Intellectual Property Law Commons^™

Reconceptualizing Open Access To Theses And Dissertations, Orit Fischman Afori, Dalit Ken-Dror Feldman

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

The global COVID-19 crisis has turned public attention to the special need for accessing those cutting-edge studies that are needed for further scientific innovation. Theses and dissertations (TDs) are prominent examples of such studies. TDs are academic research projects conducted by graduate students to acquire a high academic degree, such as a PhD. They encompass not only knowledge about basic science but also knowledge that generates social and economic value for society. Therefore, access to TDs is imperative for promoting science and innovation.

Open access to scientific publications has been in the focus of public policy discourse for two decades, …

Nfts: The Latest Technology Challenging Copyright Law's Relevance Within A Decentralized System, Rebecca Carroll

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

Non-fungible tokens (“NFTs”) redefine society’s understanding of digital ownership and transform how creators distribute original works to consumers. This unique and often misunderstood technol- ogy has the potential to yield extraordinary value for both creators and consumers. While NFTs have existed for some time now, the recent frenzy caused by several high-value sales of NFTs exposed a number of unanswered legal questions, particularly in copyright law. NFTs also raise ideological concerns over how much, if any, government oversight and regulation should exist over the “open” internet. This Note explores copyright law’s application to NFTs and seeks to address a number …

Olympians As Laborers: How Unionizing Can Help Athletes Bargain For Compensation And Better Structural Support, Sherif Farrag

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

Team USA athletes suffer poor structural support and inadequate compensation despite constituting irreplaceable labor for the multi-billion-dollar Olympic sports industry. This poor support is evident in recent complaints made by Olympic stars of the poor mental health support provided by the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee and in its failure to prevent nearly two decades of sexual abuse perpetrated on USA Gymnastics gymnasts. The inadequate compensation is apparent as athletes continue to receive no wages for their participation in the Olympics or Olympic-sanctioned events, generally struggle financially, and face restrictions on licensing their name, image, and likeness to partners …

Face The Facts, Or Is The Face A Fact?: Biometric Privacy In Publicly Available Data, Daniel Levin

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

Recent advances in biometric technologies have caused a stir among the privacy community. Specifically, facial recognition technologies facilitated through data scraping practices have called into question the basic precepts we had around exercising biometric privacy. Yet, in spite of emerging case law on the permissibility of data scraping, comparatively little attention has been given to the privacy implications endemic to such practices.

On the one hand, privacy proponents espouse the view that manipulating publicly available data from, for example, our social media profiles, derogates from users’ expectations around the kind of data they share with platforms (and the obligations such …

Failed Analogies: Justice Thomas’S Concurrence In Biden V. Knight First Amendment Institute, Sarah S. Seo

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

Twenty-six years ago, twenty-six words created the internet. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is a short, yet powerful, provision that notably protects social media platforms, among other interactive computer services, from liability for content created by third-party users. At the time of its enactment, Section 230 aimed to encourage the robust growth of the then-nascent internet while protecting it from government regulation. More recently, however, it has been wielded by Big Tech companies like Twitter and Facebook to prevent any liability for real-world harms that stem from virtual interactions conducted over their platforms.

Although the Supreme Court has …

Algorithms And Misinformation: The Constitutional Implications Of Regulating Microtargeting, Talia Bulka

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

The increased popularity of social media in recent years has brought with it unwanted consequences. Most notably, the world is experiencing a widespread epidemic of online misinformation and disinformation. In the form of news stories and advertisements, false information about candidates like Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and Donald Trump has spread over Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Since false information is often more sensational than the truth, this information is reposted and shared until it reaches millions of people. However, the real culprit of this misinformation phenomenon is microtargeting—algorithms that exploit users’ personal information and previous media interactions to target …

I See Dead Patents: How Bugs In The Patent System Keep Expired Patents Alive, Dinis Cheian

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

One of the most important days in the life of a patent is the day it dies.

The moment a patent dies, the patent owner loses her monopoly over her invention, ending the stream of income generated by that patent. Without an enforceable patent to protect the invention, the competitors and public can freely buy and sell copycat products that compete with the patent owner’s. Consumers reap the rewards in the form of more options and lower prices.

Normally, those potential competitors must wait exactly twenty years from the date the patent application is filed with the United States Patent …

Copyright’S Techno-Pessimist Creep, Xiyin Tang

Fordham Law Review

Government investigations and public scrutiny of Big Tech are at an all-time high. While current legal scholarship and government focus have centered overwhelmingly on whether and how antitrust law and § 230 of the Communications Decency Act can be revised to address platform dominance, scant attention has been paid to another, almost unseen attempt to regulate Big Tech: copyright law. The recent adoption in Europe of Article 17 of the Copyright Directive, which holds internet platforms liable for user-generated creative content unless they obtain costly content licenses, is the most direct example of such regulation—and may serve as precedent for …

Cracking The Code: How To Prevent Copyright Termination From Upending The Proprietary And Open Source Software Markets, Grant Emrich

Fordham Law Review

Computer software is protected by copyright law through its underlying code, which courts have interpreted as constituting a “literary work” pursuant to the Copyright Act. Prior to including software as copyrightable subject matter, Congress established a termination right which grants original authors the ability to reclaim their copyright thirty-five years after they have transferred it. Termination was intended to benefit up-and-coming authors who faced an inherent disadvantage in the market when selling the rights to their works. In the near future, many software works will reach the thirty-five-year threshold, thus presenting courts with a novel application of termination to computer …

1c Plenary Session. Views From The Judiciary, Hugh C. Hansen, Richard Arnold, Annabelle Bennett, Colin Birss, Stephen Burley, Paolo Catallozzi, Jennifer Choe-Groves, Christopher Floyd, Klaus Grabinski, Lennie Hoffman, Simon Holzer, Gordon Humphreys, Robin Jacob, Carl Josefsson, Rian Kalden, F. Scott Kleff, Kathleen M. O'Malley, Paul R. Michel, Pauline Newman

28th Annual Intellectual Property Law & Policy Conference (2021)

No abstract provided.

5d Patent Law Session. Ptab, Kenneth R. Adamo, George E. Badenoch, Patricia Martone, John Richards, John R. Thomas, Brian Scarpelli

28th Annual Intellectual Property Law & Policy Conference (2021)

No abstract provided.

7e Competition & Four Concurrent Sessions. Ip And Courts: Current And Future Challenges, Stevan D. Mitchell, Klaus Grabinski, Carl Josefsson, Annabelle Bennett, F. Scott Kieff, Oliver Jan Jüngst

28th Annual Intellectual Property Law & Policy Conference (2021)

No abstract provided.

6d Copyright Law, Competition & Trademark Law Session. U.S. Trademark Law Update, Marshall Leaffer, Joshua L. Simmons, Jeffrey A. Handelman, Gerald M. Levine, Jennifer Mcdowell

28th Annual Intellectual Property Law & Policy Conference (2021)

No abstract provided.

7d Competition & Four Concurrent Sessions. Trade Secrets, Jan-Diederik Lindemans, Richard Arnold, Courtney Cox, Victoria A. Cundiff, Sharon K. Sandeen

28th Annual Intellectual Property Law & Policy Conference (2021)

No abstract provided.

5c Patent Law Session. International Patent Developments, John Richards, Robin Jacob, Christopher Floyd, Lennie Hoffman, Dirk Bühler, Heinz Goddar, Gustavo De Freitas Morais, Shlomo Cohen

28th Annual Intellectual Property Law & Policy Conference (2021)

No abstract provided.

6c Copyright Law, Competition & Trademark Law Session. Frand, Cordula Schumacher, David Por, Steven Geiszler, Anne-Charlotte Le Bihan, Milan Kristof, Rian Kalden, Tobias Hahn, Steve Akerley

28th Annual Intellectual Property Law & Policy Conference (2021)

No abstract provided.

7c Competition & Four Concurrent Sessions. Artificial Intelligence, Michael S. Shapiro, Heli Pihlajamaa, Janet Freilich, Carlo Scollo Lavizzari, Michael Fischer, Shlomit Yanisky-Ravid, Ian C. Ballon

28th Annual Intellectual Property Law & Policy Conference (2021)

No abstract provided.

5b Patent Law Session. Patent Litigation, Myles Jelf, Simon Holzer, Marjan Noor, Stephen Burley, Ronald E. Dimock, Otto Licks, Aloys Hütterman

28th Annual Intellectual Property Law & Policy Conference (2021)

No abstract provided.

6b Copyright Law, Competition & Trademark Law Session. Copyright & Music, Mitch Glazier, Judith Finell, William F. Patry, Regan A. Smith, Daniel J. Abowd, Richard Pfohl, Sean M, O'Connor

28th Annual Intellectual Property Law & Policy Conference (2021)

No abstract provided.

7b Competition & Four Concurrent Sessions. Antitrust: Ai And Digital Platforms, Daryl Lim, Damien Geradin, William E. Kovacic, Thomas B. Nachbar, Thibault Schrepel, Charlotte Slaiman, Angela Zhang

28th Annual Intellectual Property Law & Policy Conference (2021)

No abstract provided.

5a Patent Law Session. Remedies, Brian Cordery, Paul R. Michel, Maximilian Haedicke, Marleen Van Den Horst, Adrian Howes, Ralf Uhrich, Wolrad Prinz Zu Waldeck Und Pyrmont, David J. Kappos

28th Annual Intellectual Property Law & Policy Conference (2021)

No abstract provided.

6a Copyright Law, Competition & Trademark Law Session. Platform Liability In The U.S. And Eu, Lauri Rechardt, Maria Strong, Abigail A. Rives, Ursula Feindor-Schmidt, Stanford Mccoy, Sandra Aistairs, Julia Reda

28th Annual Intellectual Property Law & Policy Conference (2021)

No abstract provided.

7a Competition & Four Concurrent Sessions. Ip In China, Mark Cohen, Elaine Wu, He Jing, Jill (Yijun) Ge, Guan H. Tang, Boya Yin

28th Annual Intellectual Property Law & Policy Conference (2021)

No abstract provided.

2c Patent Law Session. U.S. Patent Developments, Martin J. Adelman, Dimitrios T. Drivas, Nicholas P. Groombridge, Adam Mossoff, Laura Sheridan, Ari Laakkonen, Steven Lieberman

28th Annual Intellectual Property Law & Policy Conference (2021)

No abstract provided.

2b Patent Law Session. Patents And The Pandemic, Penny Gilbert, Joshua D. Sarnoff, John Todaro, James Love, Justin Hughes, Miquel Montañá, Kevin J. Mcgough, Jihn Lee

28th Annual Intellectual Property Law & Policy Conference (2021)

No abstract provided.

3b Copyright Law Session. Copyright Potpourri, Ron Lazebnik, Umair Kazi, Sepehr Shahshahani, Paolo Catallozzi, Steven J. Shapiro, Christine Storry, Ann Bartow, Susan Scafidi

28th Annual Intellectual Property Law & Policy Conference (2021)

No abstract provided.

4b Trademark Law Session. Trademark Applications And Enforcement In Bad Faith: Developments In The Courts And Legislature, Sven Schonhofen, Alexander Tsoutsanis, Magdalena Berger, Gareth Dickson, Paul Maier, Daniel R. Bereskin C.M., Q.C.

28th Annual Intellectual Property Law & Policy Conference (2021)

No abstract provided.

4c Trademark Law Session. Trademark Potpourri, Magdalena Berger, Etienne Sanz De Acedo, Gordon Humphreys, Melissa Pittaoulis, Joel Smith, Daan Erickson, Irene Calboli, Anderson Duff

28th Annual Intellectual Property Law & Policy Conference (2021)

No abstract provided.

2a Patent Law Session. Subject Matter Eligibility, Adam Mossoff, John B. Pegram, David J. Kappos, Shimako Kato, Michael Williams, Trevor Cook

28th Annual Intellectual Property Law & Policy Conference (2021)

No abstract provided.

3a Copyright Law Session. Eu Copyright Reform, Ted Shapiro, Eleonora Rosati, Jan Bernd Nordemann, Jerker Rydén, Fiona Phillips, Giuseppe Mazziotti, Silke Von Lewinski

28th Annual Intellectual Property Law & Policy Conference (2021)

No abstract provided.