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Full-Text Articles in Law
Intellectual Property’S Lessons For Information Privacy, Mark Bartholomew
Intellectual Property’S Lessons For Information Privacy, Mark Bartholomew
Journal Articles
There is an inherent tension between an individual’s desire to safeguard her personal information and the expressive rights of businesses seeking to communicate that information to others. This tension has multiplied as consumers generate and businesses collect more and more personal data online, forcing efforts to strike an appropriate balance between privacy and commercial speech. No consensus on this balance has been reached. Some privacy scholars bemoan what they see as a slanted playing field in favor of those wishing to profit from the private details of other people’s lives. Others contend that the right in free expression must always …
An Intersystemic View Of Intellectual Property And Free Speech, Mark Bartholomew, John Tehranian
An Intersystemic View Of Intellectual Property And Free Speech, Mark Bartholomew, John Tehranian
Journal Articles
Intellectual property regimes operate in the shadow of the First Amendment. By deeming a particular activity as infringing, the law of copyright, trademark, and the right of publicity all limit communication. As a result, judges and lawmakers must delicately balance intellectual property rights with expressive freedoms. Interestingly, each intellectual property regime strikes the balance between ownership rights and free speech in a dramatically different way. Despite a large volume of scholarship on intellectual property rights and free speech considerations, this Article represents the first systematic effort to detail, analyze, and explain the divergent evolution of expression-based defenses in copyright, trademark, …
Confusion Isn't Everything, Mark Mckenna, William Mcgeveran
Confusion Isn't Everything, Mark Mckenna, William Mcgeveran
Journal Articles
The typical shorthand justification for trademark rights centers on avoiding consumer confusion. But in truth, this encapsulation mistakes a method for a purpose: confusion merely serves as an indicator of the underlying problems that trademark law seeks to prevent. Other areas of law accept confusion or mistake of all kinds, intervening only when those errors lead to more serious harms. Likewise, every theory of trademark rights considers confusion troubling solely because it threatens more fundamental values such as fair competition or informative communication. In other words, when it comes to the deep purposes of trademark law, confusion isn’t everything. Yet …
The Rehnquist Court And The Groundwork For Greater First Amendment Scrutiny Of Intellectual Property, Mark P. Mckenna
The Rehnquist Court And The Groundwork For Greater First Amendment Scrutiny Of Intellectual Property, Mark P. Mckenna
Journal Articles
This contribution to the Washington University School of Law conference on the Rehnquist Court and the First Amendment addresses the Rehnquist Court's view of the role of the First Amendment in intellectual property cases. It argues that, while the Rehnquist Court was not eager to find a conflict between intellectual property laws and the First Amendment, there is reason to believe that it set the stage for greater First Amendment scrutiny of intellectual property protections. At the very least, the Court left that road open to future courts, which might be inclined to view intellectual property more skeptically.