Law Commons^™

Software Patents--Just Make A Good Thing Better, David R. Syrowik

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Some have stated that software is somehow "different" from other technologies and must be treated differently. Others have gone so far as to advocate the abolition of patents for software-related technologies. I disagree with both propositions. I believe a heavy burden rests on those who advocate that a particular field of technology should be exempted from the patent system absent a statutory prohibition. Software-related technology should be treated under the U.S. patent laws as any other technology would be treated. Otherwise, investment in the software industry will be negatively impacted. The current patent system is vital to the protection of …

Defining "Author" For Purposes Of Copyright , Russ Versteeg

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Social Issues Of Genome Innovation And Intellectual Property, Elaine Alma Draper

RISK: Health, Safety & Environment (1990-2002)

Dr. Draper's focus is the use of personal information derived from genome research. She identifies several potential problems, including access to and control of genetic information, employment discrimination and social stratification. She also recommends possible solutions.

Representing Business Clients In 1996, Oregon Law Institute, David Culpepper, Barnes H. Ellis, N. Robert Stoll, Steven D. Stadum, Peter R. Jarvis, Bradley F. Tellam, Claudia K. Powers, Corbett Gordon, Frank X. Curci, Micah D. Stolowitz, Jere M. Webb

Oregon Law Institute, 1996

Course Materials from the May 3, 1996 Program in Portland

The Trips Agreement: Imperialistic, Outdated, And Overprotective, Marci A. Hamilton

Articles

According to Professor Hamilton, the TRIPS Agreement constructs international copyright law in the image of Western, Protestant-based capitalist copyright law. She suggests that the Agreement Imposes presuppositions about human value, effort, and reward that contain political, sociological, and legal ramifications. In fact, the Agreement, with its focus upon valuing individual human creative achievement, could spur further developments in Westernbased human rights in the rest of the world. By transplanting Western ideas to the rest of the world, TRIPS may actually encourage anti-authoritarian revolution.

She further suggests that the TRIPS Agreement seeks to establish a free market of intellectual property goods. …

Graduate Students' Ownership And Attribution Rights In Intellectual Property, Sandip H. Patel

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Reexamining Copyright's Incentives-Access Paradigm, Glynn S. Lunney, Jr., Glynn Lunney

Vanderbilt Law Review

For the past three centuries, defining the appropriate scope of copyright has entailed an examination of incentives and access.' Broadening the scope of copyright increases the incentive to produce works of authorship and results in a greater variety of such works. Broadening copyright's scope, however, also limits access to such works both generally, by increasing their price, and specifically, by limiting the material that others can use to create additional works. Given these competing considerations, defining copyright's proper scope has become a matter of balancing the benefits of broader protection, in the form of increased incentive to produce such works, …

The Impact Of Recent Litigation On Interlibrary Loan And Document Delivery, James S. Heller

Faculty Publications

Professor Heller discusses how two recent federal copyright law decisions, Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music in the United States Supreme Court and American Geophysical Union v. Texaco in the Second Circuit, may affect the interlibrary loan and document delivery services provided by libraries.

The Externalization Of Domestic Regulation: Intellectual Property Rights Reform In A Global Era, Paul N. Doremus

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Intellectual property rights (IPR) issues in the software, biotechnology, and semiconductor industries exemplify the pressure that new technologies and international competition are placing on domestic and international regulatory systems. Traditional patent and copyright rules cannot easily accommodate any of these technologies. At the same time, the high costs of research and development, relative ease of replication, and global markets characteristic of these technologies heighten the importance of both domestic and foreign IPR protection. In the context of rapidly changing technological conditions, borderless markets, and inflexible international regimes, national policymakers face a political dilemma: how to accommodate new technologies at home, …

Caught In The Net Of Copyright, Peter Jaszi

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

As an overture to this Comment, I'd like to begin with one of my favorite passages from the recent National Information Infrastructure (NII)Task Force Working Group Report on Intellectual Property and the NII-the so-called White Paper.' The passage is not one of the deceptively bland legislative proposals-nor one of the strategic half-truths in the purported summary of current copyright law. Rather, it is a passage from the section on copyright awareness, and it is an excellent example of a good idea gone wrong. The good idea is that our elementary and secondary schools could take a role in preparing students …

Legal Protection Of Trade Secrets In The People's Republic Of China, Yuan Cheng

Washington International Law Journal

The increasing need for an adequate legal framework for the protection of trade secrets in the People's Republic of China led to the 1993 promulgation of the Law for Countering Unfair Competition ("LCUC"). The LCUC has removed some of the barriers to obtaining effective remedies. Under the LCUC, the injured party can rely on a legal definition of "trade secrets," sue third parties, and expect that authorities will investigate violations. Nevertheless, barriers to adequate protection for trade secrets remain. In discussing the legal framework for trade secrets protection, this Article illustrates how the ambiguity of the LCUC's relationship with other …

Childporn.Gif:  Establishing Liability For On-Line Service Providers, Joseph N. Campolo

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Deconstructing The Fair Use Doctrine:  The Cost Of Personal And Workplace Copying After American Geophysical Union V. Texaco, Inc., Nicole B. Cásarez

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Communication Breakdown:  Developing An Antitrust Model For Multimedia Mergers And Acquisitions, H. Peter Nesvold

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Rosenberger V. Rector & Visitors Of The University Of Virginia:  The Myth Of The Content Neutral Establishment Clause, Mark Daniel Salzberg

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Panel I:  The Changing Landscape Of Jurisprudence In Light Of The New Communications And Media Alliances, Creighton O'M. Condon, Robert D. Joffe, Nicholas J. Jollymore, John R. Tyler

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Panel Ii:  Censorship Of Cable Television’S Leased And Public Access Channels:  Current Status Of Alliance For Community Media V. Fcc , Stuart W. Gold, Marjorie Heins, James N. Horwood, Robert T. Perry

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Panel Iii:  Implications Of The New Telecommunications Legislation , David E. Bronston, Antoinette Cook Bush, J. Richard Devlin, Theodore C. Hirt

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Recent Changes In The Duration Of Copyright In The United States And European Union:  Procedure And Policy, Lisa M. Brownlee

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Patent & Trademark Depository Library Association Newsletter

Journal of the Patent and Trademark Resource Center Association

No abstract provided.

Rhetoric And Reality In Copyright Law, Stewart E. Sterk

Michigan Law Review

My first objective in this article is to explore the gulf between copyright rhetoric and copyright reality. After examining copyright rhetoric, the article demonstrates how neither the need to generate creative activity nor the desire to reward deserving authors provides a plausible justification for current copyright doctrine.

Why, then, does copyright doctrine continue to expand? The concluding section suggests some answers. Interest-group politics provides an obvious answer and one well-substantiated by the history of copyright legislation. But the story does not end with interest-group politics. Instead, I suggest that the nation's elite, including its lawmakers, has a stake in believing …

The Copyright Act Of 1976 And Prejudgment Interest, Jon M. Powers

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues that prejudgment interest should be presumptively available on damages-plus-profits awards under section 504(b) but should not be available for statutory damages under section 504(c). Part I argues that Supreme Court precedent suggests that the explicit reference to interest found in the Patent Act does not prevent courts from awarding prejudgment interest under the 1976 Copyright Act. Part II asserts that the 1976 Copyright Act's silence regarding prejudgment interest does not represent a congressional choice to exclude this remedy and that, in the face of this silence, the underlying purposes of section 504 should determine the propriety of …

How Modern Treatment Of 35 U.S.C. § 112(6) Has Caused Confusion: Hilton Davis V. Warner-Jenkinson And The Right To A Jury On The Issue Of Patent Infringement Under The "Equitable" Doctrine Of Equivalents, David R. Todd

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Rhetoric And Reality In Copyright Law, Stewart E. Sterk

Articles

The article challenges traditional justifications for copyright law, particularly the notions of desert and corrective justice, arguing that these frameworks fail to provide a robust foundation for intellectual property rights. Instead, it posits that the justification for copyright protection must primarily lie in the incentive to promote creative activity. The analysis critiques the application of Lockean labor theory and restitutionary models, emphasizing that distributive justice, which focuses on the moral worth and social contributions of creators, offers a more coherent basis for copyright law.

Speaking Frankly About Copyright Infringement On Computer Bulletin Boards: Lessons To Be Learned From "Frank Music, Nctcom" And The White Paper, Joseph V. Myers, Iii

Vanderbilt Law Review

Copyright law operates primarily as a strict liability, regime whenever infringing behavior constitutes a direct infringement of copyright. When behavior qualifies as an indirect infringement, gaps in copyright protection are filled by principles of contributory and vicarious liability. Although the application of these liability constructs has never been a simple matter, recent growth in the on- line industry has resulted in a dramatic confusion and divergence of views. In particular, the law is currently unclear in two important respects. First, opinions differ greatly as to whether computer bulletin board operators ("sysops") should incur liability for the infringing misdeeds of individual …

Re-Tailoring Jury Trial Rights, Richard C. Reuben

Faculty Publications

The debate over improving the civil justice system has gone through many permutations over the years. Discovery, punitive damages and alternative dispute resolution are but a few of the paths that have been pursued. A case argued to the U.S. Supreme Court in January addresses the question from yet another-and potentially a more fundamental direction: the reach of the Seventh Amendment's guarantee of a jury trial in civil cases in federal court.

Impact Of The Communications Decency Act Of 1996 On Federal Prosecutions Of Computer Dissemination Of Obscenity, Indecency, And Child Pornography, William P. Keane

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

With the passage of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, Congress provided federal prosecutors with a potentially powerful new tool for combating "indecent" communications sent or made available to minors through computer networks. The author offers an early examination of the CDA on the use of computer and computer networks as instrumentalities of federal obscenity, indecency, and child pornography crimes, as well as the possible Constitutional challenges that are likely to emerge. He also outlines anticipated problems with enforcement, proof, and various defense strategies.

Regulating Competition In The Information Age: Computer Software As An Essential Facility Under The Sherman Act, David Mcgowan

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

This Article examines the application of the antitrust laws to computer software markets, beginning with a discussion of the different economic approaches underlying the antitrust and copyright laws. The Article contends generally that antitrust does not provide the analytical tools necessary to determine the optimal scope of copyright protection. The Article then examines more particularly the increasingly common argument that access to software code-including at least some form of copying-may be an "essential facility" under the antitrust laws. In this regard the Article discusses the analytical confusion surrounding the essential facilities concept and argues that application of the concept should …

Global Technological Integration, Intellectual Property Rights, And Competition Law: Some Introductory Comments, David J. Gerber

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Implications Of The New Regime For Global Competition Policy: Intellectual Property Rights, Economic Power, And Global Technological Integration, David J. Gerber

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.