Law Commons^™

Teaching Intellectual Property As A Skills Course , Malla Pollack

Malla Pollack

Students can gain experience in practical skills in substantive courses if professors spend the time to create appropriate projects. This article demonstrates by providing reproducible projects involving non-competition agreements, trademarks/trade dress, copyright, and patent. The article also explains the how projects can be expanded and how they can be transposed between counseling and litigation settings.

This paper is part of a symposium entitled “Reflections on Legal Education: How We Teach, How They Learn".

Towards A Feminist Theory Of The Public Domain, Or The Gendered Scope Of United States’ Copyrightable And Patentable Subject Matter, Malla Pollack

Malla Pollack

Feminism does not speak with a single voice. Each voice tells a different story. These stories include attacks on the gendered scope of United States copyrightable and patentable subject matter. The first wave of feminism, liberal feminism, argued that women were as rational and competent as men. It complained about the objective exclusion of women from opportunity. This feminist view might applaud the expansion of copyright and the greater ease of its availability (due to the end of formalities pursuant to the Berne Implementation Act). Liberal feminism, however, finds unacceptable copyright’s exclusion of traditional women’s work: food and clothing. Essentialist …

Unconstitutional Incontestability?: The Intersection Of The Intellectual Property And Commerce Clauses Of The Constitution: Beyond A Critique Of Shakespeare Co. V. Silstar Corp., Malla Pollack

Malla Pollack

This article makes several assertions: (1) The Intellectual Property Clause of the Constitution, even read with the Commerce Clause, prevents Congress from giving authors or inventors exclusive rights unbounded by premeasured time limitations; (2) Because such limits exist, even incontestable trademarks must be subject to functionality challenges in order to prevent conflict with the Patent Clause; (3) The Intellectual Property Clause requires a similar challenge to prevent conflict with the Copyright Clause; (4) The states are also limited by either direct constitutional mandate or statutory preemption. Based on the first two assertions, this article argues that the Fourth Circuit's decision …