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Full-Text Articles in Law

Compulsory Patent Licensing: Is It A Viable Solution In The United States, Carol M. Nielsen, Michael R. Samardzija Jan 2007

Compulsory Patent Licensing: Is It A Viable Solution In The United States, Carol M. Nielsen, Michael R. Samardzija

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

As technology continues to advance at a rapid pace, so do the number of patents that cover every aspect of making, using, and selling these innovations. In 1996, to compound the rapid change of technology, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that business methods are also patentable. Hence in the current environment, scores of patents, assigned to many different parties, may cover a single electronic device or software--making it increasingly impossible to manufacture an electronic device without receiving a cease and desist letter or other notice from a patentee demanding a large royalty or threatening an injunction. Companies, particularly those in …


Accidental Rights, James Gibson Jan 2007

Accidental Rights, James Gibson

Law Faculty Publications

Written for the Yale Law Journal's online Pocket Part, this is a much shorter and (I hope) more accessible iteration of my earlier paper, Risk Aversion and Rights Accretion in Intellectual Property Law, 116 Yale L.J. 882 (2007). It summarizes that paper's central point - i.e., that intellectual property entitlements are growing not just because of expansive court decisions and legislative enactments, but also because of seemingly sensible, risk-averse licensing decisions that inadvertently feed back into legal doctrine - and then explores how this phenomenon might apply to (and be manipulated by) enterprises such as Google Book Search.


Your Licensor Has A License To Kill, And It May Be Yours: Why The Ninth Circuit Should Resist Bankruptcy Law That Threatens Intellectual Property Licensing Rights, Jon Minear Jan 2007

Your Licensor Has A License To Kill, And It May Be Yours: Why The Ninth Circuit Should Resist Bankruptcy Law That Threatens Intellectual Property Licensing Rights, Jon Minear

Seattle University Law Review

In recent opinions, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has interpreted the Bankruptcy Code ("the Code") in a manner that makes inaction or ignorance perilous for IP licensees whose licensor declares bankruptcy. Although Congress amended the Code to protect a licensee from losing technology rights in these situations, the Seventh Circuit has narrowly interpreted a strikingly similar bankruptcy provision involving real-estate leases and, in doing so, has cast doubt on the efficacy of the licensee protections found in section 365(n) of the Code. In addition, this circuit has broadly interpreted another Code section dealing with title-clearing sales …


Creative Reading, Jessica D. Litman Jan 2007

Creative Reading, Jessica D. Litman

Articles

Let me begin with something that Jamie Boyle wrote ten years ago in Intellectual Property Policy Online: A Young Person's Guide:' Copyright marks the attempt to achieve for texts and other works a balance in which the assumption of the system is that widespread use is possible without copying. The relative bundles of rights of the user and the owner achieve their balance based on a set of economic and technical assumptions about the meaning of normal use. For our purposes, I would like to generalize this as something that Boyle might have written if he had not in that …