Law Commons^™

Parody As Brand, Stacey Dogan, Mark Lemley

Faculty Scholarship

Courts have struggled with the evaluation of parody under trademark law. While many trademark courts have protected parodies, there are a surprising number of cases that hold obvious parodies illegal. The problem is particularly severe with respect to parodies that are used to brand products, a growing category. The doctrinal tools that generally protect expressive parodies often don't apply to brand parodies. Our goal in this paper is to think about what circumstances (if any) should lead courts to find parody illegal. We conclude that, despite courts’ increasing attention to speech interests in recent years, the law’s treatment of parody …

Fashion, Sexism, And The United States Federal Judiciary, Charles E. Colman

Charles E. Colman

The U.S. federal judiciary has frequently displayed a dismissive attitude toward "fashion," while simultaneously recognizing the great economic importance of clothing. As fashion was, from the formation of the United States until at least the late 1960s, associated primarily with the female sex, while judges during this time period were almost exclusively male, one naturally wonders whether the power dynamics of gender shaped the development of the law pertaining to fashion. There is good reason to believe that this has indeed been the case.

Canada's Inadequate Legal Protection Against Industrial Espionage, Emir Crowne, Tasha De Freitas

Chicago-Kent Journal of Intellectual Property

Canadian law provides little protection for individuals and corporations against industrial espionage. Akin to the United States' Economic Espionage Act of 1996-with its broad definition of "trade secret" and accompanying protections and remedies-we propose that Canada enact legislation at the federal level to remedy many of the deficiencies that arise in bringing a claim under the usual breach of confidence action.

Selected Resources On Copyright Law, Leonard Klein

Research Guides

This research guide provides specialized primary and secondary sources on copyright law, including specialized reporters on copyright law, interactive tutorials, and websites.

In Personam And Beyond The Grasp: In Search Of Jurisdiction And Accountability For Foreign Defendants, Andrew Popper

Andrew Popper

The focus of this article is on the difficulty of securing in personam jurisdiction over foreign entities who steal information technology and intellectual property (IT and IP). The value of stolen IT and IP is somewhere in the range of a trillion dollars over the last decade. Given the current inability to prevent those losses or deter meaningfully those engaged in the misconduct, the article explores the core of the problem: the difficulty of satisfying the minimum contact/fairness requirements of Article III courts. The article addresses several alternative approaches that might allow for more efficient protection of IT and IP. …

The Competitive Advantage Of Weak Patents, William Hubbard

All Faculty Scholarship

Does U.S. patent law increase the competitiveness of U.S. firms in global markets? This Article argues that, contrary to the beliefs of many U.S. lawmakers, U.S. patent law currently undermines the ability of U.S. firms to compete in global markets because strong U.S. patent rights actually weaken an overlooked but critical determinant of U.S. competitiveness: rivalry among U.S. firms. Intense domestic rivalry drives firms to improve relentlessly, spawns related and supporting domestic industries, and encourages the domestic development of advanced factors of production—like specialized labor forces. U.S. patents restrict rivalry among foreign firms less because U.S. patents have little extraterritorial …

The Tragedy Of The Commons: A Hybrid Approach To Trade Secret Legal Theory, Jonathan R. K. Stroud

Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

In Personam And Beyond The Grasp: In Search Of Jurisdiction And Accountability For Foreign Defendants, Andrew Popper

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

The focus of this article is on the difficulty of securing in personam jurisdiction over foreign entities who steal information technology and intellectual property (IT and IP). The value of stolen IT and IP is somewhere in the range of a trillion dollars over the last decade. Given the current inability to prevent those losses or deter meaningfully those engaged in the misconduct, the article explores the core of the problem: the difficulty of satisfying the minimum contact/fairness requirements of Article III courts. The article addresses several alternative approaches that might allow for more efficient protection of IT and IP. …

Technological Cost As Law In Intellectual Property, Harry Surden

Publications

Changes in the scope of IP legal rights are generally thought to be linked to changes in positive law. This Article argues that shifts in the scope of IP laws are often driven by changes in technological feasibility and not by changes in positive law. Diminishing technological constraint is an under-acknowledged factor driving changes in substantive IP law.

More specifically, there are certain activities that are core to IP law. Such activities include, for example, the copying of creative works in copyright (e.g. duplicating books or music), or the manufacturing of products in patent law. Traditionally, IP legal theory has …

Patent Invalidity Versus Noninfringement, Roger Allen Ford

Law Faculty Scholarship

Most patent scholars agree that the Patent and Trademark Office grants too many invalid patents and that these patents impose a significant tax upon industry and technological innovation. Although policymakers and scholars have proposed various ways to address this problem, including better ex ante review by patent examiners and various forms of ex post administrative review, district courts invalidating patents in litigation remain a core defense against bad patents. This article analyzes a previously unidentified impediment to the use of district courts to invalidate patents. Nearly every patent lawsuit rises or falls on one of two defenses: invalidity or noninfringement. …

Incentive Effects From Different Approaches To Holdup Mitigation Surrounding Patent Remedies And Standard-Setting Organizations, F. Scott Kieff, Anne Layne-Farrar

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Debates about patent policy often focus on the potential for the threat of a court-imposed remedy for patent infringement to cause manufacturing entities and others to suffer patent holdup, especially when standardized industries are involved. This article uses lessons from the broader economics and political science literatures on holdup to explore various approaches to setting remedies for patent infringement—namely injunctions and money damages in the form of lost profits or reasonable royalties—with an eye towards the nature and extent of various forms of holdup they each might generate. In so doing, the article contrasts various narrower sub-categories of the broad …