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Full-Text Articles in Law

From Knowledge To Ideas: The Two Faces Of Innovation, James Bessen Oct 2010

From Knowledge To Ideas: The Two Faces Of Innovation, James Bessen

Faculty Scholarship

Innovative ideas have unique properties arising from low communication costs. But ideas come from knowledge that is costly to communicate. “Formalizing” knowledge — codifying, developing standards, etc. — reduces these costs. In a simple model, formalization is associated with changes in the nature of competition between two equilibrium regimes. In one, knowledge is formalized, new technology replaces old and patents increase innovation incentives. In the other, knowledge is not formalized, old technology coexists with new, patents decrease innovation incentives and firms sometimes freely exchange knowledge. The equilibrium changes as technology improves over a life-cycle, affecting firm strategy, innovation policy, geographic …


Discipline And Nourish: On Constructing Commons, Wendy J. Gordon May 2010

Discipline And Nourish: On Constructing Commons, Wendy J. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

Scholarship has examined many possible ways to encourage the creation and dissemination of art, works of authorship, ideas, and inventions: rights of exclusion (copyrights and patents), prizes, governmental subsidies, private subsidies (including both foundations and patronage), reputation, and so forth. Legal scholars have long recognized that copyright and patent are not the only options. And while some legal academics have mentioned the possibility of groups of users and creators interacting on a voluntary but structured basis, legal scholars did not give much sustained attention to such possibilities until fairly recently.


The Global Contours Of Ip Protection For Trade Dress, Industrial Design, Applied Art, And Product Configuration, Wendy J. Gordon, Orit Fischman Afori, Mark Janis, Jonathan Moskin Apr 2010

The Global Contours Of Ip Protection For Trade Dress, Industrial Design, Applied Art, And Product Configuration, Wendy J. Gordon, Orit Fischman Afori, Mark Janis, Jonathan Moskin

Faculty Scholarship

Before beginning, let me mention that I will confine myself to a limited number of arenas. Thus, for example, I'm not going to discuss design patents, which will be the focus of another speaker's remarks. I will also not discuss the doctrine of aesthetic functionality. My primary goal will be to compare trademark's doctrine of utilitarian "functionality" with copyright's domain of "separability," and to show how for at least two circuit court opinions, the two doctrines may be converging. I hope to stimulate discussion of whether such convergence would be a good idea.


Trademark Remedies And Online Intermediaries, Stacey Dogan Jan 2010

Trademark Remedies And Online Intermediaries, Stacey Dogan

Faculty Scholarship

For several years now, courts and commentators have tussled over the question of whether online intermediaries can face liability under trademark law. Because both case law and commentary have largely focused on the threshold question of "trademark use, " we know little about what specific behavior will subject intermediaries to liability and what remedies might follow. This Essay takes some preliminary steps toward addressing those questions.


Comparative Tales Of Origins And Access: Intellectual Property And The Rhetoric Of Social Change, Jessica Silbey Jan 2010

Comparative Tales Of Origins And Access: Intellectual Property And The Rhetoric Of Social Change, Jessica Silbey

Faculty Scholarship

This Article argues that the open-source and anti-expansionist rhetoric of current intellectual-property debates is a revolution of surface rhetoric but not of deep structure. What this Article terms “the Access Movements” are, by now, well-known communities devoted to providing more access to intellectual-property-protected goods, communities such as the Open Source Initiative and Access to Knowledge. This Article engages Movement actors in their critique of the balance struck by recent law (statutes and cases) and asks whether new laws that further restrict access to intellectual property “promote the progress of science and the useful arts.” Relying on cases, statutes and recent …


The Rhetoric Of Intellectual Property: Copyright Law And The Regulation Of Digital Culture, By Jessica Reyman (Book Review), Jessica Silbey Jan 2010

The Rhetoric Of Intellectual Property: Copyright Law And The Regulation Of Digital Culture, By Jessica Reyman (Book Review), Jessica Silbey

Faculty Scholarship

A short book review of Jessica Reyman’s, The Rhetoric of Intellectual Property: Copyright Law and the Regulation of Digital Culture.


Current Patent Laws Cannot Claim The Backing Of Human Rights, Wendy J. Gordon Jan 2010

Current Patent Laws Cannot Claim The Backing Of Human Rights, Wendy J. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

In the dispute over the enforcement of pharmaceutical patents, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights is sometimes cited as giving patent protection the status of a 'human right'. It is true that the ICESCR provides for ‘the right of everyone’ ‘[t]o benefit from the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author’. But that does not mean that patent protection is a human right. Patent fails as a human right for many reasons, one of which is the lack of fit between current patent …