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Full-Text Articles in Law

The Use Of Technical Experts In Software Copyright Cases: Rectifying The Ninth Circuit’S “Nutty” Rule, Shyamkrishna Balganesh, Peter S. Menell Jan 2021

The Use Of Technical Experts In Software Copyright Cases: Rectifying The Ninth Circuit’S “Nutty” Rule, Shyamkrishna Balganesh, Peter S. Menell

Faculty Scholarship

Courts have long been skeptical about the use of expert witnesses in copyright cases. More than four decades ago, and before Congress extended copyright law to protect computer software, the Ninth Circuit in Krofft Television Productions, Inc. v. McDonald’s Corp. ruled that expert testimony was inadmissible to determine whether Mayor McCheese and the merry band of McDonald’s characters infringed copyright protection for Wilhelmina W. Witchiepoo and the other imaginative H.R. Pufnstuf costumed characters. Since the emergence of software copyright infringement cases in the 1980s, substantially all software copyright cases have permitted expert witnesses to aid juries in understanding software code. …


Stifling Or Stimulating - The Role Of Gene Patents In Research And Genetic Testing, Lawrence M. Sung Jan 2007

Stifling Or Stimulating - The Role Of Gene Patents In Research And Genetic Testing, Lawrence M. Sung

Congressional Testimony

No abstract provided.


The Expert In U.S. And German Patent Litigation, James Maxeiner Jan 1991

The Expert In U.S. And German Patent Litigation, James Maxeiner

All Faculty Scholarship

The expert often plays a crucial role in patent litigation in both Germany and the United States. Determination of facts and application of law to facts frequently require a technical understanding that only an expert can provide. Despite the similarity of the problem of conveying information to the decision-maker, the role of the expert in the two systems and the manner in which the problem of providing technical knowledge necessary for the decision is solved are so very different, that German jurists who transfer their German experiences and expectations over to US procedures, are in danger of experiencing great disappointment …