Law Commons^™

Speaking From The Grave. Should Copyright Listen?, Jessica Silbey

Faculty Scholarship

Should authors be able to control the use of their work after they die? It’s a question that touches deep personal and public concerns. It resonates with longstanding debates in literary studies over the “death of the author” and “authorial intent,” and is an issue that Professor Eva Subotnik tackles in her latest article, Artistic Control After Death (forthcoming in the Washington Law Review).

Currently, U.S. copyright expires 70 years after the author’s death so that control of an author’s copyrights extends far into the future. Long after an author creates a work, often decades after publication and the work’s …

Patent Attorney Malpractice: Case-Within-A-Case-Within-A-Case, A. Samuel Oddi

Akron Intellectual Property Journal

This article will first provide a brief history of the jurisdictional controversy between federal courts and between federal courts and state courts. Then, the question will be examined of how the subject matter jurisdictional question has been resolved with respect to patent attorney malpractice cases to the extent it has been to date in the federal and state courts. The manner in which the case-within-a-case doctrine or methodology has been used in deciding the jurisdictional question will also be investigated. In addition, the relevance of the use of the judgment or non-judgment model to determine patent attorney malpractice will be …

The Ethics Of Deception: Pretext Investigations In Trademark Cases, Phillip Barengolts

Akron Intellectual Property Journal

Pretext investigations of trademark infringement usually implicate one or more of four rules of professional responsibility: truthful communications, communications with adverse parties represented by counsel, communications with parties unrepresented by counsel, and the prohibition of deceptive behavior. There is an additional rule on using paralegals or non-lawyer assistants to do the actual investigation which also comes into play on occasion.

Open Letter On Ethical Norms In Intellectual Property Scholarship, Robin Feldman, Mark A. Lemley, Jonathan Masur, Arti K. Rai

Faculty Scholarship

As scholars who write in intellectual property (“IP”), we write this letter with aspirations of reaching the highest ethical norms possible for our field. In particular, we have noted an influx of large contributions from corporate and private actors who have an economic stake in ongoing policy debates in the field. Some dollars come with strings attached, such as the ability to see or approve academic work prior to publication or limitations on the release of data. IP scholars who are also engaged in practice or advocacy must struggle to keep their academic and advocacy roles separate.

Our goal is …