Law Commons^™

When Trade Secrets Become Shackles: Fairness And The Inevitable Disclosure Doctrine, Elizabeth Rowe

Elizabeth A Rowe

Critics of the inevitable disclosure doctrine decry the inconsistency with which courts rule on these cases, and the difficulty in predicting case outcomes. They contend that courts are left to "grapple with a decidedly ... nebulous standard of 'inevitability."' Further, they claim the doctrine undermines the employee's fundamental right to move freely and pursue his or her livelihood. Ultimately, both the problem and solution here are about fairness: fairness in the employer-employee relationship, fairness in the application of the law, and fairness in providing protection from unfair competition between competing employers. The crux of the opposition to the doctrine, in …

Introducing A Takedown For Trade Secrets On The Internet, Elizabeth Rowe

Elizabeth A Rowe

This Article explores, for the first time, an existing void in trade-secret law. When a trade-secret owner discovers that its trade secrets have been posted on the Internet, there is currently no legislative mechanism by which the owner can request that the information be taken down. The only remedy to effectuate removal of the material is to obtain a court order, usually either a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction. When a trade secret appears on the Internet, the owner often loses the ability to continue to claim it as a trade secret and to prevent others from using …

Striking A Balance: When Should Trade-Secret Law Shield Disclosures To The Government?, Elizabeth Rowe

Elizabeth A Rowe

In 2010, Toyota issued recalls on over eight million vehicles because of faulty acceleration. Assume that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) requests that Toyota allow the government access to the data in black boxes on the recalled cars. The black boxes are operated by proprietary software and can only be accessed with special codes by Toyota. Assume further that Toyota refuses to provide the Black Box data to the government, claiming that it would reveal its trade secrets. How should courts approach what I coin these refusal-to-submit cases? There is a void in the literature and the case …

Trolls Or Great Inventors: Case Studies Of Patent Assertion Entities, Ryan Holte

Prof. Ryan T. Holte

There has been much debate about the economic harms caused by patent infringement lawsuits filed by patent holders who do not make or sell products covered by their own patents—entities pejoratively referred to as “patent trolls.” This debate has thus far been largely theoretical or based on broad industry-wide data. The purpose of this article is to present a focused empirical report that has previously been lacking—detailed information regarding the inventors themselves, the patent assertion entities (PAEs) that represent them, and the stories behind their patents. The research for this article centers on two instructive case studies: (1) MercExchange, L.L.C., …

Privacy, Copyright, And Letters, Jeffrey Harrison

Jeffrey L Harrison

The focus of this Essay is the privacy of letters – the written manifestations of thoughts, intents, and the recollections of facts directed to a person or a narrowly defined audience. The importance of this privacy is captured in the novel Atonement by Ian McEwan and in the film based on the novel. The fulcrum from which the action springs is a letter that is read by someone to whom it was not addressed. The result is literally life-changing, even disastrous for a number of characters. One person dies, two people seemingly meant for each other are torn apart and …

Monopolization, Innovation, And Consumer Welfare, John Lopatka, William Page

William H. Page

While most commentators and the enforcement agencies voice support for the consumer welfare standard, substantial disagreement exists over when economic theory justifies a presumption of consumer injury. Virtually all would subscribe to the theoretical prediction that an effective cartel will likely inflict consumer injury by reducing output and thus increasing prices. But the academic and judicial consensus disappears when the theory at issue predicts that a practice -- a merger or a predatory pricing campaign, for example -- will harm consumers in the future through some complex sequence of events.

In our view, the desire to protect innovation is legitimate, …

A Functional Approach To Copyright Policy, Robert Suggs

Robert E. Suggs

This essay results from a half-century spent observing the development and stagnation of a once vital music form, jazz. Curiosity spurred its evolution when a successor to John Coltrane failed to emerge within a few years of his early death. Over the ensuing decades, I became concerned that advancing technology and the 1976 Copyright Act had fundamentally undermined our cultural ecology. Unnoticed over the past century, technology has changed our experience of expressive culture, (the stories, images, and melodies that copyright most strongly protects), from live performance in social settings to solitary consumption of recorded media. Neurologically and physiologically this …

The Trespass Fallacy In The "Software Patent" Debate, Ryan Holte

Prof. Ryan T. Holte

In The Trespass Fallacy in Patent Law, Professor Adam Mossoff details how patent law jurisprudence and scholarship is dominated by an indeterminacy critique or “trespass fallacy” in two respects. Professor Mossoff’s essay, however, only briefly mentions the now paramount contemporary issue surrounding the more-focused “software patent” debate. In this short essay, I briefly discuss Professor Mossoff’s trespass fallacy analysis as it relates to “software patents” and the Supreme Court’s October 2013 Term case Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l.

Ip Law Book Review: Configuring The Networked Self: Law, Code, And The Play Of Every Day Practice, Frank Pasquale

Frank A. Pasquale

Julie Cohen's Configuring the Networked Self is an extraordinarily insightful book. Cohen not only applies extant theory to law; she also distills it into her own distinctive social theory of the information age. Thus, even relatively short sections of chapters of her book often merit article-length close readings. I here offer a brief for the practical importance of Cohen’s theory, and ways it should influence intellectual property policy and scholarship.

Mark Mckenna Was Quoted Ap Story Jury Selection Begins In Apple-Samsung Case On March 31, Mark Mckenna

Mark P. McKenna

Mark McKenna was quoted AP story Jury selection begins in Apple-Samsung case on March 31 “There’s a widespread suspicion that lots of the kinds of software patents at issue are written in ways that cover more ground than what Apple or any other tech firm actually invented,” Notre Dame law professor Mark McKenna said. “Overly broad patents allow companies to block competition.”

Is "Dumb Starbucks" Legal? Mark Mckenna Talks To Business Insider, February 10, 2014., Mark Mckenna

Mark P. McKenna

Mark McKenna was quoted in the Business insider article by Erin Fuchs. "This is a fairly bold use of the Starbucks logo," Notre Dame law professor Mark McKennatold me. "What they've done is they've taken that word 'dumb' and they have basically copied everything." Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/is-dumb-starbucks-legal-2014-2#ixzz2sxEeHa00

Panel I: The Future Of Sports Television, Ronald Cass, Mark Abbott, Irwin Kishner, Brad Ruskin

Ronald A. Cass

No abstract provided.

Framing The Patent Troll Debate, Michael Risch

Michael Risch

The patent troll debate has reached a fevered pitch in the USA. This peer reviewed editorial seeks to frame the debate by pointing out the lack of clarity in defining patent trolls and their allegedly harmful actions. It then frames the debate by asking currently unanswered questions: Where do troll patents come from? What are the effects of troll assertions? Will policy changes improve the system?

The Global Trade Mark, Edward Lee

Edward Lee

This Article offers a proposal for WTO countries to adopt global IP rights for a special class of trademarks: famous or well-known marks. Well-known marks are well-suited for greater departure from the territoriality principle, given the transnational protections for well-known marks that already exist under the Paris Convention and TRIPS Agreement. This Article proposes creating a Global Trademark (GTM) for well-known marks, to be governed by one, uniform international law. The GTM will span all countries in the WTO. The GTM is inspired, in part, by the Community Trade Mark (CTM) in the European Union, the first truly transnational IP …

Paracopyright: A Peculiar Right To Control Access, Joseph Liu

Joseph P. Liu