Law Commons^™

Exploiting The Artist's Commercial Identity: The Merchandizing Of Art Images, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

"Merchandizing properties" are not a recent arrival on the copyright and trademark scene. As early as the 1930s, the Walt Disney Company foresaw the substantial economic gains from licensing the images of its animated motion picture characters in a variety of consumer media, from publications, to soft toys, clothing and household items. Most recently, the World Intellectual Property Organization has prepared a substantial comparative law study of "Character Merchandising." The merchandizing of fine arts images, however, is a more recent development, and is one that has so far received less attention from academic commentators. This article offers some preliminary observations, …

Contracts, Copyright And Preemption In A Digital World, I. Trotter Hardy

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Now That The Future Has Arrived, Maybe The Law Should Take A Look: Multimedia Technology And Its Interaction With The Fair Use Doctrine, Jonathan Evan Goldberg

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

New Rules For Old Problems: Defining The Contours Of The Best Mode Requirement In Patent Law A Review Of Recent Decisions Of The United States Court Of Appeals For The Federal Court , Roy E. Hofer, L. Ann Fitzgerald

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Authors' Moral Rights In Non-European Nations: International Agreements, Economics, Mannu Bhandari, And The Dead Sea Scrolls, Jeffrey M. Dine

Michigan Journal of International Law

This note undertakes to examine authors' moral rights in non-European countries. Section I will provide a brief comparative description of moral rights. Section II will discuss the treatment of moral rights in the Berne convention and the TRIPS agreement. Section III will then examine moral rights law in India and Israel, and two important cases from these nations, Mannu Bhandari v. Kala Vikas Pictures from India, and Qimron v. Shanks, from Israel. Mannu Bhandari deals with an author's moral right in the film adaptation of her work, Qimron with the moral rights of a scholar in the reconstruction of one …

The Lack Of Protection Afforded Software Under The Current Intellectual Property Laws, Himanshu S. Amin

Cleveland State Law Review

Many abstract advances in computer technology remain unprotected since the current intellectual property system has been shaped through a focus on tangible, physical inventions. The software industry in the United States "accounts for domestic revenues of over fifty billion dollars each year in worldwide sales and services." Accordingly, it is imperative that United States software developers be provided adequate intellectual property coverage in order to protect existing technology and encourage further innovation in the field. The present lack of adequate protection has handicapped American developers unnecessarily in the global software market.

Putting Cars On The "Information Superhighway": Authors, Exploiters, And Copyright In Cyberspace, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

The advent of the "Information Superhighway" has sparked much speculation about the roles of authorship, of readership, and of literary property in the vast system of interlinked computer networks that has come to be known as "cyberspace." Through computers linked to a digital network, users can access and add to vast quantities of material. At least in theory, every computer user can become his, or her own publisher, and every terminal can become a library, bookstore, or audio and video jukebox.

The prospect of pervasive audience access to and ability to copy and further disseminate works of authorship challenges the …

Global Use/Territorial Rights: Private International Law Questions Of The Global Information Infrastructure, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

In the private international law of intellectual property, and particularly of literary and artistic property, the basic principle is territoriality. Each country provides for its own regime of protection of works of authorship. The Berne Convention for the Protection and Literary and Artistic Works and the Universal Copyright Convention oblige their members to respect the rule of national treatment, that is, of non discrimination between domestic and foreign works from member countries. This rule reinforces the principle of territoriality, for it confirms the role of local copyright laws, by requiring that local law apply equally to the protection of local …

Using Section 337 Of The Tariff Act Of 1930 To Block Materially Different Gray Market Goods In The Common Control Context: Are Reports Of Its Death Greatly Exaggerated?, Margo A. Bagley

Faculty Articles

This Comment examines the primary reasons for trademark owners within the common control exception to revisit section 337 when faced with materially different gray market goods. Part One discusses the issues in and history of the gray market goods controversy, and the common control exception. Part Two focuses on section 337: how it works, its use in gray market goods cases, and how it has changed as a result of amendments in the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988 and in the Uruguay Round Agreements Act of 1994. Part Three traces the changes in the gray market landscape favorable …

Reply To Comments On The Patentability Of Certain Inventions Associated With The Identification Of Partial Cdna Sequences, Rebecca S. Eisenberg, Robert P. Merges

Articles

A brief reply is in order to clarify our position on the patenting of research tools. We stand by the statement that "there are reasons to be wary of patents on research tools," but that statement should not be understood as a broad condemnation of patents on research tools in all contexts. Indeed, immediately after the cited language our opinion letter acknowledges that withholding patent protection from research tools could undermine private incentives to develop research tools and to make them available to investigators or lead to greater reliance on trade secrecy. Unlike the government, which purports to pursue patent …

Opinion Letter As To The Patentability Of Certain Inventions Associated With The Identification Of Partial Cdna Sequences, Rebecca S. Eisenberg, Robert P. Merges

Articles

You have asked for our legal opinion on the patentability of inventions claimed in U.S. patent applications 07/716,831, filed June 21, 1991 (the '831 application, or .'831"), 07/837,195, filed September 25, 1992 ("'195"), and 07/952,911, filed February 12, 1993 (."911"), all filed in the name of Craig Venter and others and assigned to the National Institutes of Health "(NIH)." We understand that NIH has abandoned these patent applications and has no present intention of filing similar applications in the future, but that NIH remains interested in the patenting of human DNA sequences from a broader public policy perspective. We have …

Domestic And International Copyright Issues Implicated In The Compilation Of A Multimedia Product, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

Suppose an entrepreneur wishes to create an interactive multimedia product on the theme of the Exploration of Space. The multimedia work would assemble components created specially for the product, and others drawn from preexisting works. The latter might include: Leonardo da Vinci drawings of aeronautical machines, archival photographs of early airplanes, excerpts from 19th and 20th century science-fiction novels, text and photos of newspaper accounts of space flights, NASA space maps, television news clips, excerpts of motion pictures and television series, and musical compositions and recordings. Elements specially created for the product might comprise the computer program users would employ …

Interactive Computing: Joint Work Status For User And Programmer, Michelle Lynn Birnbaum

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Multimedia Computing: Copyright Law's "Last Stand", Steven Pepe

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Trademark Protection For Color: Basking In The Warmth Of "Sun Glow", Jennifer D. Silverman

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Bamboozlement: The Repeal Of Copyright Registration Incentives, John B. Koegel

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The End Of Formalities: No More Second-Class Copyright Owners, Arthur Levine

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Biodiversity: Opportunities And Obligations, Jeffrey P. Kushan

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Mr. Kushan discusses the technology transfer provisions of the Convention on Biological Diversity, and outlines three themes found in the Convention related to technology transfer: benefit sharing, sovereign rights, and intellectual property rights protection. After briefly explaining the first two themes, the Article focuses on the third theme, the protection (or lack thereof) of intellectual property rights in the Convention. Mr. Kushan explains how the ideological split on intellectual property rights protection between the North and South found its way into the Convention and created ambiguous messages on intellectual property rights. Southern countries, who fear that strong intellectual property rights …

Contracts, Copyright And Preemption In A Digital World, I Trotter Hardy

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

Copyright is designed to provide some form of protection against unauthorized use of original informational materials. The rapid shift of information production and distribution to electronic form, with its corresponding ease of copying, naturally makes copyright-dependent industries nervous. Much talk in the news and on the "net" these days is about the future of copyright law, a law developed in an age of print and now perhaps too tied to that medium to have ready application to today's information technology.

Apple V. Microsoft: Virtual Identity In The Gui Wars, Joseph Myers

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

The company that controls the interface of the next major operating system will have the ability to set the standards for application software. It was not surprising that Apple Corporation began its fight to stop Windows from being that major operating system after Microsoft Corporation introduced the various versions of its Windows software and announced plans for this program to replace the already widely selling DOS operating system. Unfortunately, Apple chose to conduct this war on the complex and often confusing battleground of copyright law, which ultimately proved to be its downfall.

Frontier Issues: Pitfalls In Developing And Marketing Multimedia Products, Michael D. Scott

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Charting The Collapse Of The Patent-Copyright Dichotomy: Premises For A Restructured International Intellectual Property System, J. H. Reichman

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

A Future Without Formalities, Irwin Karp

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Registration And Remedies: Recovery Of Attorney's Fees And Statutory Damages Under The Copyright Reform Act, Charles Ossola

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Futility Of A Future Without Formalities, Bernard R. Sorkin

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Sharing The Spotlight: Equitable Distribution Of The Right Of Publicity, Jonathan L. Kranz

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Copyright Law And Social Dialogue On The Information Superhighway: The Case Against Copyright Liability Of Bulletin Board Operators, Niva Elkin-Koren

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The University Community: Pursuit Of The Promise Of The New Media, Georgia K. Harper

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

I would like to convey a sense of the university community's needs regarding the development of the National Information Infrastructure ("NII") by examining the following points: (1) experimental projects involving users and producers of information, in our case, libraries and publishers, should play a crucial role in defining the new rules of the road; (2) fair use is a necessary backdrop to such experimentation, but it may become less important in the future; and (3) certain principles which will lay the foundation for the exchange of electronic information as well as guide the development of the NII must be enumerated …

The National Information Infrastructure, Steven Metalitz

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Freeing Copyright From Formalities, Shira Perlmutter

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.