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The History Of The Patent Harmonization Treaty: Economic Self-Interest As An Influence, R. Carl Moy
The History Of The Patent Harmonization Treaty: Economic Self-Interest As An Influence, R. Carl Moy
Faculty Scholarship
How shall the United States decide whether to adopt the Patent Harmonization Treaty? What questions shall we ask? Whose answers shall we trust? What sources of information can provide us with the background needed for these inquiries? This article offers a framework in which to ask, and begin to answer, these questions. It focuses on the international community's past efforts to harmonize the law of patents. It asserts not only that history provides context, but also, that the same history yields lessons directly applicable to many of the treaty's basic issues. Section I discusses the immediate history of WIPO's efforts …
The Illegitimacy Of Trademark Incontestability, Kenneth L. Port
The Illegitimacy Of Trademark Incontestability, Kenneth L. Port
Faculty Scholarship
The concept of incontestability in American trademark law has caused great confusion ever since its adoption as part of United States trademark law in 1946. This Article is first a study of the rational basis for incontestability in American trademark law. The role of incontestability in the larger regime of American trademark law is established in order to understand incontestability as it fits within the history of the common law of trademarks. This is fundamental in order to understand the significance of the thesis that incontestability is illegitimate. Next, acquisition of incontestability is presented in order to show how simple …
A Property Right In Self-Expression: Equality And Individualism In The Natural Law Of Intellectual Property, Wendy J. Gordon
A Property Right In Self-Expression: Equality And Individualism In The Natural Law Of Intellectual Property, Wendy J. Gordon
Faculty Scholarship
This Article argues that a properly conceived natural-rights theory of intellectual property would provide significant protection for free speech interests. This is more than just an academic exercise. Judges have failed to use the First Amendment to provide extensive protection for free expression in intellectual property cases, in part because they mistakenly find a warrant for strong "authors' rights" in a philosophy of natural law. Natural rights theory, however, is necessarily concerned with the rights of the public as well as with those whose labors create intellectual products. When the limitations in natural law's premises are taken seriously, natural rights …