Intellectual Property Law Commons^™

Reconstructing First Amendment Doctrine: The 1990s (R)Evolution Of The Central Hudson And O'Brien Tests, Susan Dente Ross

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

In this article, the Supreme Court's shifting and expanding approach to intermediate scrutiny of commercial free speech under the First Amendment is examined. The author maintains that the Supreme Court has increased the level of review for content-neutral laws regulating commercial speech, while decreasing the level of review of laws affecting the media. The author argues that these analytical shifts have eroded First Amendment protection for the media, replacing the traditional notion that the media is central to a functioning democracy with the view that the press is simply a powerful, commercial enterprise. The author concludes by contrasting two recent …

Pricing Network Elements Under The Telecommunications Act Of 1996: Back To The Future, Salvatore Massa, Mark E. Meitzen, Steve G. Parsons

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

This article examines the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and Congress' intent that it encourage new local telephone exchange carriers to enter the local telephone market, thereby increasing competition and reducing consumer cost. The authors give an overview of the Act, and then examine the disputes surrounding how the new carriers should pay for the use of existing network facilities under it. The authors argue that the Supreme Court should adopt the Eighth Circuit's actual incremental costs approach, because it is based on the expected future costs of an actual market participant, and is therefore more consistent with sound economic principles.

The Webcasting Music Revolution Is Ready To Begin, As Soon As We Figure Out The Copyright Law: The Story Of The Music Industry At War With Itself, Kimberly L. Craft

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

No one has yet been able to agree on the meaning of the copyright laws related to webcast licensing and fees or how to define and treat new technological advances, innovations and uses. This article provides background into the history of the copyright law as it relates to music webcasting, including the Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act of 1995 ("DPRA") and the DMCA, explains the various forms of copyright protection held in recorded sound performances and its relation to online transmissions, discusses the history of the complex, legal situation which has resulted, new developments surrounding the proposed Music …

The Domain Name Registration .Bizness: Are We Being Pulled Over On The Information Super Highway, Navin Katyal

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

This paper critically analyzes the de facto control over the Domain Name System currently administered by the not-for-profit organization, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ("ICANN"). Specifically, the author addresses the concerns of how ICANN fails to lead in the direction of appropriate Internet governance, and how it directs the Domain Name Registration ("DNR") industry to focus more upon economics, rather than engaging in legitimate issues surrounding trademark disputes created by the DNR.

International Copyright Infringement And The Internet: An Analysis Of The Exisiting Means Of Enforcement, Matthew V. Pietsch

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

An aspect of the Internet that contributes to the difficulty in policing copyright infringement is the inherently international nature of the medium. This article will identify some of the more complicated copyright enforcement issues that exist and will also describe some of the current legal devices available to combat international copyright infringement, such as: (1) the Digital Millennium Copyright Act; (2) the European Union Directive on Electronic Commerce; (3) the World Trade Organization and the related Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property; (4) the World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty and Performances and Phonograms Treaty; (5) the North American …

In Finnigan's Wake: Recent Confusing Changes In The Federal Circuit's Requirement For Corroboration Of Witness Testimony During Patent Infringement Litigation, Steven N. Hird

University of Colorado Law Review

No abstract provided.

Authorship, Dominance, And The Captive Collaborator: Preserving The Rights Of Joint Authors, Mary Lafrance

Scholarly Works

For copyright purposes, determining whether a work has a single author or joint authors is important for a variety of reasons. Perhaps the most significant legal consequence of joint authorship is joint ownership, under which the authors enjoy equal and undivided ownership of the copyright, allowing each to exploit the work freely, subject to a duty to account to the others for a ratable share of the exploitation profits. Absent an agreement to the contrary, each author of a joint work has an equal claim to those profits and an equal right to exploit the work, even if the authors' …

Blame It On The Cybersquatters: How Congress Partially Ends The Circus Among The Circuits With The Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act?, Xuan-Thao Nguyen

Articles

Congress blamed the cybersquatters for the need to pass another trademark cyberlaw. Congress enacted the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (“ACPA”) on November 29, 1999. The ACPA aimed to protect consumers and businesses, to promote the growth of electronic commerce, and to provide clarity in the law for trademark owners by prohibiting cybersquatting activities on the Internet. Prior to the enactment of the ACPA, the Federal Trademark Dilution Act (“FTDA”), which was passed by Congress in 1995 and became effective on January 16, 1996, was hailed as a powerful tool to combat cybersquatters on the Internet. That presumed powerful tool turned …

Shifting The Paradigm In E-Commerce: Move Over Inherently Distinctive Trademarks, The E-Brand, I-Brand And Generic Domain Names Ascending To Power?, Xuan-Thao Nguyen

Articles

“What's in a name!” laments Juliet at her Shakespearean balcony. Four hundred years later, in the world of e-commerce, Juliet's question would be “What's in a domain name?” After spending all of the Montague's wealth, Romeo might be able to respond, “Call me but love.com.” The price tag for some generic domain names cost a small fortune: Sex.com for $250 million, Business.com for $7.5 million, Broadband.com for $6 million, Loans.com for $3 million, Flu.com for $1.4 million, and Bingo.com for $1.1 million.

In 1995, Procter and Gamble registered hundreds of generic domain names and offered them for sale at auction …

Should It Be A Free For All? The Challenge Of Extending Trade Dress Protection To The Look And Feel Of Web Sites, Xuan-Thao Nguyen

Articles

In the e-commerce world, a company's web site becomes the primary communication center with the customer. The web site is where the company displays products, presents marketing materials, and provides sales and post-sales support. Increasingly, companies are spending valuable resources to build and maintain their web sites. With the rapid change in web technology, many web sites now feature more than just ordinary text. Color, clipart, graphics, designs, animations, and sounds are now part of the overall appearance of web sites. Yet copying an image from a web site is just one click away. What protection is available to the …

Commentary: International And Comparative Law Perspectives On Internet Patents, Toshiko Takenaka

Articles

The Internet and e-commerce have created a borderless market. Goods and services sold on the Internet are subject to the patent statutes and regulations of all countries in which customers have access. Because the presence or absence of patent protection—or variations in that protection—hinders the movement of goods and services throughout the Internet, it is necessary to harmonize the protection afforded by Internet patents in their early stages of development. Among the three papers, however, only Professor Chiappetta touched upon the problem of compliance with the provisions in TRIPS. None of the papers paid attention to the feasibility of harmonizing …

International And Comparative Law Perspectives On Internet Patents, Toshiko Takenaka

Articles

This commentary will focus on the participants' proposals relative to the laws of other countries. Particularly, assuming that the same proposals were to be made in an international negotiation, my commentary reflects potential reactions and responses from Japanese and European delegates.

Judicial Review Of Icann Domain Name Dispute Decisions, 18 Santa Clara Computer & High Tech. L.J. 35 (2001), David E. Sorkin

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Dynamic Analytics Of Property Law, Michael A. Heller

Faculty Scholarship

The standard property trilogy of private, commons, and state has become so outdated that it now impedes imagination and innovation at the frontiers of ownership. This essay suggests two approaches – creating new ideal types and synthesizing existing ones – that may help update our static property metaphors. Using these dynamic approaches to property analytics, legal theory can move beyond polarizing oppositions that have made jurisprudential debates unsolvable and rendered concrete problems invisible.

Have Moral Rights Come Of (Digital) Age In The United States?, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

More than any other contemporary American legal scholar, Professor Merryman has drawn attention to the moral rights claims of artists. Anything written in the field in the United States since 1976 owes inspiration to The Refrigerator of Bernard Buffet ("The Refrigerator") Professor Merryman's seminal article in the 1976 Hastings Law Journal. I feel this particularly acutely since I became interested in the issue as a law student, in 1978. It looked like a hopeful time, for Professor Merryman had shown the way, and the Second Circuit, in the then-recently decided Monty Python case, seemed to be paying heed. The …

Can Copyright Become User-Friendly? Review: Jessica Litman, Digital Copyright (2001), Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

In this review, I will first briefly address Professor Litman's evocation of the copyright law-making process. Her discussion of legislative history presents a valuable and compelling account, especially for those unfamiliar with copyright law. Nonetheless, it is not a principal focus of this review. For those who read the Columbia Journal of Law & the Arts (many of whom may well be copyright lawyers), the most provocative portions of the book, to which I will devote most attention, are likely to be the chapters in which Professor Litman (a) reviews and challenges various metaphors for copyright policy (Chapter 5, "Choosing …

Berne Without Borders: Geographic Indiscretion And Digital Communications, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

This lecture examines the role of borders in the Berne Convention at the time of the treaty's first passage in 1886, and today. The later 19th century was an era of increasing commerce and communication among countries whose domestic production and reproduction of works of authorship had vastly increased, thanks in part to new technologies, such as photography, lithography, and high-speed printing. But at that time, the frontiers between nations often frustrated authors' hopes for control over, or at least compensation for, the international exploitation of their works. Authors' rights ceased at their national boundaries; the world beyond foreboded not …

Preserving The Public Trust In State-Owned Intellectual Property: A Recommendation For Legislative Action, Sharon Sandeen

Faculty Scholarship

Whether a state chooses to dedicate its intellectual property to the public domain or derive revenue from the licensing of its rights, absent express authority on the subject there is uncertainty. State employees who are aware of the existence of state-owned intellectual property are not certain how it should be managed or if they are authorized to expend state resources to pursue infringement claims. Individuals and entities who wish to use state-owned intellectual property do not know how to obtain permission for such use and without permission they cannot be certain that they will not be sued for infringement. Without …

Founding A New Journal In The Age Of Electronic Law, 1 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 1 (2001), Paul R. Michel

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

No abstract provided.

At Sea In A Black Box: Charting A Clearer Course For Juries Through The Perilous Straits Of Patent Invalidity, 1 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 3 (2001), Janice M. Mueller

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

When jurors decide whether a putative patent infringer is liable under the doctrine of equivalents, Federal Circuit law requires that the patent owner’s trial presentation provide “particularized evidence” and “linking argument” with respect to each prong of the classic tripartite test for liability (i.e., substantial identity of “function,” “way,” and “result” between each element of the claimed invention and accused device). The court has recognized that absent such evidentiary roadmapping, jurors are “put to sea without guiding charts.” In its August 2001 decision in Monsanto Co. v. Mycogen Plant Science, Inc., the Federal Circuit refused to extend this same evidentiary …

Remedies For Patent Infringement: A Comparative Study Of U.S. And Chinese Law, 1 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 35 (2001), Guangliang Zhang

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

Compared with the long history of U.S. patent law, Chinese patent law is still in its infancy. Nevertheless, there are similarities between the two laws in terms of remedies available for patent infringement. Both provide injunctive relief, damages and provisional rights remedies. Nevertheless, in granting each remedy, there are some differences. China has made consistent efforts to upgrade its patent laws to provide patent owners with adequate remedies. However there is still large room for improvement in the standards for granting preliminary injunctions, and in determining lost profits and reasonable royalties. Additionally, the Supreme Court of China should reconsider the …

Festo: A Jurisprudential Test For The Supreme Court?, 1 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 69 (2001), James E. Hopenfeld

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

This article contends that the Federal Circuit's decision in Festo Corp. v. Shoketsu Kinzoku Kogyo Kabushiki Co., now on review before the United States Supreme Court, is more than just a controversial patent case. Festo raises, in addition, important issues with respect to stare decisis and the power and authority of the Federal Circuit and appeals courts in general. The jurisprudential issues raised by Festo are revealed by an analysis of the different methods used by the Federal Circuit majority on one hand, and Judge Michel's dissent on the other, in applying Supreme Court precedent to reach a legal conclusion. …

The Uspto's New Utility Guidelines: Will They Be Enough To Secure Patent Protection In Biotech?, 1 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 142 (2001), Anna E. Morrison

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

This Comment examines the newly revised PTO utility examination guidelines for biotechnology patents. The race for patenting human genes is well underway. When complete sequences of human genes are found, researchers have been quick to seek patents. This “patent grab” has been driven less by the expectation that a particular gene sequence will result in production of a useful protein and more by the idea that enough patenting will create a protectable “haystack” in which one will find a few “genetic needles of value.” The new utility guidelines may not completely aid the underlying and fundamental policies on patenting. While …

Rock And Roll Royalties, Copyrights And Contracts Of Adhesion: Why Musicians May Be Chasing Waterfalls, 1 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 163 (2001), Starr Nelson

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

Copyrights form the basis of every recording contract. When a recording artist signs his or her first recording contract, the artist retains the copyright in the musical work but transfers ownership of the sound recording to the record company. With respect to any subsequent recording contract, the artist is not on equal bargaining footing with the record company because the record company already owns certain copyrights in the previous recording. This Comment proposes that courts recognize this unequal bargaining power when construing what is, in effect, a contract of adhesion.

The California Gold Rush And The Model Rules: Do The Prospectors Have Sufficient Guidance?, 1 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 109 (2001), Tony Goodman

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

The economic climate that existed in Silicon Valley in the mid to late 1990’s made prevalent the practice of receiving equity in a client in lieu of a legal fee, i.e. prospecting. This practice potentially impacts three of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct: 1.8(a), 1.7(b), and 1.5. None of these Rules gives the lawyer clear guidance in this situation. Because this arrangement has become an accepted alternative billing practice, this Comment proposes two amendments to the Model Rules to more clearly address the issues that arise when a lawyer accepts shares of stock in lieu of a legal fee.

The Inherent Limitations Doctrine: How The Specification May Inherently Limit The Scope Of The Claims, 1 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 124 (2001), Adam G. Kelly

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

In several recent decisions, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has established that a patentee’s express words, as disclosed in the specification, may be read into the claims to limit the scope of the invention. In addition, the Federal Circuit in Scimed and Bell Atlantic has held that not only may a patentee explicitly limit a claim term in the specification, but she may also do so “by implication.” Thus, a specification may inherently limit the scope of a claimed invention constituting what the author calls the “inherent limitations doctrine.” This new wrinkle in claim interpretation …

Does Technology Require New Law?, David D. Friedman

Faculty Publications

Technological change affects the law in at least three ways: (1) by altering the cost of violating and enforcing existing legal rules; (2) by altering the underlying facts that justify legal rules; and (3) by changing the underlying facts implicitly assumed by the law, making existing legal concepts and categories obsolete, even meaningless. The legal system can choose to ignore such changes. Alternatively, it may selectively alter its rules legislatively or via judicial interpretation. In this essay I first discuss, as an interesting historical example, past technological changes relevant to copyright law and the law's response. I then go on …

Bargaining Over The Transfer Of Proprietary Research Tools: Is This Market Failing Or Emerging?, Rebecca S. Eisenberg

Book Chapters

This analysis highlights the importance of transactions between prior and subsequent innovators to permit valuable research to go forward across the boundaries of prior patent claims. In a recent article focusing on biomedical research,4 Michael Heller and I argue that too many patent rights on 'upstream' discoveries can stifle 'downstream' research and product development by increasing transaction costs and magnifying the risk of bargaining failures. Just as too few property rights leave communally held resources prone to overuse in a 'tragedy of the commons', too many property rights can leave resources prone to underuse in what Heller calls a 'tragedy …

No "Dilettante Affair": Rethinking The Experimental Use Exception To Patent Infringement For Biomedical Research Tools, Janice M. Mueller

Washington Law Review

Scientists who require multiple "research tools" (i.e., laboratory resources such as transgenic animals and biological receptors) to develop new drugs and medical diagnostic products are frequently finding that these tools are patented or subject to other proprietary constraints. Stacking royalty obligations and heightened transaction costs resulting from the proliferation of patents on research tools threaten to slow or stop the development of new drugs and devices critical to public health. Because U.S. courts have very narrowly interpreted the common law "experimental use" defense of patent law as limited to "dilettante" uses of inventions for mere "amusement" or "philosophical" inquiry, scientists …

Making Sense Out Of Antisense: The Enablement Requirement In Biotechnology After Enzo Biochem V. Calgene, Matthew D. Kellam

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.