Intellectual Property Law Commons^™

Overcoming Babel’S Curse: Adapting The Doctrine Of Foreign Equivalents, Jonathan Skinner

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Surprising Benefits To Developing Countries Of Linking International Trade And Intellectual Property, Rachel Brewster

Faculty Scholarship

The World Trade Organization's Trade Related Intellectual Property (TRIPS) Agreement is controversial, requiring WTO members to establish a host of domestic institutions to support intellectual property rights, including substantive laws creating rights and a host of enforcement procedures. Trade scholars and development advocates frequently criticize the agreement as economically harmful to developing countries. This Article does not argue that the TRIPS Agreement is beneficial for developing states, but highlights how the agreement has produced some surprising benefits over the last decade and a half. First, the TRIPS Agreement's requirement that developing states make the domestic enforcement of intellectual property rules …

Transparency Soup: The Acta Negotiating Process And "Black Box" Lawmaking, David S. Levine

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

The negotiations of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) have been marred by a level of attempted secrecy heretofore unseen in international intellectual property lawmaking. Simultaneously, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) has been used in several significant national contexts to prevent the disclosure of data and information in ways that call into question its efficacy as an effective regulation of governmental knowledge. This paper seeks to tie together these two recent developments in order to (a) prevent future international intellectual property law negotiations from being unduly secret and (b) encourage Congress to consider reforming FOIA in light of current public …

Acta: Risks Of Third Party Enforcement For Access To Medicines, Brook K. Baker

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

In its current near-final draft form, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement [ACTA] being negotiated plurilaterally—and largely secretly—by a self-selected group of countries proposes to allow preliminary and final injunctive relief against third parties (third-party enforcement) to prevent infringement of intellectual property rights and/or to prevent infringing goods from entering into the channels of commerce. There is lingering uncertainty whether the relevant civil enforcement section will apply to the entire range of intellectual property rights or whether patents will be excluded. If patents are excluded, the dangers in ACTA would be reduced but not eliminated—new globalized forms of third-party enforcement would still …

Where Copyright Enforcement And Net Neutrality Collide - How The Eu Telecoms Package Supports Two Corporate Political Agendas For The Internet, Monica Horten

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

This paper discusses a change to European Union (EU) telecoms law which de facto permits operators to impose restrictions on network traffic, and which enables such restrictions to be imposed for the purposes of copyright enforcement—thus it simultaneously facilitates two different policy agendas from the copyright and telecoms industries—‘three-strikes’ as well as ‘traffic management.’ The mechanism is a provision concerning users’ contracts, supported by generic provisions addressed to EU governments and regulators. The change went into law in late 2009, within the so-called ‘Telecoms Package,’ which, together with the E-commerce directive, establishes the EU legal framework for telecoms networks. In …

The Global Ip Upward Ratchet, Anti-Counterfeiting And Piracy Enforcement Efforts: The State Of Play, Susan Sell

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

Proponents of an IP maximalist agenda increasingly have been rebuffed in recent years. Developing country governments, NGOs, and Access to Knowledge (A2K) advocates have thwarted their efforts to ratchet up standards of intellectual property protection in multilateral intergovernmental forums such as the World Trade Organization, the World Intellectual Property Organization, and the World Health Organization. A2K advocates challenge the premises behind ever higher and broader intellectual property protection and seek, if not a rolling back of IP rights, at the very least a standstill. They argue that in the balance between rights and obligations, IP maximalists assert their rights without …

Will Individuals Aboard The Cultural Pirate Ship Be Struck By The Acta's Cannon Ball?, Shalom Andrews

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

Combating internet piracy is a global challenge. Fundamentally, piracy lingers because it has become a culturally acceptable behaviour that is under-enforced. The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is the latest enforcement measure aimed at sinking the pirate ship.

The first part of this paper will explore piracy as a cultural phenomenon and how it interacts with Australian civil and criminal law. Pirates, who have awareness that their plundering is wrong, convince themselves that: there are moral grounds for their escapades; there is a government conspiracy to reduce internet freedom; they are fighting globalisation by attacking the corporations who reap disproportionate booty, …

Acta, Fool: Explaining The Irrational Support For A New Institution, Gabriel Michael

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

The key players in the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations were driven to establish a new institution for intellectual property enforcement because the traditional venues for such matters, the WTO and WIPO, had become inhospitable forums. Yet given the significant division in U.S. domestic economic interests over ACTA’s provisions and the lack of solid theoretical or empirical evidence supporting claims made by proponents of the agreement, it is puzzling that ACTA has commanded the support of the U.S. executive, even across two administrations from opposing political parties. I show why this support cannot be explained as a result of the …

Wipo And The Acta Threat, Sara Bannerman

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

The new Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has been seen as a potentially existential threat to the existing World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) – as a new plurilateral institution that could replace the older multilateral organization. The ACTA threat to WIPO has a number of predecessors. WIPO’s centrality to international intellectual property norm-setting encountered its first major challenge in 1952 when the Universal Copyright Convention was established under UNESCO. It encountered a second major challenge with the establishment of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (the TRIPs Agreement). The ACTA challenge thus potentially represents a third instance where a …

Acta And Public Health, Peter Maybarduk

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

Although the term “anti-counterfeiting” suggests an agreement limited to preventing trade in counterfeit products, ACTA’s draft provisions, to date, would set new minimum enforcement standards for a range of intellectual property rights. In several areas, these standards could impede legitimate competition, shortchange legal process and shift costs of enforcing private commercial rights to the public.

The parties to ACTA have agreed to narrow some of its provisions in recent months. Despite these improvements to its text, ACTA continues to present risks for global access to medicines, including potentially restricting free transit of generics, imposing chilling effects on the medicines trade, …

Enforcing Intellectual Property Rights By Diminishing Privacy: How The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement Jeopardizes The Right To Privacy, Alberto Cerda Silva

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

Enforcing the law in the digital environment is one of the main challenges of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). In order to enforce the intellectual property law, unlike previous international agreements on the matter, ACTA attempts to set forth provisions concerned with privacy and personal data. Special provisions refer to law enforcement in the digital environment; ACTA would require the adoption of domestic law to allow identifying supposed infringers and, consequently, the collaboration of the online service providers (OSPs) with rights holders. However, those provisions raise some human rights concerns, particularly as related to the right to privacy of Internet …

Flouting The Elmo Necessity And Denying The Local Roots Of Interpretation: "Anthropology's" Quarrel With Acta And Authoritarian Ip Regimes, Alexander S. Dent

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

This paper uses an anthropological definition of culture to examine the intensification of intellectual property policing, coupled with an expansion of its definition. These are ACTA’s aims. I argue that acts of sharing lie at the root of communication; humans must share in order to learn. Furthermore, symbols change their meaning as they circulate in different cultural contexts. Therefore, in denying the fundamental importance of sharing and local interpretation, ACTA will not only fail spectacularly as a policy document. It will also fuel a “war” on file-sharers, users of generic medicines, and manufacturers, sellers, and buyers of imitative goods and …

The Impact Of The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (Acta) On Canadian Copyright Law, Elizabeth Judge, Saleh Al-Sharieh

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

With the advent of The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), the protection and enforceability of intellectual property rights will continue growing. Canadians, like other citizens whose countries may adhere to this treaty, would notice major changes to the legal systems regulating their rights and obligations with respect to intellectual property. With respect to copyright law, by deciding to be a party of ACTA, Canada would be facing a true challenge of fulfilling its international obligations and at the same time preserving its carefully drawn copyright law and policy. This paper argues that the impact of ACTA on Canadian copyright law would …

Acta And The Specter Of Graduated Response, Annemarie Bridy

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

This short paper, prepared for a workshop on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) and the Public Interest at American University’s Washington College of Law, considers the draft Internet provisions of ACTA in the context of concerns raised in the media that the treaty will require signatories to mandate graduated response regimes (à la France’s controversial HADOPI system) for online copyright enforcement. Although the Consolidated Text of ACTA, released in late April, confirms that mandatory graduated response is off the table for the treaty’s negotiators, the treaty in its current form both accommodates and promotes the adoption of graduated response. Moreover, …

Public Interest Representation In Global Ip Policy Institutions, Jeremy Malcolm

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

This paper compares the institutional and procedural arrangements that a range of global institutions make for civil society representation and input into policy development processes on intellectual property issues. The context for this analysis comes from two sets of norms for multi-stakeholder public policy development that exist in other regimes of governance: those of the Aarhus Convention (for environmental matters), and those of the Tunis Agenda for the Information Society (for Internet governance). These global norms, along with the actual practices of the institutions involved in global governance of intellectual property rights, are then contrasted with the proposed new institutional …

Collateral Damage: The Impact Of Acta And The Enforcement Agenda On The World's Poorest People, Andrew Rens

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

ACTA is billed as a trade agreement, and it is likely to have a far reaching impact on the poorest people in the world. ACTA's purported aim is to increase the efficacy of enforcement of intellectual property. However, like the enforcement agenda that gave rise to it, ACTA's provisions threaten access to medicines, access to learning materials, and access to markets by developing countries, and in so doing threaten development.

Acta's Abandoned Third-Party Liability Provisions And What They Mean For The Future, Michael R. Morris

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

One of the most controversial aspects of the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) was its requirement that signatories adopt a system of secondary liability akin to that which has developed in American law, but without the protections that have been carved out by statute and court. This white paper examines and explains the concept of secondary liability; the controversy surrounding its incorporation into ACTA; its exclusion from the ACTA draft leaked in August 2010, and the future of secondary liability expansion.

Acta As A New Kind Of International Ip Law-Making, Kimberlee Weatherall

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

The ACTA negotiations are important not only for the potential impact of the treaty itself, but for what they can teach us about the dynamics of intellectual property law-making and the structure of the IP treaty framework. This paper draws two broad lessons from the progress of the ACTA to date which, while not entirely new, can be understood in a new light by looking at the detailed development of the ACTA text: (1) that the global IP 'ratchet' is not inexorable; and (2) that the international IP treaty framework is very poorly adapted to developing exceptions. The relevance of …

Increasing Revenue In Developing Nations Through Intellectual Property Rights: Why A Diversified Approach To Intellectual Property Protection With A Focus On Geographical Indications Is The Best Method, Philip Matthews

Buffalo Intellectual Property Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Reinventing Lisbon: The Case For A Protocol To The Lisbon Agreement (Geographical Indications), Daniel J. Gervais

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The Doha Development Agenda (Doha Round) of multilateral trade negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO) may fail unless a solution to the establishment of a multilateral register for geographical indications on wines and spirits (GIs) foreseen in the TRIPS Agreement is found. Failure of the Doha Round would entail serious intended and unintended consequences for the world trading system. Europe’s insistence on a Doha deal on GIs in now accompanied by demands from several developing countries for an extension of GI protection to products other than wines and spirits. Those demanders consider the current emphasis on alcoholic beverages to …

Battling Gray Markets Through Copyright Law: Omega, S.A. V. Costco Wholesale Corporation, Samuel Brooks

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Look At The Compulsory License In Investment Arbitration: The Case Of Indirect Expropriation, Christopher Gibson

American University International Law Review

This article covers a timely set of issues concerning the relationship between intellectual property rights (“IPRs”) associated with foreign investments, state-authorized compulsory licenses, trade law (in particular, the TRIPS Agreement), and claims for indirect expropriation that might be brought in investment arbitration. I focus, as a case study, on compulsory licenses and claims of indirect expropriation. Compulsory licenses bear an inherently contentious character. This government authorized license often presents a clash between significant opposing interests – on one side, the legitimate expectations of patent based foreign investors founded on the international investment agreement (“IIA”) and a patent regime that, for …

The Effects Of "Blue Magic": A Call To Punish Criminal Organizations That Benefit From The Use Of Trademarks, 9 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 912 (2010), Thomas J. Kelley

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

Throughout history, criminal organizations have produced, packaged, transported, marketed, and sold illegal products. These organizations and their individual members can be punished for all of the steps in this process, except one: marketing. These groups routinely market their products with trademarks affixed to the illegal products they sell, and benefit from these trademarks the same way a company like the Coca-Cola Company benefits from its trademarks. Criminal organizations should not be free to use trademarks without fear of any additional punishment for doing so. Congress and the United States Sentencing Commission should look at this issue to determine an appropriate …

The New Ontologies: The Effect Of Copyright Protection On Public Scientific Data Sharing Using Semantic Web Ontologies, 10 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 181 (2010), Andrew Clearwater

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

The semantic web is going to become an important tool for scientists who need to accurately share data given context through structured relationships. The structure that defines contextual relationships on the semantic web is known as an ontology; which is a hierarchical organization of a knowledge domain that contains entities and their relations. This paper seeks to answer whether semantic web ontologies are protectable by copyright, and regardless of the outcome, what the best practices are for the scientific community. The best practices for the scientific community should include the adoption of a machine readable ontology license which disclaims copyright …

Cultivating Farmers' Rights: Reconciling Food Security, Indigenous Agriculture, And Trips, Lauren Winter

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Note discusses strategies for cultivating Farmers' Rights internationally. The rise of international treaties awarding intellectual property rights in plant genetic resources to plant breeders brought with it an erosion of agricultural biodiversity as well indigenous farmer lifestyles. Farmers' Rights emerged in recognition of the role of traditional farmers play in conserving, creating, and promoting genetic diversity in the food supply and of the importance of maintaining traditional agriculture practices. This Note argues that Farmers' Rights can be realized internationally through concerted effort. The Note proposes that Farmers' Rights could be realized if national governments create laws and infrastructure that …

The New Trend: Protecting American Fashion Designs Through National Copyright Measures, Emma Yao Xiao

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Tough Reality Of Copyright Piracy: A Case Study Of The Music Industry In China, Jiarui Liu

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Transborder Licensing: A New Frontier For Job Creation, Andrea L. Johnson

Faculty Scholarship

This Article explores why entrepreneurs should consider transborder licensing as a way to increase markets and create jobs. While transborder licensing can involve both goods and services, this Article focuses on exporting nondefense, non-security-related services and intellectual capital, and it explores how the U.S. government can facilitate the development of an industry of support professionals to help U.S. companies navigate through the regulatory complexities.

Part II of this Article will discuss exports generally and explain the life cycle of a typical patent. Part III will show how current population and foreign business ownership trends necessitate studying how trade is conducted …

Special 301 And Access To Medicine In The Obama Administration, Sean Flynn

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

I. Introduction

This article examines the history and current use of the Special 301 program to restrict access to generic medicines in developing countries, specifically the 2009 and 2010 reports released under the Obama Administration. The news for access to medicines advocates is not good overall. Both reports continue the previous Administration’s policies of using Special 301 to promote Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (“TRIPS”) policies (“TRIPS-plus”) endangering access to medicines for millions of people worldwide. These policies violate not only the Obama Administration’s pledges to promote access to affordable medications in developing countries, but also U.S. commitments under …

Enforcement, Economics And Estimates, Peter K. Yu

Faculty Scholarship

This article focuses on intellectual property enforcement, a topic that is of great importance to both developed and less developed countries. It begins by refuting the simple, and often politically motivated, claim that many countries fail to provide effective intellectual property enforcement by virtue of their lack of political will. Drawing on the latest economic literature, this article shows that high enforcement standards come with a hefty price tag and difficult trade-offs.

The article then outlines the challenges in measuring the cross-border economic impact of piracy and counterfeiting. As an illustration, the article discusses the ongoing effort by the US …