Law Commons^™

In Your Own Defense: The Importance Of Immuno-Oncology And The Problem With Patenting Under The "Laws Of Nature", Laura Schwartz

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

Compensation Is All-American: Former College Football Star Chris Spielman’S Case Against His Alma Mater And How It Could Affect The Ncaa’S Amateurism Rules, Jason Mcintyre

Pace Law Review

The lawsuit, Spielman v. IMG College, arose when Ohio State University (“OSU”) entered into a marketing deal through their marketing agency, IMG College (“IMG”), with corporations Honda Motor Co. (“Honda”) and Nike USA Inc. (“Nike”), to hang banners depicting images of former college athletes at school sporting events. Charles “Chris” Spielman, the named Plaintiff and former NCAA football player at OSU, brought this lawsuit because he claims that OSU and IMG unreasonably and illegally restrained trade by denying him the right to profit from his name, image, and likeness.

This case plays a role in the ongoing conversation of whether …

How The United States Stopped Being A Pirate Nation And Learned To Love International Copyright, John A. Rothchild

Pace Law Review

From the time of the first federal copyright law in 1790 until enactment of the International Copyright Act in 1891, U.S. copyright law did not apply to works by authors who were not citizens or residents of the United States. U.S. publishers took advantage of this lacuna in the law, and the demand among American readers for books by popular British authors, by reprinting the books of these authors without their authorization and without paying a negotiated royalty to them.

This Article tells the story of how proponents of extending copyright protections to foreign authors—called international copyright—finally succeeded after more …

Non-Practicing Entities & Patent Reform, Nicholas Douglas

Pace Law Review

The patent system is designed to promote innovation and supply a blueprint for innovative minds to improve upon, but the behavior of some patent owners is contrary to these principles. Non-practicing entities obtain patent rights, and rather than produce the product claimed in the patent, they assert their exclusionary rights broadly and aggressively against businesses producing similar products in order to induce settlement or licensing payments. These assertions account for a significant percentage of infringement claims and threaten a potentially innocent business with expensive litigation. The actions of these entities have a substantial effect on the patent system and have …

A La Recherche Du “Sens” Perdu: Copyrightable Creativity Deconstructed, Thomas M. Byron

Pace Law Review

The primary goal of this article is to show how the concept of “creativity” as defined and applied by courts in copyright cases fails to map any reasonable concept of creativity in certain critical respects. Accordingly, the first charge undertaken here is a deconstructive one—to show the lack of meaningful overlap between the legal definition of creativity and the “actual” meanings of that same term. To undertake this comparison, Part II of this Article focuses on perhaps the more easily determined of these two definitions of the term—“creativity” as defined by courts. Rather than giving an unduly broad berth …

Sirius Xm Radio, Inc., Defendant: The Case For A Unified Federal Copyright System For Sound Recordings, Brian G. Shaffer

Pace Law Review

This article observes the surviving gap between state and federal protection of music recordings through the lens of the current litigation against Sirius XM. Part II sets out a history of copyright protection in the music industry. Part III outlines the relevant provisions of the federal Copyright Act and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the role played in the federal system by the Copyright Royalty Board. Part IV examines the pertinent statutory property protection of music recordings in the state of California. Part V then discusses the merits of the current lawsuits against Sirius XM. After considering the potential …

Trade Secrets Registry, Chagai Vinizky

Pace Law Review

The present article considers four aspects in which the trade secret method is less efficient than the patents method: litigation costs, transaction costs, financing costs, and employment costs. The main part of the article is devoted to the proposal of establishing a particular type of trade secrets registry, with the intention that it will reduce the above-mentioned costs and will improve the efficiency of the trade secret method. I propose a structure for the registration of trade secrets that is likely to solve most of the problems left unresolved by the escrow companies and the Indonesian legislation. A trade secret …

Copyright And Social Media: A Tale Of Legislative Abdication, Diane Leenheer Zimmerman

Pace Law Review

The focus of this article will be on what I call DMCA 2.0. It will begin by discussing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and why that statute, passed in 1998 to shore up the enforceability of copyright online by protecting content providers’ ability to engage in forms of technological self-help against online copyright infringers, has been problematic. Part II describes largely unsuccessful efforts in the form of statutes and trade agreements to shore up the DMCA. Part III turns to the latest salvo, the adoption of “voluntary agreements” whereby content owners and ISPs, in particular social media platforms, join …

Social Justice, Social Norms And The Governance Of Social Media, Tal Z. Zarsky

Pace Law Review

This article proceeds as follows: Part II briefly addresses the theoretical arguments regarding the pros and cons of various governance strategies, focusing on the advantages, disadvantages and pitfalls of reliance on private parties. In Part III, the article describes, in general terms, the above-mentioned empirical study, explaining its methodology, the specific challenges to its design and implementation, and how these were met. The discussion specifically centers on a survey taken to establish the nature of social norms. Part IV presents a specific test case: whether pseudonymity should be permitted in social media or should “real names” be mandatory. Part V …

Anarchy, Status Updates, And Utopia, James Grimmelmann

Pace Law Review

Social software has a power problem. Actually, it has two. The first is technical. Unlike the rule of law, the rule of software is simple and brutal: whoever controls the software makes the rules. And if power corrupts, then automatic power corrupts automatically. Facebook can drop you down the memory hole; PayPal can garnish your pay. These sovereigns of software have absolute and dictatorial control over their domains.

Is it possible to create online spaces without technical power? It is not, because of social software’s second power problem. Behind technical power, there is also social power. Whenever people come together …

Not Designed To Fit: Why The Innovative Design Protection And Piracy Prevention Act Should Not Be Made Into Law, Alexis N. Stevens

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

“Beyond The Scope Of Ordinary Training And Knowledge”: The Argument For Droit Moral, U.S. Research Science Intellectual Property Moral Rights, Joan Elise Jackson

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

Standards, Patents, And The National Smart Grid, Jorge L. Contreras

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

Standing To Sue In Another's Shoes: Can An Assignee Of An Accrued Copyright Infringement Claim With No Other Interest In The Copyright Itself Sue For The Infringement?, Wenjie Li

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.