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Full-Text Articles in Law
Functionality Screens, Christopher Buccafusco, Mark A. Lemley
Functionality Screens, Christopher Buccafusco, Mark A. Lemley
Articles
Among intellectual property (IP) doctrines, only utility patents should protect function. Utility patents offer strong rights that place constraints on competition, but they only arise when inventors can demonstrate substantial novelty after a costly examination. Copyrights, trademarks, and design patents are much easier to obtain than utility patents, and they often last much longer. Accordingly, to prevent claimants from obtaining “backdoor patents,” the other IP doctrines must screen out functionality. As yet, however, courts and scholars have paid little systematic attention to the ways in which these functionality screens operate across and within IP law.We have four tasks in this …
Testing Tarnishment In Trademark And Copyright Law: The Effect Of Pornographic Versions Of Protected Marks And Works Of Pornographic Versions Of Protected Marks And Work, Christopher Buccafusco, Paul J. Heald, Wen Bu
Testing Tarnishment In Trademark And Copyright Law: The Effect Of Pornographic Versions Of Protected Marks And Works Of Pornographic Versions Of Protected Marks And Work, Christopher Buccafusco, Paul J. Heald, Wen Bu
Articles
Federal and state law both provide a cause of action against inappropriate and unauthorized uses that ‘tarnish’ a trademark. Copyright owners also articulate fears of ‘tarnishing’ uses of their works in their arguments against fair use and for copyright term extension. The validity of these concerns rests on an empirically testable hypothesis about how consumers respond to inappropriate unauthorized uses of works. In particular, the tarnishment hypothesis assumes that consumers who are exposed to inappropriate uses of a work will find the tarnished work less valuable afterwards. This Article presents two experimental tests of the tarnishment hypothesis, focusing on unauthorized …
Fashion's Function In Intellectual Property Law, Christopher Buccafusco, Jeanne C. Fromer
Fashion's Function In Intellectual Property Law, Christopher Buccafusco, Jeanne C. Fromer
Articles
Clothing designs can be beautiful. But they are also functional. Fashion’s dual nature sits uneasily in intellectual property law, and its treatment by copyright, trademark, and design patent laws has often been perplexing. Much of this difficulty arises from an unclear understanding of the nature of functionality in fashion design. This Article proposes a robust account of fashion’s function. It argues that aspects of garment designs are functional not only when they affect the physical or technological performance of a garment but also when they affect the perception of the wearer’s body. Generally, clothes are not designed or chosen simply …
A Theory Of Copyright Authorship, Christopher Buccafusco
A Theory Of Copyright Authorship, Christopher Buccafusco
Articles
The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to grant rights to “Authors” for their “Writings.” Despite the centrality of these terms to copyright jurisprudence, neither the courts nor scholars have provided coherent theories about what makes a person an author or what makes a thing a writing. This article articulates and defends a theory of copyrightable authorship. It argues that authorship involves the intentional creation of mental effects in an audience. A writing, then, is any fixed medium capable of producing mental effects. According to this theory, copyright may attach to the original, fixed, and minimally creative form or manner …
The Moral Psychology Of Copyright Infringement, Christopher Buccafusco, Dave Fagundes
The Moral Psychology Of Copyright Infringement, Christopher Buccafusco, Dave Fagundes
Articles
Numerous recent cases illustrate that copyright owners sue for infringement even when an unauthorized use of their work causes them no economic harm. This presents a puzzle from the perspective of copyright theory as well as a serious social problem, since infringement suits designed to remedy non-economic harms tend to stifle rather than encourage creative production. While much scholarship has critiqued copyright’s economic theory from the perspective of authors’ incentives to create, ours is the first to explore this issue from the perspective of owners’ motivations to sue for infringement. We turn to moral psychology, and in particular to moral …
Critical Legal Studies In Intellectual Property And Information Law Scholarship, Peter Goodrich, Sonia K. Kayal, Rebecca Tushnet
Critical Legal Studies In Intellectual Property And Information Law Scholarship, Peter Goodrich, Sonia K. Kayal, Rebecca Tushnet
Articles
No abstract provided.
The Author In Copyright: Notes For The Literary Critic, Monroe E. Price, Malla Pollack
The Author In Copyright: Notes For The Literary Critic, Monroe E. Price, Malla Pollack
Articles
No abstract provided.
Reexamining Intellectual Property Concepts: A Glimpse Into The Future Through The Prism Of Chakrabarty, Monroe E. Price
Reexamining Intellectual Property Concepts: A Glimpse Into The Future Through The Prism Of Chakrabarty, Monroe E. Price
Articles
No abstract provided.
State Arts Councils: Some Items For A New Agenda, Monroe E. Price
State Arts Councils: Some Items For A New Agenda, Monroe E. Price
Articles
These are no longer flush times. And one realm in which the lack of prosperity may prove harmful is the area of government support of the arts. Because the expansive middle-class patronage of the l 960's is gone, there is a hope that the government, state and federal, will play the role of Maecenas. Yet government intervention is now more cautious and more critical. The need for state support is high. Performing arts companies are in dire straits. Artists are unemployed. Nonetheless, government officials at all levels are undecided as to how to proceed. In California, for example, after months …