. Henderson

Hillary A Henderson

Copyright law rewards an artificial monopoly to individual authors for their creations. This reward is based on the belief that, by granting authors the exclusive right to reproduce their works, they receive an incentive and means to create, which in turn advances the welfare of the general public by “promoting the progress of science and useful arts.” Copyright protection subsists . . . in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or …

When Users Are Authors: Authorship In The Age Of Digital Media, Alina Ng

Alina Ng

This Article explores what authorship and creative production means in the digital age. Notions of the author as the creator of the work provided a point of reference for recognizing ownership rights in literary and artistic works in conventional copyright jurisprudence. The role of the author, as the creator and producer of a work, has been seen as distinct and separate from that of the publisher and user. Copyright laws and customary norms protect the author’s rights in his creation to provide the incentive to create and allow him to appropriate the social value generated by his creativity as recognition …

Chain Reaction: How Property Begets Property, Sabrina Safrin

Sabrina Safrin

Classic theories for the evolution of property rights consider the emergence of private property to be a progressive development reflecting a society's movement to a more efficient property regime. This article argues that instead of this progressive dynamic, a more subtle and damaging chain reaction dynamic can come into play that traditional theories for intellectual and other property rights neither anticipate nor explain. The article suggests that the expansion of intellectual and other property rights have an internally generative dynamic. Drawing upon contemporary case studies, the article argues that property rights evolve in reaction to each other. The creation of …

Copyright's Empire: Why The Law Matters, Alina Ng

Alina Ng

Two separate and distinct movements have colonized research in the field of intellectual property. Law and economics has deepened our understanding of the justification for granting monopoly rights over intellectual property. In recent years, economic theories have been used to support the growth of the commons – the free environment, where intellectual property plays little role in generating new creative works and innovation. The second movement is law and technology that has sought to increase understanding of intellectual property through the exploration of how technologies either provide freedoms or impose limitations to how creative works and innovation are created and …