Law Commons^™

Constructing Commons In The Cultural Environment, Katherine J. Strandburg, Michael J. Madison, Brett M. Frischmann

Katherine J. Strandburg

This Article sets out a framework for investigating sharing and resource pooling arrangements for information and knowledge-based works. We argue that the approach to commons arrangements in the natural environment pioneered by Elinor Ostrom and collaborators provides a template for examining the construction of commons in the cultural environment. The approach promises to lead to a better understanding of how participants in commons and pooling arrangements structure their interactions in relation to the environments in which they are embedded, in relation to information and knowledge resources that they produce and use, and in relation to one another.

An improved understanding …

User Innovator Community Norms At The Boundary Between Academic And Industrial Research, Katherine J. Strandburg

Katherine J. Strandburg

In this essay, I consider norms of sharing research tools and materials in what has been called Pasteur’s Quadrant, in which basic science and applied research overlap. I employ a user innovation paradigm, along with a rational choice approach to social norms, to address the issue. The convergence of academic research with commercial interests has two different types of consequences for sharing norms. First, a research tool or material developed in a nonprofit research context may be a dual-purpose innovation with both research and nonresearch uses. Thus, for example, a genetic assay may be useful in research and as a …

The University As Constructed Cultural Commons, Katherine J. Strandburg, Michael J. Madison, Brett M. Frischmann

Katherine J. Strandburg

This paper examines commons as socially constructed environments built via and alongside intellectual property rights systems. We sketch a theoretical framework for examining cultural commons across a broad variety of institutional and disciplinary contexts, and we apply that framework to the university and associated practices and institutions.

Norms And The Sharing Of Research Materials And Tacit Knowledge, Katherine J. Strandburg

Katherine J. Strandburg

As discussed in Wesley Cohen’s chapter in this volume, recent empirical studies have documented that scientists experience increasing difficulty obtaining tangible research materials from other scientists, while they express fewer concerns than many had anticipated about do-it-yourself tools that can be made in the laboratory, even when those tools are patented. In this Chapter I use a rational choice model of social norms to elucidate some factors that affect the likelihood that a research community will adopt a sharing norm. Based on those factors, I discuss some means by which sharing of tangible research materials can be encouraged. The analysis …

Evolving Innovation Paradigms And The Global Intellectual Property Regime, Katherine J. Strandburg

Katherine J. Strandburg

Since the negotiation of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) in 1994, the innovative landscape has undergone dramatic changes due to technological advances in fields such as biotechnology, nanotechnology, and digital communications and computation. The increasing potential for user innovation and open and collaborative innovation has brought an explosion of innovative activity that does not fit into the sales-oriented, mass market model which underlies the global intellectual property regime. In this Article, I argue that the debate over global governance of innovation should be expanded to account more fully for the implications of these changes. For the …

Who's In The Club? A Response To Oliar And Sprigman, Katherine J. Strandburg

Katherine J. Strandburg

This brief essay responds to the very interesting article, "There's No Free Laugh (Anymore): The Emergence of Intellectual Property Norms and the Transformation of Stand-Up Comedy, 94 Va. L. Rev. 1787 (2008), by Dotan Oliar and Christopher Sprigman.

Patent Citation Networks Revisited: Signs Of A Twenty-First Century Change, Katherine J. Strandburg, Gabor Csardi, Laszlo Zalanyi, Jan Tobochnik, Peter Erdi

Katherine J. Strandburg

This Article reports an empirical study of the network composed of patent “nodes” and citation “links” between them. It builds on an earlier study, in which we argued that trends in the growth of the patent citation network provide evidence that the explosive growth in patenting in the late twentieth century was due at least in part to the issuance of increasingly trivial patents. We defined a measure of patent stratification based on comparative probability of citation; an increase in this measure suggests that the USPTO is issuing patents of comparatively less technological significance. Provocatively, we found that stratification increased …

Patent Carrots And Sticks: An Economic Model Of Nonobviousness, Michael J. Meurer, Katherine J. Strandburg

Katherine J. Strandburg

The authors develop an informal model of the impact of the nonobviousness standard on the choice of research projects. Previous models assume that the basic question confronting a researcher is, “Shall I produce this particular invention?” More realistically, the authors think a researcher asks, “Which research path shall I pursue?” The model shows that a patent serves as a carrot to induce the choice of more difficult projects than would be pursued under the no-patent alternative. The nonobviousness standard serves as a stick to prod researchers to choose even more difficult projects. The results of the model help us understand …

What If There Were A Business Method User Exemption To Patent Infringement?, Katherine J. Strandburg

Katherine J. Strandburg

The Federal Circuit’s decision in State Street Bank & Trust Co. v. Signature Financial Group Inc. that business methods are patentable is nearly ten years old, yet the wisdom of patenting business methods remains highly debatable. For example, three Supreme Court justices recently have questioned State Street Bank’s “useful, concrete, and tangible result” test for patentable subject matter. Many commentators have also debated the patenting of business methods, questioning whether patents are necessary to spark innovation in methods of doing business and whether exclusive rights to business methods are impediments to a competitive economy. This short Symposium piece seeks to …

Users As Innovators: Implications For Patent Doctrine, Katherine J. Strandburg

Katherine J. Strandburg

User innovators range from commercial firms, which invent new production methods in expectation of competitive advantage, to individual hobbyists motivated entirely by their enjoyment of the inventive process. In this Article, I consider the implications for patent doctrine of the fact that many user innovators derive sufficient benefit simply from developing and using their inventions to motivate them to invest the effort necessary to invent them. Moreover, user innovators often benefit from “freely revealing” their innovations to others. Trade secrecy and patenting are not central to motivating this inventive activity.

This picture of user innovation contrasts sharply with the seller …

Freedom Of Association In A Networked World: First Amendment Regulation Of Relational Surveillance, Katherine J. Strandburg

Katherine J. Strandburg

Recent controversies about the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping of international calls have somewhat overshadowed equally disturbing allegations that the government has acquired access to a huge database of domestic call traffic data, revealing information about times, dates, and numbers called. While communication content traditionally has been the primary focus of concern about overreaching government surveillance, law enforcement officials are increasingly interested in using sophisticated computer analysis of non-content traffic data to "map" networks of associations. This increased focus on uncovering networks of association comes at precisely the time when new digital technologies are beginning to facilitate import new forms …

Surveillance Of Emergent Associations: Freedom Of Association In A Network Society, Katherine J. Strandburg

Katherine J. Strandburg

Recent events have combined to bring of the prospect of using communications traffic data to ferret out suspect groups and investigate their membership and structure to the forefront of debate. While such “relational surveillance” has been around for years, efforts are being made to update traffic analysis to incorporate insights from “social network analysis” -- a means of analyzing relational structures developed by sociologists.1-13 Interest in employing social network analysis for law enforcement purposes was given a huge boost after September 11, 2001 when attention focused on tracking terrorist networks.5,7,9,11,12,14-17 Traffic data, when stored, aggregated, and analyzed using sophisticated computer …

The Research Exemption To Patent Infringement: The Delicate Balance Between Current And Future Technical Progress, Katherine J. Strandburg

Katherine J. Strandburg

No abstract provided.

Technology Transfer And An Information View Of Universities: A Conceptual Framework For Academic Freedom, Intellectual Property, Technology Transfer And The University Mission, Patrick L. Jones, Katherine J. Strandburg

Katherine J. Strandburg

In this Article, we provide a conceptual framework for technology transfer grounded in the fundamental purposes of a university -- the creation and dissemination of knowledge in the form of information. We describe how technology transfer activities shift the target audience for knowledge dissemination from traditional university target audiences to organizations with a predominantly economic purpose and different social norms. These shifts trigger a need to bridge differing behavioral expectations. Legal contracts and intellectual property rights can play a significant role in structuring relationships in such a non-traditional knowledge dissemination context. We analyze the role of formal technology transfer involving …

Debate, The Obviousness Requirement In The Patent Law, R. Polk Wagner, Katherine J. Strandburg

Katherine J. Strandburg

In this debate, Professor R. Polk Wagner, of Penn, and Professor Katherine J. Strandburg, of DePaul University College of Law, consider the merits (and demerits) of one doctrinal approach to the so-called "obviousness" requirement in patent law--the "teaching, suggestion, or motivation" (TSM) test. In Wagner's view, "even with its imperfections, the law and policy of the TSM analysis, done right, offers the best opportunity to bring predictability, transparency, and rigor to what is, at the end of the day, the enormously difficult task of quantifying what the patent law rewards as invention." For reasons she explains, Strandburg maintains that "the …

Social Norms, Self Control, And Privacy In The Online World, Katherine J. Strandburg

Katherine J. Strandburg

This chapter explores ways in which human limitations of rationality and susceptibility to temptation might affect the flow of personal information in the online environment. It relies on the concept of “willpower norms” to understand how the online environment might undermine the effectiveness of social norms that may have developed to regulate the flow of personal information in the offline world. Finally, the chapter discusses whether legal regulation of information privacy is an appropriate response to this issue and how such regulation should be formulated in light of tensions between concerns about self-control and paternalism.

What Does The Public Get? Experimental Use And The Patent Bargain, Katherine J. Strandburg

Katherine J. Strandburg

This article deals with the increasing tension between the tradition of protecting commercially valuable inventions through patenting and the need for a robust public domain of freely available technical information as a springboard for further research. The “experimental use exemption,” permitting some unauthorized research uses of patented inventions, might be used to relieve some of this tension. However, the scope of the research exemption has been shrunk so far by recent Federal Circuit opinions that even basic university research is not excused from infringement liability. This article returns to the first principles of patent law -- the incentives to invent …