Law Commons^™

The Psychology Of Patent Protection, Stephanie Plamondon Bair

Faculty Scholarship

This Article offers the first comprehensive assessment of the major justifications for our patent system using a behavioral psychology framework. Applying insights from the behavioral literature that I argue more accurately account for the realities of human action than previous analytical tools, I critically evaluate each of the major justifications for patents — incentive theory, disclosure theory, prospect theory, commercialization theory, patent racing theory, and non-utilitarian theories. I ask whether our current patent system is an effective regime for meeting the stated goals of these accounts. When the answer to this question is no, I again turn to the behavioral …

What's It Worth To Keep A Secret?, Gavin C. Reid, Nicola Searle, Saurabh Vishnubhakat

Faculty Scholarship

This article is the first major study of protection and valuation of trade secrets under federal criminal law. Trade secrecy is more important than ever as an economic complement and substitute for other intellectual property protections, particularly patents. Accordingly, U.S. public policy correctly places a growing emphasis on characterizing the scope of trade secrets, creating incentives for their productive use, and imposing penalties for their theft. Yet amid this complex ecosystem of legal doctrine, economic policy, commercial strategy, and enforcement, there is little research or consensus on how to assign value to trade secrets. One reason for this gap is …

Copyright's Technological Interdependencies, Clark D. Asay

Faculty Scholarship

Copyright was initially conceptualized as a means to free creative parties from dependency on public and private patrons such as monarchs, churches, and well-to-do private citizens. By achieving independence for creative parties, the theory ran, copyright led to greater production of a more diverse set of creative works.

But this lingering conception of copyright is both inaccurate and harmful. It is inaccurate because, in today’s world, creative parties are increasingly dependent upon “Technological Patronage” from the likes of Google, Amazon, Apple, and others. Thus, rather than being alternatives or adversaries, copyright and Technological Patronage are increasingly interdependent in facilitating both …

We (Still) Need To Talk About Aereo: New Controversies And Unresolved Questions After The Supreme Court's Decision, Rebecca Giblin, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

Recent judicial interpretations of U.S. copyright law have prompted businesses to design technologies in ways that enable the making and transmission of copies of works to consumers while falling outside the scope of the owner's exclusive rights. The archetypal example is Aereo Inc.'s system for providing online access to broadcast television, which the Supreme Court has now ruled results in infringing public performances by Aereo.

In previous work we urged the Court to develop a principled reading of the transmit clause focusing on the particular use rather than on the technical architecture of the delivery service (Giblin & Ginsburg, "We …

Reading Intellectual Property Law Reform Through The Lens Of Constitutional Equality, Jessica Silbey

Faculty Scholarship

In reviewing three books, Robert Spoo's Without Copyright, Bill Herman's The Fight for Digital Rights, and Aram Sinnreich's The Piracy Crusade, for Tulsa Law Review's annual book review volume, this paper explores new themes and structures in Supreme Court cases about intellectual property. Studying the new histories and processes described in the books under review helps reveal constitutional equality frameworks in Supreme Court cases about intellectual property usually understood as cases about congressional deference and property rights. This article explains how many of these Supreme Court cases about IP reflect a range of equality modalities - e.g., …

Justifying India's Patent Position To The United States International Trade Commission And Office Of The United States Trade Representative, Srividhya Ragavan, Sean Flynn, Brook Baker

Faculty Scholarship

The paper below largely is an extract of the testimonial filed by the authors to the Secretary of the ITC in response to the Notice on the Federal Register dated August 29, 2013 titled Trade, Investment, and Industrial Policies in India: Effects on the U.S. Economy. Where required, the paper also draws from the written submissions that the authors made to the United States Trade Representative’s (hereinafter, USTR) office on the related question of whether India deny adequate and effective protection of intellectual property rights or deny fair and equitable market access to U.S. persons who rely on intellectual property …

Mapping The Interface Between Human Rights And Intellectual Property, Laurence R. Helfer

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.