Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 4 of 4
Full-Text Articles in Law
The Basics Matter: At The Periphery Of Intellectual Property, F. Scott Kieff, Troy A. Paredes
The Basics Matter: At The Periphery Of Intellectual Property, F. Scott Kieff, Troy A. Paredes
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
Controversies often arise at the interfaces where intellectual property ("IP") law meets other topics in law and economics, such as property law, contract law, and antitrust law. Participants in the debates over how to mediate these interfaces often view each interface as a special case deserving unique treatment under the law. The doctrines of copyright and patent misuse are cases in point: they graft select antitrust principles onto copyright or patent law, even though there is an entirely distinct body of law - antitrust law - designed to deal with the putative concerns about competition that allegedly give rise to …
The Case Against Copyright: A Comparative Institutional Analysis Of Intellectual Property Regimes, F. Scott Kieff
The Case Against Copyright: A Comparative Institutional Analysis Of Intellectual Property Regimes, F. Scott Kieff
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
Contemporary debates over intellectual property ("IP") generally evidence positions that appear to line up at opposite ends of the same axis, with one side arguing for more rights for IP owners under each major regime - patent, trademark, and copyright - and the other side arguing for fewer. Approaching from what some may see as a "more" IP view, this paper offers the counterintuitive suggestion to consider abolishing one of these IP regimes - copyright, at least with respect to the entertainment industry, which represents one of that regime's most commercially significant users. This realization is in fact consistent with …
Contrived Conflicts: The Supreme Court Versus The Basics Of Intellectual Property Law, F. Scott Kieff
Contrived Conflicts: The Supreme Court Versus The Basics Of Intellectual Property Law, F. Scott Kieff
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
Asked by conference organizers to consider the impact of the Supreme Court on intellectual property this millennium, this essay offers the view that the Supreme Court's intellectual property decisions by its present members generally are premised upon what may be viewed as contrived conflicts among bodies of law. Proceeding from this faulty foundation, the Court's efforts to resolve those conflicts subsequently have generated bodies of judge-made law that frustrate in important ways the basic statutory framework of intellectual property law. Examples of cases employing this problematic approach include Bonito Boats, Dastar, Warner-Jenkinson, Festo, TrafFix, and Holmes. Avoiding the contrivances not …
An Industrial Organization Approach To Copyright Law, Michael B. Abramowicz
An Industrial Organization Approach To Copyright Law, Michael B. Abramowicz
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
Although copyright’s chief goal is often said to be the provision of incentives for producing new works, the literature on copyright rarely addresses how proposed changes in copyright law would have meaningful effects on the variety of copyrighted works available to consumers. With a focus on the economics of product differentiation and rent dissipation analysis, this Article elaborates on the insight that marginal copyrighted works are not likely to produce large contributions to social welfare and argues that the greater the success of copyright law in generating large numbers of works, the more copyright law should care about access. Part …