Law Commons^™

Should Only Technical Inventions Be Patentable, Following The European Example?, Reinier B. Bakels

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Legal Turbulence After : New Possibilities For Patent Licensing At Research Institutions, Jonathan Hillel

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Google And Fair Use, Jonathan Band

Journal of Business & Technology Law

No abstract provided.

Raising The Dead: How The Ninth Circuit Avoided The Supreme Court's Guidelines Concerning Aesthetic Functionality And Still Got Away With It In Au-Tomotive Gold, Yevgeniy Markov

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Massively Multiplayer Online Fraud: Why The Introduction Of Real World Law In A Virtual Context Is Good For Everyone, Ethan E. White

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Indirect Infringement From A Tort Law Perspective, Charles W. Adams

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Inventors, Entrepreneurs, And Intellectual Property Law, Michael J. Meurer

Faculty Scholarship

I am not sure why small business concerns have not had more influence on IP law. Perhaps the sentiment prevailing in antitrust law spilled over into IP law. American antitrust law has reached a near consensus that small firms get no special treatment under a law designed to protect competition, not competitors. ° In contrast, European competition law regulators are more likely to protect small business, and European patent policymakers openly fret about how to reform their patent law to promote small business.²

Regardless, my concern in this Article is mostly with the normative question: Should IP law favor …

Claims To Information Qua Information And A Structural Theory Of Section 101, Kevin Emerson Collins

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In this article, I start from the premises that claims to inventive information qua information are not and should not be patentable, and I pursue two lines of inquiry. First, I argue that a structural theory of Section l0l of the Patent Act provides a policy-driven, conceptually coherent and statutorily justified interpretation that explains why claims to inventive information qua information should be excluded from the realm of patentable subject matter. In brief, patentable subject matter must be restricted in this manner to preserve the duality of claiming and disclosing upon which the entire patent regime is constructed.

Second, I …

Book Review. From Edison To Ipod: Protect Your Ideas And Make Money By Frederick W. Mostert And Lawrence E. Apolzon, Yvonne Cripps

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Indigenous Rights To Traditional Knowledge And Cultural Expressions: Implementing The Millennium Development Goals, Valerie J. Phillips

Intercultural Human Rights Law Review

"Indigenous Rights to Traditional Knowledge and Cultural Expressions: Implementing The Millenium Development Goals" Reflections on Intellectual Property, Traditional Knowledge and Cultural Expressions by Valerie J. Phillips, Assistant Professor of Law at University of Tulsa College of Law.

Biodiversity, Traditional Knowledge And Folklore: Work On Related Ip Matters In The Wto, Hannu Wager

Intercultural Human Rights Law Review

Issues related to biodiversity, traditional knowledge and folklore have received increasing attention in the global intellectual property (IP) arena, including in the work of intergovernmental organizations and civil society. The World Trade Organization (WTO) is one of the forums in which the debate on related IP matters is occurring. Other intergovernmental organizations in which such debates are taking place include, among others, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the World Bank, and various United Nations human rights bodies. This …

Teaching Trademark Theory Through The Lens Of Distinctiveness, Mark P. Mckenna

Journal Articles

This contribution to the annual teaching edition of the Saint Louis University Law Journal encourages teachers to begin trademark law courses using the concept of distinctiveness as a vehicle for articulating producer and consumer perspectives in trademark law. Viewing the law through these sometimes different perspectives helps in approaching a variety of doctrines in trademark law, and both perspectives are relatively easy to grasp in the context of distinctiveness.

Nonprofit Commercialization Under Bayh-Dole And The Academic Anticommons, Rachael A. Ream

Case Western Reserve Law Review

No abstract provided.

Sentencing Luxury: The Valuation Debate In Sentencing Traffickers Of Counterfeit Luxury Goods, Jana Nicole Checa Chong

Fordham Law Review

This Note examines the contentious debate that exists regarding the property valuation used by the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines with regard to counterfeiting. Currently, the Sentencing Guidelines employ “street value.” However, many scholars and organizations argue that the alternative use of “retail value” will best assess the harm to the intellectual property owner as well as combat the growing problem of counterfeiting. This Note suggests that amending the Sentencing Guidelines, in order to allow for application of “retail value,” will best combat a growing national and international problem posed by the counterfeit luxury goods market.

Common Ground: The Case For Collaboration Between Anti-Poverty Advocates And Public Interest Intellectual Property Advocates, Deborah J. Cantrell

Publications

This article examines the previously unappreciated common ground between scholars and advocates who work to eliminate poverty, and scholars and advocates who work on intellectual property issues in the public interest. The article first illustrates how scholars and advocates working on poverty and on public interest intellectual property have relied on rights talk to frame their social movements. Under the conventional narrative, the framing has accentuated differences between the movements. As the Article explains, the two movements share core principles and should recognize shared interests and goals. By developing a new model of how to view public interest movements, the …

User-Generated Content And The Future Of Copyright: Part One--Investiture Of Ownership, Steven Hetcher

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

While user-generated content (UGC) has been around for quite some time, the digital age has led to an explosion of new forms of UGC. Current UGC mega-sites, such as YouTube, Facebook, and MySpace, have given UGC a new level of significance, due to their ability to bring together large numbers of users to interact in new ways. The "user" in UGC generally refers to amateurs, but also includes professionals and amateurs aspiring to become professionals. "Generated" is synonymous with created, reflecting the inclusion of some minimal amount of creativity in the user's work. Finally, "content" refers to digital content, or …

Acquiring Innovation, Xuan-Thao Nguyen, Jeffrey A. Maine

Articles

In recent years, the innovation market has witnessed a new business model involving companies that are mere patent holding shells and not operating entities. They have no customers or products to offer, but they do have an aggressive tactic of using patent portfolios to threaten other operating companies with potential infringement litigation. The strategy is executed with the end goal of extracting handsome settlements. Acquisitions of patents for offensive use have become a major concern to operating companies because such acquisitions pose the threats of patent injunction, interrupting the business and crippling further innovation.

While many operating companies today know …

Users As Innovators: Implications For Patent Doctrine, Katherine J. Strandburg

University of Colorado Law Review

User innovators range from commercial firms, which invent new production methods in expectation of competitive advantage, to individual hobbyists motivated entirely by their enjoyment of the inventive process. In this Article, I consider the implications for patent doctrine of the fact that many user innovators derive sufficient benefit simply from developing and using their inventions to motivate them to invest the effort necessary to invent them. Moreover, user innovators often benefit from "freely revealing" their innovations to others. Trade secrecy and patenting are not central to motivating this inventive activity. This picture of user innovation contrasts sharply with the seller …

The Mythical Beginnings Of Intellectual Property, Jessica Silbey

Faculty Scholarship

People commonly justify intellectual property protection with homage to utilitarianism (protecting the incentive to create, invent, or produce quality goods to maximize net social welfare) or natural rights (people should own the product of their creative, inventive, or commercial labor). Despite the ongoing dominance of these theories, a dissatisfying lack of a comprehensive explanation for the value of intellectual property protection remains. One reason for this failure is that economic analysis of intellectual property law tends to undervalue its humanistic element. Whereas utilitarianism and natural rights theories are familiar, at least one other basis for intellectual property protection exists. This …

Filtering, Piracy Surveillance And Disobedience , Sonia K. Katyal

Faculty Scholarship

There has always been a cyclical relationship between the prevention of piracy and the protection of civil liberties. While civil liberties advocates previously warned about the aggressive nature of copyright protection initiatives, more recently, a number of major players in the music industry have eventually ceded to less direct forms of control over consumer behavior. As more aggressive forms of consumer control, like litigation, have receded, we have also seen a rise in more passive forms of consumer surveillance. Moreover, even as technology has developed more perfect means for filtering and surveillance over online piracy, a number of major players …

In Memoriam: Professor Joseph J. Beard, Douglas D. Scherer

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

The Protection Of Databases, Daniel J. Gervais

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

In Parts I and II of this Paper, the author analyzes the legal protection of databases first in international treaties, in particular the Berne Convention and the WTO TRIPS Agreement, and second under national and regional copyright, sui generis, or other (e.g., tort) law in Europe (both the European Directive on the legal protection of databases of 1996, which was under review, and a number of relevant national laws), the United States, and a number of foreign jurisdictions (Australia, Canada, China, Nigeria, Russia, and Singapore). In Part III, the author provides a critical analysis of the effort to expand the …

Sharing Access To Intellectual Property Through Private Ordering, Severine Dusollier

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Private ordering mechanisms, such as contracts or technological measures, have increasingly been used to shift the balance between exclusive property and free access to intellectual creation embedded in all IP regimes. Most surprising is the use of private ordering mechanisms, mainly licensing schemes. This article aims at assessing the nature of norm-making operated by open-access initiatives, as well as its normative sustainability as a project to enlarge the public domain within intellectual property. My conclusion is that public ordering still has a crucial role to play to moderate the expansion of intellectual property and to ensure that intellectual creations remain …

"Open Source" And Private Ordering: A Commentary On Dusollier, Arti K. Rai

Chicago-Kent Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Structure And Process Of Negotiations At The World Intellectual Property Organization, Geoffrey Yu

Chicago-Kent Law Review

On October 13, 2006, the Deputy Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization, Geoffrey Yu, spoke at the Chicago-Kent Symposium Intellectual Property, Trade and Development: Reconciling and Accommodating Different National Levels of Protection. Included here is a transcript of his remarks, which outlined the organizational structure of the Organization and the management and process of international discussions within the Organization.

Policy-Making Dynamics In Intergovernmental Organizations: A Comment On The Remarks Of Geoffrey Yu, Coenraad Visser

Chicago-Kent Law Review

No abstract provided.

Intellectual Property, Free Trade Agreements And Economic Development, Anselm Kamperman Sanders

Georgia State University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Role Of International Ngos In The Intellectual Property Policy-Making And Norm-Setting Activities Of Multilateral Institutions, Duncan Matthews

Chicago-Kent Law Review

International NGOs play a significant role in relation to intellectual property policy-making and norm-setting in the following multilateral institutions: the World Trade Organization ("WTO"); the World Intellectual Property Organization ("WIPO"); the World Health Organization ("WHO"); the Convention on Biological Diversity Conference of the Party ("CBD-COP"); and the Food and Agriculture Organization ("FAO') of the United Nations. International NGOs enhance the capacity of developing country delegates to multilateral institutions to negotiate on intellectual property issues. Although there are limits to the relationship between developing country delegates and international NGOs, relative to the resources available, international NGOs have had a considerable impact, …

Technological Change And The Design Of Plant Variety Protection Regimes, Mark D. Janis, Stephen Smith

Chicago-Kent Law Review

In this paper, we examine the potential for plant variety protection ("PVP") regimes—that is, sui generis, industry-specific intellectual property regimes—to become compromised as a result of technological change. In particular, we analyze the shift in plant breeding from phenotypic selection to genotypic selection, and consider the impact of that shift on existing plant variety protection. We also lay out an alternative structure for plant intellectual property protection based on unfair competition, a model that differs radically in some respects from current PVP schemes. We offer our model as a starting point for debate on adaptations that might improve PVP …

The Demise And Rebirth Of Plant Variety Protection: A Comment On Technological Change And The Design Of Plant Variety Protection Regimes, Laurence R. Helfer

Chicago-Kent Law Review

No abstract provided.