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Toward A Lockean Moral Justification Of Legal Protection Of Intellectual Property, Kenneth Einar Himma Dec 2012

Toward A Lockean Moral Justification Of Legal Protection Of Intellectual Property, Kenneth Einar Himma

San Diego Law Review

This Article attempts to provide the beginnings of a viable moral justification for recognizing and providing legal protection of intellectual property. The argument follows a line of arguments that is fairly characterized as “inspired” by John Locke’s attempt to justify legal protection of what he took to be a natural, objective, moral right to material property. That is to say, it is Lockean in spirit in the following sense: Locke grounds his argument for original acquisition in the idea that a person is justified in acquiring something from the commons in virtue of an investment he makes of something that …


The Relationship Between Foundations And Principles In Ip Law, Robert P. Merges Dec 2012

The Relationship Between Foundations And Principles In Ip Law, Robert P. Merges

San Diego Law Review

In my book Justifying Intellectual Property (JIP), I wrote about what I call the “foundations” of the field of intellectual property (IP) law. I tried to distinguish between a foundational level of discourse and another level, the level of basic principles. In the San Diego conference at which my book was discussed—and in several other settings as well—the most frequent and persistent line of questioning about my book centered on the relationship between these two levels. That is what this brief Article is about.


Managing The Intellectual Property Sprawl, Shubha Ghosh Dec 2012

Managing The Intellectual Property Sprawl, Shubha Ghosh

San Diego Law Review

Professor Merges, despite the centrality of creative persons to his argument, organizes a set of ideas that are conducive to refocusing intellectual property law on users. I present this user-focused argument in this Article through the following five Parts. Part II explains my suggested approach to questions about the design of intellectual property law—an approach based on the new institutional economics and the work of Ronald Coase. Part II also addresses objections to this approach. Part III identifies the user in Professor Merges’s high-level principles grounded in Locke, Kant, and Rawls. Part IV follows this argument with a closer examination …


On Cowbells In Rock Anthems (And Property In Ip): A Review Of Justifying Intellectual Property, Eric R. Claeys Dec 2012

On Cowbells In Rock Anthems (And Property In Ip): A Review Of Justifying Intellectual Property, Eric R. Claeys

San Diego Law Review

I am going to start this Article with two confessions. First, when I was fourteen, my favorite rock song was (Don’t Fear) The Reaper, by Blue Oyster Cult. Second, one of my favorite Saturday Night Live (SNL) sketches is from the 2000 season, “Behind the Music: Blue Oyster Cult.” The sketch is a tribute in memory of Gene Frenkle, the member of Blue Oyster Cult who played the cowbell on (Don’t Fear) The Reaper. The SNL sketch purports to explain how the cowbell made it onto the studio recording. In the sketch, members of the regular SNL cast pretend to …


A Lockean Theory Of Intellectual Property Revisited, Adam D. Moore Dec 2012

A Lockean Theory Of Intellectual Property Revisited, Adam D. Moore

San Diego Law Review

The primary, and perhaps sole, function of government according to Locke was to secure and protect the lives, liberties, and property of individuals who consented, explicitly or tacitly, to a specific political union. The question that I will address in this Article, and one that I took up over fifteen years ago, is: should we consider intellectual works to be the proper subjects of Lockean property claims? My answer then and now is “yes,” with the acknowledgement that such a view may require substantial revisions to Anglo-American systems of intellectual property. I will argue that intellectual property rights are no …


Access And The Public Domain, Randal C. Picker Dec 2012

Access And The Public Domain, Randal C. Picker

San Diego Law Review

[T]his Article sketches out the emerging public domain. Part III considers three conceptual questions for structuring use of the public domain, focusing on the extent to which the public domain should be viral; on whether we should insist that the public domain be accessed only through the original artifacts embodying it; and on whether private appropriability incentives for distribution of public domain scans match overall social interests. Part IV turns to the tools for restricting use of the public domain, to copyright, contract, the DMCA, and the CFAA. Each of these matters for access to the public domain and for …


Traditional Knowledge, Cultural Expression, And The Siren’S Call Of Property, Justin Hughes Dec 2012

Traditional Knowledge, Cultural Expression, And The Siren’S Call Of Property, Justin Hughes

San Diego Law Review

Discussions on international legal norms for the protection of TK/TCE have, in their contemporary form, been ongoing since the late 1990s. In that time, our understanding of key issues for a workable system—subject matter, beneficiaries, rights, or protections—have advanced little, if at all. Indeed, as Michael Brown has observed, “vexing questions of origins and boundaries . . . are commonly swept under the rug in public discussions.” Yet even if all those questions were settled, we also need a clear justification or justifications for a new form of intellectual property on the world stage.


Patents As Promoters Of Competition: The Guild Origins Of Patent Law In The Venetian Republic, Ted Sichelman, Sean O'Connor Dec 2012

Patents As Promoters Of Competition: The Guild Origins Of Patent Law In The Venetian Republic, Ted Sichelman, Sean O'Connor

San Diego Law Review

[T]his Article describes the artisan and merchant guild systems of the Venetian Republic. Part III explores the emergence of the patent system as a means for foreigners and Venetian citizens to compete with the guilds, as well as the eventual addition of negative exclusive rights to the basic license form of positive patent privileges. In so doing, contrary to the speculation of some scholars, we reject with near certainty the contention that the first patent law statute granting exclusionary rights for—in modern parlance—technological inventions was a silk-specific directive enacted by the Venetian Grand Council in the late fourteenth or early …