Law Commons^™

Overlapping Intellectual Property Doctrines: Election Of Rights Versus Selection Of Remedies, Laura A. Heymann

Faculty Publications

Overlaps exist across various doctrines in federal intellectual property law. Software can be protected under both copyright law and patent law; logos can be protected under both copyright law and trademark law. Design patents provide a particular opportunity to consider the issue of overlap, as an industrial design that qualifies for design patent protection might also, in particular circumstances, qualify for copyright protection as well as function as protectable trade dress.

When an overlap issue arises—that is, when an intellectual property rights holder asserts rights under more than one doctrine—the question then becomes how courts should respond. One response, of …

Selected Resources On Copyright Law, Leonard Klein

Research Guides

This research guide provides specialized primary and secondary sources on copyright law, including specialized reporters on copyright law, interactive tutorials, and websites.

Intellectual Property Defenses, Gideon Parchomovsky, Alex Stein

All Faculty Scholarship

In this Essay, we offer an integrated theory of intellectual property defenses. We demonstrate that all intellectual property defenses can be fitted into three conceptual categories: general, individualized and class defenses. A general defense is the inverse of a right in rem. It goes to the validity of the intellectual property right asserted by the plaintiff, and when raised successfully it relieves not only the actual defendant, but also the public at large, of the duty to comply with the plaintiff’s intellectual property right. An individualized defense, as we define it, is the inverse of an in personam right: it …

A Twenty-Year Retrospective On United States Trademark Law In Ten Cases, Marshall Leaffer

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Fixing Copyright In Three Impossible Steps: Review Of How To Fix Copyright By William Patry, Mark Mckenna

Journal Articles

This review of William Patry’s How to Fix Copyright highlights three of Patry's themes. First is Patry’s insistence that copyright policy be based on real-world evidence, a suggestion that should be uncontroversial but instead runs headlong into the near-religious commitments of copyright stakeholders. Second is Patry’s emphasis on the difference between the interests of creators, on the one hand, and owners of copyright interests, on the other. Third, and finally, is Patry’s focus on the copyright system’s strong tendency to entrench business models and resist change, particularly in the face of new technology.