Law Commons^™

International And Comparative Law Perspectives On Internet Patents, Toshiko Takenaka

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

The Internet and e-commerce have created a borderless market. Goods and services sold on the Internet are subject to the patent statutes and regulations of all countries in which customers have access. Because the presence or absence of patent protection--or variations in that protection--hinders the movement of goods and services throughout the Internet, it is necessary to harmonize the protection afforded by Internet patents in their early stages of development. Among the three papers, however, only Professor Chiappetta touched upon the problem of compliance with the provisions in TRIPS. None of the papers paid attention to the feasibility of harmonizing …

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

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

This Article contends that part of the problem of Internet business model patents is the narrow view of analogous art employed by judges and USPTO examiners which largely excludes relevant "real-world" prior art in the determination of non-obviousness under § 103 of the Patent Act. Consequently, part of the solution lies in helping courts and the USPTO properly to define analogous art for a particular invention. To do so, judges and examiners must recognize the interchangeability of computer programming (i.e. "e-world" activities) to perform a function, with human or mechanical performance of the same function (i.e. "real world" activities). Such …

Defining The Proper Scope Of Internet Patents: If We Don't Know Where We Want To Go, We're Unlikely To Get There, Vincent Chiappetta

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Part I of this Article addresses the appropriateness of protecting Internet innovations under the current patent regime. It concludes that the doctrinal, historical and policy arguments require different outcomes regarding computing (patentable subject matter) and competitive arts (at best a difficult fit) innovation. Part II argues that the new electronic economy has given rise to a particular kind of competitive arts "market failure" (interference with first-to-move lead-time incentives) which must be addressed. It concludes, however, that tinkering with the existing patent or copyright regimes is not only complex, but poses significant risks, and should be avoided. Part III sketches the …

Current Developments In Cyberspace, Eric Easton

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

E-Obviousness, Glynn S. Lunney Jr.

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

As patents expand into e-commerce and methods of doing business more generally, both the uncertainty and the risk of unjustified market power that the present approach generates suggest a need to rethink our approach to nonobviousness. If courts fail to enforce the nonobviousness requirement and allow an individual to obtain a patent for simply implementing existing methods of doing business through a computer, even where only trivial technical difficulties are presented, entire e-markets might be handed over to patent holders with no concomitant public benefit. If courts attempt to enforce the nonobviousness requirement, but leave undefined the extent of the …

Digital Copyright, By Jessica Litman , J. Ryan Miller

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

Jessica Litman's book focuses on the Copyright Act, in relation to modern entertainment technology. For example, each time an image from the Internet is viewed through a personal computer, the viewer has reproduced the original image, because a computer's RAM makes a temporary copy in order to allow the image to be viewed. The entertainment industry's concern about potential copyright infringement resulted in the enactment of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Professor Litman provides a history of the negotiation and lobbying that created the Copyright Act of 1976, and then provides a commentary regarding Napster and the expanding amount of …

Shifting The Paradigm In E-Commerce: Move Over Inherently Distinctive Trademarks, The E-Brand, I-Brand And Generic Domain Names Ascending To Power?, Xuan-Thao Nguyen

Articles

“What's in a name!” laments Juliet at her Shakespearean balcony. Four hundred years later, in the world of e-commerce, Juliet's question would be “What's in a domain name?” After spending all of the Montague's wealth, Romeo might be able to respond, “Call me but love.com.” The price tag for some generic domain names cost a small fortune: Sex.com for $250 million, Business.com for $7.5 million, Broadband.com for $6 million, Loans.com for $3 million, Flu.com for $1.4 million, and Bingo.com for $1.1 million.

In 1995, Procter and Gamble registered hundreds of generic domain names and offered them for sale at auction …

On-Line Tutorial Project: Intellectual Property In E-Commerce, William J. Murphy

Law Faculty Scholarship

Copyrights, Trademarks and Patents make up most of the area of law known as Intellectual Property. Intellectual Property's importance in Electronic Commerce is difficult to overstate. The Internet has been defined as a global network of networks through which computers communicate by sending information in packets, and each network consists of computers connected by cables or wireless links. It is the Intellectual Property laws of Copyright, Trademark and Patents that are attempting to harmonize the effects that E-Commerce and the Internet have had on the individual's ability to access and use this information. It should be remembered that most countries …

Should It Be A Free For All? The Challenge Of Extending Trade Dress Protection To The Look And Feel Of Web Sites, Xuan-Thao Nguyen

Articles

In the e-commerce world, a company's web site becomes the primary communication center with the customer. The web site is where the company displays products, presents marketing materials, and provides sales and post-sales support. Increasingly, companies are spending valuable resources to build and maintain their web sites. With the rapid change in web technology, many web sites now feature more than just ordinary text. Color, clipart, graphics, designs, animations, and sounds are now part of the overall appearance of web sites. Yet copying an image from a web site is just one click away. What protection is available to the …

Introduction: From Sheet Music To Mp3 Files—A Brief Perspective On Napster, Harold R. Weinberg

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The Napster case is the current cause celebre of the digital age. The story has color. It involves music-sharing technology invented by an eighteen-year-old college dropout whose high school classmates nicknamed him "The Napster" on account of his perpetually kinky hair. The story has drama. Depending on your perspective, it pits rapacious big music companies against poor and hardworking students who just want to enjoy some tunes; or it pits creative and industrious music companies seeking a fair return on their invested effort, time, and money against greedy and irreverent music thieves. And the case has importance. Music maybe intellectual …

What The Future Holds: Policy Choices In A Global Marketplace, Maureen A. O'Rourke

Faculty Scholarship

This essay's title is a misnomer. No one knows "What the Future Holds" in the global marketplace. We can, however, make some educated guesses about the issues that will assume particular importance in the next year or so. Thus, the essay might be more accurately titled, "What May or May Not Be the Important Issues in Internet Commerce in the Next Year or So'"-less catchy, admittedly, but closer to the truth.

A Era Pós-Napster, Ivo T. Gico

Ivo Teixeira Gico Jr.

O artigo analisa questões referentes à divugação não autorizada de obras artísticas pela internet e os problemas enfrentados pela indústria fonográfica, contrastando o direito ao acesso à informação, controle e seu papel fundamental na construção de uma democracia. The article examines issues relating to unauthorized disclosure of artistic works on the Internet and the problems faced by the music industry, opposed by the access to information rights, control and its fundamental role in the building of a democracy.