Intellectual Property Law Commons^™

How Design Patent Law Lost Its Shape, Sarah Burstein

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Owning Colors, Deborah R. Gerhardt, Jon Mcclanahan Lee

Cardozo Law Review

Color is powerful. Historically, colors have been invested with mystical, symbolic, and religious significance. We are biologically wired to respond to color cues. A particular color may stimulate emotion, activate memory, and influence perception of the passage of time. Yet the omnipresence of color in our visual world is just the beginning of the story. We have learned to attach many meanings to colors through our lived experiences. Colors have become heuristics for even our abstract ideas. They connect communities. They unite and divide sports fans. They may be shorthand for gender identity, sexual orientation, race, and political identity. Although …

The Normativity Of Possibilities And Ideals, Tvsi Blanchard

Cardozo Law Review

To begin, Arthur, I want to say to you, that it's privilege for me to be a part of this event that honors you. We've known each other for a long time and I, as all of us here, have always recognized your intellectual capability and deep insight. But I also want to add here that you are at the same time a very kind, caring person. In many ways, you are the embodiment of what I would hold the most important Jewish value of Chesed, loving-kindness. For me it is an inspiration to know you.

Patent Enforcement In Cyberterritories, Daniel Harris Brean

Cardozo Law Review

3D printing technology has exposed a gap in patent protection. Thanks to 3D printers, physical products can be created and sold digitally in the form of CAD files, and consumers printing the products are effectively manufacturers. But current law would treat a product patent as being directly infringed only when the physical product is made, used, offered for sale, or sold, making it difficult to target the digital source of the infringement. While past scholarship has fashioned new legal constructs to close this gap (e.g., expanding patent eligibility or extending infringement case law) this Article considers whether a proper, analogous …

Loyalty And Betrayal, Bernhard Schlink

Cardozo Law Review

Role theory identifies people through the roles they choose and the way in which they coordinate them. That is no different from what we do when we meet someone and try to gain a sense of him or her. We ask about their profession, where they studied, enquire about their spouse and children, leisure activities, social and political engagement, and which clubs or church they attend. We try to discover the meaning that these various roles hold for the person and whether such roles are endowed with stronger or weaker emotional significance, are experienced as being more or less essential …

Legal Sets, Jeremy N. Sheff

Cardozo Law Review

In this Article, I propose that the practices of legal reasoning and analysis are helpfully understood as being primarily concerned not with rules or propositions, but with sets. This Article develops a formal model of the role of sets in the practices of legal actors in a common-law system defined by a recursive relationship between cases and rules. In doing so, it demonstrates how conceiving of legal doctrines as a universe of discourse comprising (sometimes nested or overlapping) sets of cases can clarify the logical structure that governs marginal cases and help organize the available options for resolving such cases …

How Playlists Broke The Internet: An Analysis Of Copyright In Playlist Ownership, Tori Misrok

Cardozo Law Review

Part I of this Note discusses the prevailing understanding of copyright law and the Copyright Act's existing statutory scheme that governs copyright protection for artistic and creative works. This Part also explains the implications of such categorizations on how the courts deem which works are sufficiently original and creative to receive federal copyright protection. Part II delineates the history and rise of digital music streaming services and playlists and how copyright law protections may apply to them. Part III examines the application of federal copyright law to playlists. In doing so, this Part determines whether playlists are compilations and, if …

O.K. Computer: The Devolution Of Human Creativity And Granting Musical Copyrights To Artificially Intelligent Joint Authors, Jared Vasconcellos Grubow

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

When Artificial Intelligence Systems Produce Inventions: An Alternative Model For Patent Law At The 3a Era, Shlomit Yanisky Ravid, Xiaoqiong (Jackie) Liu

Cardozo Law Review

Currently, robots, Artificial Intelligence, and machine learning systems (hereinafter referred to collectively as AI or AI systems) can create inventions, which, had they been created by humans, would be eligible for patent protection. This Article addresses the patentability of these inventions created by AI systems. We argue that traditional patent law has become outdated, inapplicable, and irrelevant with respect to inventions created by AI systems. We call on policy makers to rethink current patent law governing AI systems and replace it with tools more applicable to the new (3A) era of advanced, automated, and autonomous AI systems. Our argument is …

Administering Health Innovation, Rachel E. Sachs

Cardozo Law Review

Scholars and policymakers have recently begun to focus on the role federal agencies charged with health-related missions can play in the development of innovative health technologies and promotion of access to those technologies. Appreciating the expertise of agencies like the National Institutes of Health, Food and Drug Administration, and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has expanded the range of tools contemplated by scholars who had previously focused largely on the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Yet much of this attention has so far focused on the capacities of single agencies, acting alone. This Article expands the existing scholarly …

Reining In A "Renegade" Court: Tc Heartland And The Eastern District Of Texas, J. Jonas Anderson

Cardozo Law Review

In TC Heartland v. Kraft Foods Group Brands, the Supreme Court tightened the venue requirement for patent cases, making it more difficult for a plaintiff to demonstrate that a district court has venue over a defendant. Many commentators, however, view TC Heartland as merely a "reshuffling" of the district courts that receive patent cases. Whereas before the case, a large percentage of patent cases were filed in the Eastern District of Texas, now, after TC Heartland, various other U.S. district courts (principally, the District of Delaware) have experienced an increase in patent infringement filings. Some commentators are unconvinced …

Intellectual Property Channeling For Digital Works, Lucas S. Osborn

Cardozo Law Review

Market economies are based on free competition, which can include copying. Yet intellectual property protection in the United States prohibits copying in certain circumstances to incentivize innovation and creativity. New breeds of digital works are challenging our historical application of intellectual property law. These include certain categories of software programs as well as digital manufacturing files. These new works look deceptively like works from a previous era and thus, courts might languorously treat them as they have older works. This would be a mistake. This Article analyzes these works in terms of existing intellectual property doctrine and constructs a normative …

Brexit And Ip: The Great Unraveling?, Graeme B. Dinwoodie, Rochelle Cooper Dreyfuss

Cardozo Law Review

The article examines the impact of Brexit on intellectual property (IP) law in the United Kingdom, arguing that while Brexit may theoretically restore sovereignty, the practical benefits are limited. The U.K. remains deeply intertwined with international IP regimes, and the costs of divergence from European Union (E.U.) law may outweigh the gains. The authors conclude that the U.K. will likely need to recreate many E.U.-derived IP protections to maintain a robust creative sector and global trade efficiency.

"Too Big To Foia": How Agencies Avoid Compliance With The Freedom Of Information Act, Stephanie Alvarez-Jones

Cardozo Law Review

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), while foundational for promoting government transparency, faces significant challenges in its administration, particularly through the judicially created "undue burden" claim, which allows agencies to evade disclosure. The note argues that courts' deference to agencies' claims of undue burden undermines FOIA's purpose of promoting openness. It proposes reforms, such as a public interest sliding scale, to balance the burden on agencies against the public's right to know, ensuring FOIA remains an effective tool for accountability.

Copyrighting The Quotidian: An Analysis Of Copyright Law For Postmodern Choreographers, Jessica Goudreault

Cardozo Law Review

Part I begins with a primer on the laws of copyright. It provides an overview of the statute's history, as well as some background on particular doctrines developed through case law. Part II introduces the history of postmodern dance and the choreographer Trisha Brown, whose work will function as a case study herein. Part III analyzes Brown's work as it relates to the statutory language of copyright law and the doctrines of originality, functionality, idea/expression dichotomy, and fixation. The analysis uses Brown's work Man Walking Down the Side of a Building as a single example to provide a real sense …

Fighting The Troll Toll: The Case For Judicial Review Of The U.S.P.T.O. Director's Denial Of A Petition To Institute An Inter Partes Review, Renoj Zachariah

Cardozo Law Review

The note challenges the Federal Circuit's ruling in St. Jude Medical, LLC v. Volcano Corp., which held that the Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's (USPTO) decision to deny an Inter Partes Review (IPR) is final and non-appealable under 35 U.S.C. § 314(d). Arguing that this ruling misinterprets the statute and undermines the goals of the America Invents Act (AIA), the article advocates for judicial review of such decisions to ensure fairness, prevent abuse of discretion, and align IPR proceedings with administrative law principles. It also highlights the inconsistency in allowing judicial review for Covered Business Method …

From Pay-For-Delay To Product Hopping: The Limited Utility Of Antitrust Law In The Pharmaceutical Industry, Joseph Fielding

Cardozo Law Review

The note examines the intersection of patent law and antitrust policy, particularly in the context of pharmaceutical drug competition. It argues that while antitrust enforcement is an effective solution to address "pay-for-delay" agreements, it is less suitable for resolving "product-hopping" issues. Instead, the article contends that closing regulatory loopholes in the Hatch-Waxman framework would be a more effective approach to curbing anticompetitive product-hopping practices. The analysis focuses on two key cases—Federal Trade Commission v. Actavis, Inc. and Schneiderman v. Actavis LLC—to illustrate the legal and economic implications of these strategies.

What's The [Irreparable] Harm?: Incentivizing Creativity Through Preliminary Injunctions In Copyright Law, Arielle Matza

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

3d Printing The Road Ahead: The Digitization Of Products When Public Safety Meets Intellectual Property Rights-A New Model, Shlomit Yanisky-Ravid, Kenneth S. Kwan

Cardozo Law Review

This Article addresses the threats of 3D printing to both the physical and legal world. Not only does 3D printing impact products protected by intellectual property rights, it also poses risk, threats, and challenges to many other regimes, including products governed by product liability and criminal laws, which consequently threatens public safety. 3D printing virtually possesses threats to medical devices and products, threats to legal and illegal drugs, threats to human organs, threats to the food industry, and to the transportation industry, including cars, trains, and aircrafts. Ultimately, 3D printing also threatens environmental protection, workplace protections, households, and even the …

A Tri-Partite Classification Scheme To Clarify Conceptual Separability In The Context Of Clothing Design, Giovanna Marchese

Cardozo Law Review

The article examines the complexities of copyright protection for clothing designs under the 1976 Copyright Act, focusing on the challenges of applying the conceptual separability doctrine to determine when artistic elements of useful articles, like clothing, qualify for protection. It critiques the inconsistent judicial application of this doctrine and proposes a tripartite classification scheme—fabric pattern design, fabric graphic design, and garment design—to clarify and simplify the analysis of copyrightability. By addressing the ambiguity in current jurisprudence, the scheme aims to enhance predictability for the fashion industry and reduce judicial confusion.

Volition And Copyright Infringement, Robert C. Denicola

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Keeping It In The Kitchen: An Analysis Of Intellectual Property Protection Through Trade Secrets In The Restaurant Industry, Sarah Segal

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Non-Discrimination Principle In Open Source Licensing, Eli Greenbaum

Cardozo Law Review

Open source communities have required licenses to satisfy requirements of non-discrimination. This principle of non-discrimination, however, has remained peripheral to the interpretation of open source licenses, with legal analysis concentrating on other aspects of open source regimes. This Article argues that non-discrimination, far from being marginal to open source, constitutes the central legal characteristic of the licensing model, and that an appreciation of the non-discrimination requirement is essential for understanding the economic incentives and effects of the open source license. This Article applies this understanding of the non-discrimination principle to interpret specific terms in free and open source licenses. In …

Big Data, Patents, And The Future Of Medicine, W. Nicholson Price Ii

Cardozo Law Review

Big data has tremendous potential to improve health care. Unfortunately, intellectual property law isn't ready to support that leap. In the next wave of data-driven medicine, black-box medicine, researchers use sophisticated algorithms to examine huge troves of health data, finding complex, implicit relationships and making individualized assessments for patients. Black-box medicine offers potentially immense benefits, but also requires substantial high investment. Firms must develop new datasets, models, and validations, which are all nonrivalrous information goods with significant spillovers, requiring incentives for welfare-optimizing investment.

Current intellectual property law fails to provide adequate incentives for black-box medicine. The Supreme Court has sharply …

The Chicago School Trap In Trademark: The Co-Evolution Of Corporate, Antitrust, And Trademark Law, Deven R. Desai

Cardozo Law Review

The central claim of this Article is that, as a descriptive matter, trademark legislation and court interpretation is a close normative match with the Chicago School approach of scholars such as Robert Bork and Richard Posner. The organizing intellectual structure of modern trademark law, as developed in the law, has been freedom of action for the owner of the mark, not minimizing search costs as repeatedly stated in academic writing. This Article thus reveals that modern trademark law is a subset of the Chicago School's approach to the firm, deference to management, and competition. That view is not interested in …

The Broken System Of Parallel Patent Proceedings: How To Create A Unified, One-Judgment System, Christopher Ilardi

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Cognitive And Aesthetic Functionality In Trademark Law, Justin Hughes

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

On Patenting Human Organisms Or How The Abortion Wars Feed Into The Ownership Fallacy, Yaniv Heled

Cardozo Law Review

The idea of ominous technologies that put human individuals or parts of their bodies under someone else's control has been stirring emotions and terrifying people for centuries. It was a recent offshoot of this idea - the notion of "patenting humans" - that mobilized certain members of Congress to pass legislation prohibiting the issuance of patent claims "directed to or encompassing a human organism." The values underlying this legislation may well have been agreeable, even admirable. Yet, the actual motivation for it was misguided; its execution, deeply flawed; its potential outcomes, hazardous.

This Article reviews the history and background of …

Public Law At The Cathedral: Enjoining The Government, Michael T. Morley

Cardozo Law Review

Conventional wisdom provides that injunctive relief in public law cases is generally unnecessary, because a declaratory judgment and the threat of damages are enough to induce the government to comply with a court's ruling (except, perhaps, in the institutional reform context). Consistent with this prevailing understanding, most scholars to apply Calabresi and Melamed's Cathedral framework to public law have concluded that nearly all constitutional rights are protected by property rules, regardless of whether a rightholder actually is protected by an injunction, or instead merely has a substantial likelihood of obtaining one if she goes to court.

This Article challenges this …

The Infringement Continuum, Bernard Chao

Cardozo Law Review

For many years, patent law has struggled with the issue of permissible claim scope. A patent's specification and its claims often suffer from a surprising disconnect. The specification generally describes an invention in terms of one or more specific implementations, suggesting a relatively narrow invention. But claims are drafted far more broadly. They frequently encompass unforeseen variations and even cover after-arising technology.

Although there are numerous existing doctrines that try to prevent claims from straying too far from their specification, these doctrines offer binary outcomes ill suited for patent law. Under these doctrines, as a claim encompasses subject matter further …