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Full-Text Articles in Law
Creativity Revisited, Ralph D. Clifford
Creativity Revisited, Ralph D. Clifford
Faculty Publications
The University of New Hampshire's Scholarship Redux Conference invited a reexamination of an earlier work of IP scholarship to address what has happened in the area since the time of its original publication. As my contribution to the Conference, I revisited my 1997 article that discussed the consequences of the increasing sophistication of artificial intelligence ("AI") on the production of new copyrightable or patentable works as well as the follow-up article I published in 2004 that focused expressly on copyright law. The primary call of the conference was to discuss the "legal predictions [that were] right -- or wrong!" In …
A Jukebox For Patents: Can Patent Licensing Of Incremental Inventions Be Controlled By Compulsory Licensing?, Ralph D. Clifford
A Jukebox For Patents: Can Patent Licensing Of Incremental Inventions Be Controlled By Compulsory Licensing?, Ralph D. Clifford
Faculty Publications
The patent system today no longer follows the classic understanding of how it is designed to work. In theory, to avoid infringement, a product developer searches the database of issued patents looking for those that might read onto the product being developed. If such patents are found, the developer can approach the patent holder for a license, can attempt to design around the claims, or can abandon the project. With many hundreds of thousands of patents being issued annually—a rate of issuance almost an order of magnitude larger than a hundred years ago—it is now a practical impossibility to search …
Simultaneous Copyright And Trade Secret Claims: Can The Copyright Misuse Defense Prevent Constitutional Doublethink?, Ralph D. Clifford
Simultaneous Copyright And Trade Secret Claims: Can The Copyright Misuse Defense Prevent Constitutional Doublethink?, Ralph D. Clifford
Faculty Publications
As the Constitution authorizes Congress to grant copyrights, it subjects the power to a public purpose requirement. Any monopoly Congress grants must be for the purpose of “promot[ing] the progress of science and useful arts.” But one result of Congress enacting the 1976 Act is a potential conflict between the Act and this public purpose requirement. An owner of intellectual property may believe that both copyright law – which mandates disclosure – and trade secret law – which mandates secrecy – can be used simultaneously. To believe that disclosure and secrecy can coexist is doublethink as both cannot be true. …
The Federal Circuit’S Cruise To Uncharted Waters: How Patent Protection For Algorithms And Business Methods May Sink The Ucita And State Intellectual Property Protection, Ralph D. Clifford
The Federal Circuit’S Cruise To Uncharted Waters: How Patent Protection For Algorithms And Business Methods May Sink The Ucita And State Intellectual Property Protection, Ralph D. Clifford
Faculty Publications
The realm of intellectual property law now changes at an incredible pace, with the courts discarding venerable concepts rapidly. This is not surprising as the transition from a goods-based society to one based on information increases the importance of intellectual property law. Nowhere has this been more apparent than the Federal Circuit’s recent reworking of the scope of federal patent law. Today, it is difficult to imagine anything for which a patent cannot be sought and received. Furthermore, the expansion of the patent law’s scope has a corresponding impact on state powers. Because the patent law serves to implicitly preempt …