Law Commons^™

Trademark And Copyright Enforcement In The Shadow Of Ip Law, William T. Gallagher

Publications

In recent years, as Congress has created new intellectual property (IP) rights and courts have often interpreted those rights broadly, legal scholars have frequently decried the expanded scope of protection afforded IP owners in most substantive areas of IP law. According to this critique, the over-expansion of IP rights throughout the past two decades harms competition, chills free speech, and diminishes the public domain as increasingly broad areas of social life are brought within the scope of strong IP protection. While this over-expansion theory reflects an important-indeed, foundationalpolicy debate concerning the proper balance between IP owners' rights and the public's …

Right Of Publicity And The Intersection Of Copyright And Trademark Law, Marc Greenberg, Michael L. Lovitz

Publications

The Right of Publicity has its root in privacy law. Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis, in an 1890 article in the Harvard Law Review, first defined this right as the right “to be left alone”. William Prosser followed their lead by enunciating a personal right of privacy based in four categories: 1) Protection against intrusion into one’s private affairs; 2) Avoidance of disclosure of one’s embarrassing private facts; 3) Protection against publicity placing one in a false light in the public eye; and 4) Remedies for appropriation, usually for commercial advantage, of one’s name or likeness.

The first three of …

Offensive Venue: The Curious Use Of Declaratory Judgment To Forum Shop In Patent Litigation, Chester Chuang

Publications

Forum shopping is widespread in patent litigation because there are clear differences in outcomes among the various federal districts. An accused patent infringer that is sued in a particularly disadvantageous forum can file a motion to transfer to a more convenient forum, but the general consensus is that such motions are difficult to win. Accordingly, accused infringers often file declaratory judgment actions to forum shop. Such actions allow accused infringers to preemptively sue the patent owner in the accused infringer’s preferred forum, and are considered by many to be the best way for accused infringers to play the forum shopping …

Comics, Courts & Controversy: A Case Study Of The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, Marc Greenberg

Publications

Cartoons and comics have been a part of American culture since this nation’s formation. Throughout that lengthy history, comics and cartoons have also been a subject of controversy, censorship, legislation, and litigation. They have been viewed as a threat to society and a cause of juvenile delinquency; they are scandalous, indecent, and obscene. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (“CBLDF”), a New York-based non-profit organization, provides legal defense for comic artists, collectors, distributors, and retailers who face civil and/or criminal penalties for the creation, sale, and ownership of comics, cartoons, graphic novels, and related works.

The Introduction to this article …