Law Commons^™

A Case Against Acta, Kenneth L. Port

Faculty Scholarship

The Anti-counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is being considered by the Obama Administration as an Executive Order. If signed, this Order will greatly enhance controls placed at the borders of 36 countries to attempt to stop the international flow of so-called counterfeit goods. To remove the social, political and emotional sensitivity, I adopt the value neutral term of “imitative commodity” to describe what some call counterfeits, knockoffs, pirates, etc. This article uses just three manufacturers of luxury status goods to consider whether the ACTA will have positive or negative consequences. It concludes that the data supporting the need for the ACTA …

Usefulness Varies By Country: The Utility Requirement Of Patent Law In The United States, Europe And Canada, Jay Erstling, Amy M. Salmela, Justin N. Woo

Faculty Scholarship

The requirement that an invention have utility is one of the most fundamental of the patent laws. In the United States, for example, the concept of utility is rooted in the Constitution: Article 1, Section 8, gives Congress the power to grant exclusive rights to inventors in order “[t]o promote the progress of Science and useful Arts.” Other jurisdictions recognize utility in the form of inventions that have “industrial applicability” or are “capable of exploitation in industry,” with all of these terms and phrases generally viewed as being synonymous.

Historically, nearly every jurisdiction has excluded some type of invention from …