Law Commons^™

The “Commercial Offer For Sale” Standard After Minnesota Mining V. Chemque, Campbell Chiang

Duke Law & Technology Review

The Supreme Court established a two-part test for determining when an invention is "on sale" under 35 U.S.C. §102(b) in Pfaff v. Wells Electronics, Inc. For the on-sale bar to be triggered, the invention must be "ready for patenting" and subject of a "commercial offer for sale." In Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing v. Chemque, Inc., the Federal Circuit expounded on what constitutes a commercial offer for sale. This iBrief explores what is considered a "commercial offer for sale."

Piracy Deserves No Privacy, Frank Chao

Duke Law & Technology Review

The Recording Industry Association of America ("RIAA"), the music industry's trade and lobbying group, recently initiated a controversial tactic to bring to surface previously anonymous digital pirates of the Internet. This aggressive tactic aims to make safe the digital oceans for copyright and involves identifying and bringing claims against infringing individuals who download, swap, and/or post copyrighted music illegally via the Internet. The RIAA cares not who the infringers are or whether the infringers know the illegality of their actions. Nor does the music industry concern itself with the inevitable storm of backlash bound to fall upon them for suing …

Arthritic Flexibilities: Analysis Of Wto Action Regarding Paragraph 6 Of The Doha Declaration On The Trips Agreement And Public Health, Brook K. Baker

ExpressO

This paper explores the tortured history of developing countries’ pursuit of access to affordable generic medicines that they are unable to produce efficiently on their own. Having lost rights to treat medicines as essential commodities and as generalized exceptions to patent protections in the WTO TRIPS Agreement, developing countries and public health activists temporarily reasserted the primacy of health over profits in the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health in November of 2001. However, since most developing countries lack meaningful pharmaceutical capacity to manufacture medicines efficiently on their own, they needed flexibility to import medicines from countries …

Patenting Computer Data Structures: The Ghost, The Machine And The Federal Circuit, Andrew Joseph Hollander

Duke Law & Technology Review

Courts view "data structures," the mechanism by which computers store data in meaningful relationships, differently than do computer scientists. While computer scientists recognize that data structures have aspects that are both physical (how they are stored in memory) and logical (the relationships among the stored information), the Federal Circuit, in its attempts to set clear standards of the scope of patentability of data structures, has not fully appreciated their dualistic nature. This i-brief explains what data structures are, explores how courts have wrestled with setting a limiting principle to determine their patentability, and discusses the resultant impact on claim drafting.

U.S. Infringement Liability For Foreign Sellers Of Infringing Products, Troy Petersen

Duke Law & Technology Review

With the ever-increasing international flavor of business comes an important question for United States patent holders and foreign manufacturers alike: Can a company be held liable for patent infringement in the United States for selling an infringing product abroad that is later imported into the United States?

Prospects For Progress: The Trips Agreement And Developing Countries After The Doha Conference, L Danielle Tully

Boston College International and Comparative Law Review

Intellectual property rights (IPRs) have long been the subject of contentious debate between developed and developing countries. While providing an incentive to invest in and develop new technologies, IPRs also vastly increase the cost of these new technologies to developing countries. Despite disagreement on the proper role for IPRs in the global economy, IPRs became a major element in the 1994 Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which established the World Trade Organization (WTO). Effective on January 1, 1995, the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Agreement (TRIPS Agreement) formally linked compliance with minimum protection standards …

The Case For Registering Patents And The Law And Economics Of Present Patent-Obtaining Rules, F Scott Kieff

Boston College Law Review

Critics of the patent system suggest the rules for determining patentability should be stricter, subjecting patents to More scrutiny during Patent Office examination. This Article offers a counterintuitive model system under which patent applications are registered, not examined, to elucidate a new normative view that sees present positive law rules for obtaining patents as primarily operating to minimize social cost, and that accounts for otherwise puzzling aspects of the patent system. This "registration" theory for patent-obtaining rules is a companion to the "commercialization" theory for .patent-enforcing rules by the same author. This Article shows how these theories together offer a …

Curbing The Federal Circuit's Enthusiasm: An Argument For A Rebuttable Presumption Against Application Of The Doctrine Of Equivalents To Disclosed But Unclaimed Subject Matter, Jeffrey M. Connor

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Panel Ii: Conflicts Of Interest In Sports, John D. Feerick, David Feher, Craig E. Fenech, Charles Grantham, Steven C. Krane, Nicole Coward

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Panel Iii: The Current State Of Sports And The Media, Mark Conrad, Laurie Basch, David S. Denenberg, Jim Durham, Jerome S. Ebenstein, Brett Goodman, Nicole Coward

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Intellectual Property In Transition Economies: Assessing The Latvian Experience, Simon Helm

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

No Competition: How Radio Consolidation Has Diminished Diversity And Sacrificed Localism, Gregory M. Prindle

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Panel I: Legal Issues In Sports Security, Richard H. Fallon, Jr., Milton Ahlerich, Norman Siegel, William D. Squires, Paul H. Zoubek, Laura Freedman

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Far From The Finish Line: Transsexualism And Athletic Competition, Jill Pilgrim, David Martin, Will Binder

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Glass Sneaker: Thirty Years Of Victories And Defeats Involving Title Ix And Sex Discrimination In Athletics, Diane Heckman

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Pay Or Play? The Jeremy Bloom Decision And Ncaa Amateurism Rules, Laura Freedman

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Bouchat V. Baltimore Ravens: The Fourth Circuit Adopts The Strinkingly Similar Doctrine To Infer Proof Of Access, Douglas R. Arntsen

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Personal Fouls: How Sexual Assault By Football Players Is Exposing Universities To Title Ix Liability, Christopher M. Parent

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Platform For Privacy Preferences (“P3p”): Finding Consumer Assent To Electronic Privacy Policies, Kimberly Rose Goldberg

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

A Barcelona.Com Analysis: Toward A Better Model For Adjudication Of International Domain Name Disputes, Zohar Efroni

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Rethinking Reexamination Reform: Is It Time For Corrective Surgery, Or Is It Time To Amputate?, Kristn Jakobsen Osenga

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Patent First, Ask Questions Later: Morality And Biotechnology In Patent Law, Margo A. Bagley

William & Mary Law Review

This Article explores the U.S. "patent first, ask questions later" approach to determining what subject matter should receive patent protection. Under this approach, the US. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO or the Agency) issues patents on "anything under the sun made by man," and to the extent a patent's subject matter is sufficiently controversial, Congress acts retrospectively in assessing whether patents should issue on such inventions. This practice has important ramifications for morally controversial biotechnology patents specifically, and for American society generally. For many years ajudicially created "moral utility" doctrine served as a type of gatekeeper of patent subject matter …

Lights, Camera, Lawsuit, A. J. Bedel

Duke Law & Technology Review

As the speed of Internet access improves, the film industry will need to explore its options for eliminating the downloading of digital movie files. After examining the successes and failures of the music industry in its battle with peer-to-peer networks, the film industry has begun to follow its predecessor. However, the nature of film as an entertainment medium is quite different than that of music. As a result, the film industry could implement creative solutions to this problem that would not have been available to the music industry. A recent study shows that most films available on the Internet have …

Pfaff Revisited: How The Federal Circuit Has Elaborated On The “Ready For Patenting” Standard, Jennifer F. Miller

Duke Law & Technology Review

In Pfaff v. Wells Electronics, Inc., the Supreme Court established a two-part test to determine when an invention is "on sale" for purposes of Title 35 U.S.C. §102(b). In addition to being the subject of a commercial offer for sale, an invention must be "ready for patenting" in order to be considered "on sale." Since Pfaff, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has had numerous opportunities to expound upon how inventors can fulfill the latter condition. This iBrief will discuss the factors the Federal Circuit has determined are indicative of an invention's "ready for patenting" status.

Does Your Website Put You At Risk?—Liability Issues In Using Third Party Content: Global Perspectives, James Maxeiner

All Faculty Scholarship

This presentation examines some of the new laws that affect the liability risks faced by online service providers that rely in part or in whole on information posted or otherwise provided by third parties, both with respect to issues associated with liability for defamatory information and to infringement issues.

In this presentation we are going to consider first the most important areas of liability for distribution of third party content. These laws pre-date the Internet and continue in force. We will then consider liability for third party content under the most important of those laws. Finally, we will consider how …

3d Molecular Structures: Patentable Subject Matter Under 35 U.S.C. §101?, Ben Quarmby

Duke Law & Technology Review

With the advent of protein engineering, the determination of a protein’s 3D structure has taken on a whole new importance. This has prompted some to call for the United States Patent and Trademark Office [USPTO] to break with tradition and allow patents on the three-dimensional structural information of proteins. This iBrief will discuss whether such information would constitute patentable subject matter under 35 U.S.C. §101, and how much protection patents on this information could actually confer.

The Balancing Act Of Copyright: The Copyright Laws Of Australia And The United States In The Digital Era, Dilan J. Thampapillai

Cornell Law School J.D. Student Research Papers

The digital era has posed a unique challenge to copyright law. The emergence of the information technology revolution and the internet has increased the ability and the willingness of copyright users to copy and distribute protected material. In response to this phenomenon copyright owners have pushed for stronger laws to protect their content from infringement. Their success has prompted a strong counter reaction from copyright users and consumer groups.

This paper seeks to examine how changes to Australian and US copyright law have resulted in an imbalance between owners and users and whether the traditional safeguards of fair dealing and …

The Copyright Divide, Peter K. Yu

Faculty Scholarship

Most recently, the recording industry filed 261 lawsuits against individuals who illegally downloaded and distributed a large amount of music via peer-to-peer file-sharing networks, such as KaZaA, Grokster, iMesh, and Gnutella. Although the industry's recent approach was controversial and resulted in major criticisms from legislators, academics, civil libertarians, consumer advocates, and university officials, the copyright holders' aggressive tactics are not new.

In fact, copyright holders have been known for using, or encouraging their government to use, coercive power to protect their creative works. Only a decade ago, the U.S. copyright industries have lobbied their government to use strong-armed tactics to …

Booze, Drugs, And Rock & Roll: Crime During The College Years, Paul S. Gutman

ExpressO

In this Article, the author examines the predilection of college and university students towards certain types of illegal behaviors. Specifically, the Article considers the widespread instances of drug use, under-age alcohol use, and "file-sharing" using Napster and its progeny. The Article's main focus is on why such illegal behaviors are rampant among college students who might otherwise be

Fairplay Or Greed: Mandating University Responsibility Toward Student Inventors, Carmen J. Mccutcheon

Duke Law & Technology Review

Over twenty years have passed since the enactment of The Patent and Trademark Law Amendments Act (Bayh-Dole Act) and universities continue to struggle with their technology transfer infrastructures. Lost in that struggle are those who could be considered the backbone of university research: the students. Graduate and undergraduate students remain baffled by the patent assignment and technology transfer processes within their various institutions. Efforts should be undertaken by universities to clarify the student's position in the creative process.