Law Commons^™

Legal Protection For Software: Still A Work In Progress, Robert W. Gomulkiewicz

Articles

Software began as geekware-something written by programmers for programmers. Now, software is a business and consumer staple. Cryptic character-based user interfaces have given way to friendly graphical ones; multi-media is everywhere; people own multiple computers of varying sizes; computers are connected to one another across the globe; email and instant electronic messages have replaced letters and telephone calls for many people.

The issue of whether the law should protect software seems quaint to us now. Over the past twenty-five years, legislatures and courts have concluded that copyright, patent, trade secret, trademark, and contract law all can be used to protect …

Thoughts On Dastar From A Copyright Perspective: A Welcome Step Toward Respite For The Public Domain, Lynn Mclain

All Faculty Scholarship

Though other questions remain unresolved and other leaks unstemmed, Dastar is a welcome step towards regaining the public domain, and towards establishing that the confines of the public domain, with regard to nondeceptive reproduction of public domain works, and preparation of derivative works based upon them, must be delimited by only the copyright and patent laws.

This article will provide a background discussion of the copyright and patent schemes and their delineation of the public domain. It then will discuss the role of trademark law in that balance, and some of the case law regarding both § 43 of the …

Current Developments In Cyberspace, Eric Easton

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Internet Business Model Patents: Obvious By Analogy, Margo A. Bagley

Faculty Articles

Part I of this Article provides a look at Internet business model patents in light of key patentability requirements mandated by the Patent Act. Part II traces the evolution of the analogous art component of the non-obviousness determination and illustrates how the malleability of the doctrine, as exemplified in several Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decisions, has particular relevance to prior art definitions for Internet business model patents. Part III of this Article then examines the doctrine of equivalents and explores how the likelihood of improper application of this doctrine in the Internet business model context is increased. …

The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same: Implications Of Pfaff V. Wells Electronics, Inc. And The Quest For Predictability In The On-Sale Bar, Timothy R. Holbrook

Faculty Articles

This Article posits a two prong approach to the on-sale bar. First, for the anticipatory version, the courts should expressly incorporate the law of enablement under 35 U.S.C. § 112 and of utility under 35 U.S.C. § 101 into the on-sale bar, thus providing a well-known body of law to promote predictability. Procedurally, the courts should establish a hierarchy of evidence, similar to the approach used in claim construction, that considers certain, more readily available information as the most pertinent while eschewing the use of expert testimony and other litigation based evidence. Second, for the obviousness version of the on-sale …

Simultaneous Copyright And Trade Secret Claims: Can The Copyright Misuse Defense Prevent Constitutional Doublethink?, Ralph D. Clifford

Faculty Publications

As the Constitution authorizes Congress to grant copyrights, it subjects the power to a public purpose requirement. Any monopoly Congress grants must be for the purpose of “promot[ing] the progress of science and useful arts.” But one result of Congress enacting the 1976 Act is a potential conflict between the Act and this public purpose requirement. An owner of intellectual property may believe that both copyright law – which mandates disclosure – and trade secret law – which mandates secrecy – can be used simultaneously. To believe that disclosure and secrecy can coexist is doublethink as both cannot be true. …

The Federal Circuit’S Cruise To Uncharted Waters: How Patent Protection For Algorithms And Business Methods May Sink The Ucita And State Intellectual Property Protection, Ralph D. Clifford

Faculty Publications

The realm of intellectual property law now changes at an incredible pace, with the courts discarding venerable concepts rapidly. This is not surprising as the transition from a goods-based society to one based on information increases the importance of intellectual property law. Nowhere has this been more apparent than the Federal Circuit’s recent reworking of the scope of federal patent law. Today, it is difficult to imagine anything for which a patent cannot be sought and received. Furthermore, the expansion of the patent law’s scope has a corresponding impact on state powers. Because the patent law serves to implicitly preempt …

The Paradoxes Of Free Software, Stephen M. Mcjohn

Suffolk University Law School Faculty Works

This paper describes the legal structure of open source software and analyzes the likely issues to arise. A combination of copyright law and trademark law serves to permit the free distribution of open source software. The software is kept under copyright, but freely licensed under one of various open source licenses. The legal structure of open source is an elegant and robust use of intellectual property law that turns the customary use of intellectual property on its head, by using intellectual property laws, which normally are used to guard exclusive rights, to safeguard free access to and use of software. …

Notes On Trademark Monopolies, Wendy J. Gordon, Glynn S. Lunney Jr.

Scholarship Chronologically

Since 1742, when Lord Hardwicke seemingly equated trademark protection with monopoly in one of the first trademark cases, until the mid- 1950s, concerns that trademarks represented a form of illegitimate monopoly effectively constrained the growth of trademark protection. In the twentieth century, Edward Chamberlain became the leading proponent of the trademark as monopoly view with the publication of his work, The Theory of Monopolistic Competition, in 1933. In his work, Chamberlain argued that a trademark enabled its owner to differentiate her products and then to exclude others from using the differentiating feature. By doing so, trademark protection can effectively …

In Vento Scribere: The Intersection Of Cyberspace And Patent Law, Max Oppenheimer

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

When Is Property Intellectual: The Leveraging Problem Essays, Mark R. Patterson

Faculty Scholarship

Patents and copyrights protect inventions and expression; they do not protect products. This distinction, I argue in this essay, is a key to the antitrust problem of the "leveraging" of intellectual property. In a typical leveraging case, the manufacturer of a durable good, like a copier or computer, refuses to sell replacement parts for its equipment unless the purchaser also hires the manufacturer to service the equipment. Such a practice can be illegal under antitrust law, but when the leveraging products-in this example, replacement parts-are protected by patent or copyright, the manufacturer will often claim that the leveraging is a …

Rethinking Remedies At The Intersection Of Intellectual Property And Contract: Toward A Unified Body Of Law, Maureen A. O'Rourke

Faculty Scholarship

As society continues to move "on-line"' and technology advances in fields such as biotechnology, a paradigm shift is occurring. Investors are focusing less on asset valuations based on the physical goods owned by a particular firm and more on the value of intangibles-the information and know-how possessed by the firm and embodied in its intellectual property rights. Firms and even entire industries have grown up with the primarily paper assets of patents and copyrights.

Assertive Modesty: An Economics Of Intangibles, Wendy J. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

At the center of our Symposium stand two papers: "A Manifesto Concerning the Legal Protection of Computer Programs" (Manifesto) and "Legal Hybrids: Between the Patent and Copyright Paradigms" (Legal Hybrids). Both are stimulating. Both are lengthy. As a result, my primary role is that of a guide: this Comment will summarize the authors' proposals, analyze certain aspects in greater detail, and outline their explicit and implicit methodologies. Part I of the Comment describes the papers' positions and methodologies. Part II highlights some of the papers' many contributions to the literature, and offers some other evaluative observations.

Brief Amicus Curiae Of The Taxpayers Asset Project Of The Center For Study Of Responsive Law In Support Of Petitioners, Genetics Institute, Inc., Et. Al. V. Amgen Inc., 502 U.S. 856 (1991), Michael H. Davis

Law Faculty Briefs and Court Documents

Although a patent appears to be a private right, that private right is only "secondary," as this Court has stated, to the public bargain of which it is but a part. The focus must always be whether the public has received full information about the nature of the invention so that future inventors may reuse and improve it. The decision below reflects a failure to recognize the patent's monopoly nature and as a result abandons the "best mode" rule forbidding the inventor form concealing the best way of replicating the invention. By turning the subjective test of "best mode" into …

An Economic Analysis Of Royalty Terms In Patent Licenses, Michael J. Meurer

Faculty Scholarship

Efficient exploitation of a patent often requires patentees to license users of their inventions. The courts, on the other hand, have proscribed many forms of license agreements and discouraged patent licensing in general, thereby diminishing the efficacy of the patent system as a stimulus to R & D. This negative attitude is attributable to fears that licensing will be used to protect invalid patents and secure illegitimate extensions of monopoly power. Part I of this Note reviews judicial treatment of certain royalty terms in patent licenses, describing the restraints the courts have imposed on the freedom of patentees to license …

General Motors Corporation V. Devex Corp., Lewis F. Powell Jr.

Supreme Court Case Files

No abstract provided.

Notes On Misc Re Contract - 1981, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

Once there is a patent, voluntarily-accepted user restrictions may not be enforceable. Or, at least, an attempt on the patentee's part to condition access of certain types on obtaining such restrictions, may be impossible. See 30 BNA PTCJ 104 (5/30/85)(Restrictions voided on availability of deposited yeast strains.) Filed under Yeast case.

Lecture Draft On Sensory Recall Device - 1980, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

Perception is a bodily function. The brain “sees” according to the orders which the optic nerve relays from its position at the back of the eye. Similarly, it is the brain which also "hears." As we know from our dreaming and our remembering, neither eye nor ear is indispensable to having the sensations of seeing and hearing.

Dawson Chemical Co. V. Rohm & Haas Co., Lewis F. Powell Jr.

Supreme Court Case Files

No abstract provided.

Aronson V. Quick Point Pencil Company, Lewis F. Powell Jr.

Supreme Court Case Files

No abstract provided.

United States V. Glaxo Group Ltd., Lewis F. Powell Jr.

Supreme Court Case Files

No abstract provided.

Deepsouth Packing Co. V. Laitram Corp., Lewis F. Powell Jr.

Supreme Court Case Files

No abstract provided.