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Rent-A-Tribe: Tribal Immunity To Shield Patents From Administrative Review, Seth W.R. Brickey
Rent-A-Tribe: Tribal Immunity To Shield Patents From Administrative Review, Seth W.R. Brickey
Washington Law Review
In 2017, Allergan Pharmaceuticals entered into an agreement with the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe (SRMT). Allergan agreed to assign several patents to SRMT and to pay an initial sum of $13.75 million and annual royalties of approximately $15 million. SRMT, in exchange, licensed the rights to use the patents back to Allergan and agreed not to waive its tribal immunity in any administrative proceeding challenging the patents. Two outcomes were expected as a result of this Allergan-Mohawk agreement. First, Allergan would retain the rights to manufacture and market a highly profitable drug while insulating the underlying patents from an unforgiving …
Confidentiality In Patent Dispute Resolution: Antitrust Implications, Mark R. Patterson
Confidentiality In Patent Dispute Resolution: Antitrust Implications, Mark R. Patterson
Washington Law Review
Information is crucial to the functioning of the patent system, as it is for other markets. Nevertheless, patent licensing terms are often subject to confidentiality agreements. On the one hand, this is not surprising: sellers and buyers do not normally publicize the details of their transactions. On the other hand, explicit confidentiality agreements are not common in other markets, and they may be particularly problematic for patents. Several United States Supreme Court cases have condemned agreements that suppress market information, and those cases could be applied to confidentiality agreements in the patent context. Of course, confidentiality may sometimes be pro-competitive, …
How Copyright Law Can Fix Artificial Intelligence's Implicit Bias Problem, Amanda Levendowski
How Copyright Law Can Fix Artificial Intelligence's Implicit Bias Problem, Amanda Levendowski
Washington Law Review
As the use of artificial intelligence (AI) continues to spread, we have seen an increase in examples of AI systems reflecting or exacerbating societal bias, from racist facial recognition to sexist natural language processing. These biases threaten to overshadow AI’s technological gains and potential benefits. While legal and computer science scholars have analyzed many sources of bias, including the unexamined assumptions of its oftenhomogenous creators, flawed algorithms, and incomplete datasets, the role of the law itself has been largely ignored. Yet just as code and culture play significant roles in how AI agents learn about and act in the world, …
Visual Methaphor And Trademark Distinctiveness, Dustin Marlan
Visual Methaphor And Trademark Distinctiveness, Dustin Marlan
Washington Law Review
Perhaps because words are the lawyer’s principal instrument, the law gives too little attention to visual images. Invoking Justice Potter Stewart’s infamous statement regarding the law’s inability to define obscenity, “I know it when I see it” is the standard for interpreting images in the law. A greater understanding of the ways in which images make meaning is needed, however, including in trademark law given our increasingly visual economy. This Article examines images in the context of trademark law’s inherent distinctiveness doctrine. While trademark law still lacks a coherent, uniform, and predictable framework for deciding the distinctiveness of visual image …