Intellectual Property Law Commons^™

Copyright, Fair Use And Motion Pictures, Peter Jaszi

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Within copyright law, the tension between contemporary creators' needs for access to preexisting material, on the one hand, and the imperatives of copyright ownership, on the other, are mediated primarily by the so-called "fair use" doctrine. The application of this venerable legal concept, which exempts some substantial takings of protected content from infringement liability, is the subject of this essay.

Does Liability Enhance Credibility?: Lessons From The Dmca Applied To Online Defamation, Olivera Medenica, Kaiser Wahab

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Supreme Court And The Federal Circuit: Visitation And Custody Of Patent Law, Rebecca S. Eisenberg

Articles

The U.S. Supreme Court’s relationship to patent law sometimes seems like that of a non-custodial parent who spends an occasional weekend with the kids. The custodial parent is, of course, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The Federal Courts Improvement Act of 1982 consolidated intermediate appellate jurisdiction over patent law cases in this single court, which hears appeals from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“PTO”), the U.S. District Courts, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, and the U.S. In-ternational Trade Commission. Day to day it is the Federal Circuit that reviews contested decisions of the institutions …

The Twilight Of The Opera Pirates: A Prehistory Of The Exclusive Right Of Public Performance For Musical Compositions, Zvi S. Rosen

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

To Live In In-"Fame"-Y: Reconceiving Scandalous Marks As Analogous To Famous Marks, Jasmine Abdel-Khalik

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Visions And Revisions: Fanvids And Fair Use, Sarah Trombley

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Magnificence Of The Disaster: Reconstructing The Sony Bmg Rootkit Incident, Deirdre K. Mulligan, Aaron Perzanowski

Articles

Late in 2005, Sony BMG released millions of Compact Discs containing digital rights management technologies that threatened the security of its customers' computers and the integrity of the information infrastructure more broadly. This Article aims to identify the market, technological, and legal factors that appear to have led a presumably rational actor toward a strategy that in retrospect appears obviously and fundamentally misguided.

The Article first addresses the market-based rationales that likely influenced Sony BMG's deployment of these DRM systems and reveals that even the most charitable interpretation of Sony BMG's internal strategizing demonstrates a failure to adequately value security …

Is An Accrued Cause Of Action For Copyright Infringement More Like A Kidney Or A Contract?, Bryanne J. Schmitt

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

To Achieve Closure Of The Hatch-Waxman Act's Loopholes, Legislative Action Is Unnecessary; Generic Manufacturers Are Able To Hold Their Own, Yana Pechersky

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Cope-Ing With The Future: An Examination Of The Potential Copyright Liability Of Non-Neutral Networks For Infringing Internet Content, Alex Pisarevsky

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Freedom Of Information Act And Trade Secrets, Roger V. Skalbeck

Law Faculty Publications

This article details a case illustration where federal law intersects with trade secret questions, a subject normally governed by state laws.

Accidental Rights, James Gibson

Law Faculty Publications

Written for the Yale Law Journal's online Pocket Part, this is a much shorter and (I hope) more accessible iteration of my earlier paper, Risk Aversion and Rights Accretion in Intellectual Property Law, 116 Yale L.J. 882 (2007). It summarizes that paper's central point - i.e., that intellectual property entitlements are growing not just because of expansive court decisions and legislative enactments, but also because of seemingly sensible, risk-averse licensing decisions that inadvertently feed back into legal doctrine - and then explores how this phenomenon might apply to (and be manipulated by) enterprises such as Google Book Search.

Ebay V. Mercexchange: Looking At The Cause And Effect Of A Shift In The Standard For Issuing Patent Injunctions, Rebecca A. Hand

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

In Search Of Validity: A New Model For The Content And Procedural Treatment Of Trademark Infringement Surveys, Irina D. Manta

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

On The Legal Consequences Of Sauces: Should Thomas Keller's Recipes Be Per Se Copyrightable?, Christopher J. Buccafusco

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Reforming Section 115: Escape From The Byzantine World Of Mechanical Licensing, Skyla Mitchell

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Adverse To What?: The Increasing Value Of Patent Opinions After Knorr-Bremse, Matthew Leary

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Recent Second Circuit Opinions Indicate That Google's Library Project Is Not Transformative, Matt Williams

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Struggling Around The "Natural" Divide: The Protection Of Tangible And Intangible Indigenous Property, Emanuela Arezzo

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Performance Anxiety: The Internet And Copyright's Vanishing Performance/Distribution Distinction, Jonah M. Knobler

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Oysters And Oligonucleotides: Concerns And Proposals For Patenting Research Tools, Cara Koss

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Coming Into Compliance With Trips: A Discussion Of India's New Patent Laws, Jeffrey Colin

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Using Innovative Technologies To Analyze For Similarity Between Musical Works In Copyright Infringement Disputes, Yvette Joy Liebesman

All Faculty Scholarship

Courts continue to struggle with discerning the level of substantial similarity between musical compositions in infringement analyses, which is related to their difficulty in determining the portion that is available for the public to use, and where that permission stops. This paper argues that, under the current policies regarding copyright protection and unauthorized copying, the current test is inadequate and a new infringement test should be considered. Two alternatives are proposed. The first test uses objective mapping of a song’s artistic elements. The second considers the link between wave motion theory of physics and music and proposes comparing the mathematical …

Book Review, Jennifer L. Behrens

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Commodification, Intellectual Property And The Women Of Gee’S Bend, Victoria F. Phillips

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

In this article the author explores the story of the quilters of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, tracing the emergence of this group of isolated, disenfranchised craftswomen as both fine artists and the unlikely purveyors of mass-market consumer culture through commodification based on the power of intellectual property rights. The author then looks to recent trends in commodification literature to help explore the tensions and dualities presented in the story. Among other things, the article asks whether the quilters have been coerced into the marketplace and are unwittingly alienating part of their identity, or whether they have willingly tapped the power of …

Review Of The 2006 Trademark Decisions Of The Federal Circuit, Christine Haight Farley, Geri L. Haight

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit delivered only seven precedential trademark opinions in 2006. The Court addressed a range of substantive issues including trade dress configuration, reverse passing off, and genericism. Notably, two of the seven precedential decisions involved plant names protected by the Plant Variety Protection Act. The Court decided only one case in 2006 where the primary issue was procedural, rather than substantive. In that case, the Court sided with the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board and affirmed its decision on the applicability of the res judicata doctrine. In 2006, as in previous years, …

Metabranding And Intermediation: A Response To Professor Fleischer, Laura A. Heymann

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Patents On Legal Methods? No Way!, Andrew A. Schwartz

Publications

An “invention,” as used in the United States patent laws, refers to anything made by man that employs or harnesses a law of nature or a naturally occurring substance for human benefit. A watermill, for instance, harnesses the power of gravity to run machinery. But legal methods, such as tax strategies, are not inventions in this sense, because they employ “laws of man” — not laws of nature to produce a useful result.

Domain Names, Trademarks, And The First Amendment: Searching For Meaningful Boundaries, Margreth Barrett

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Social Costs Of Property Rights In Broadcast (And Cable) Signals, Shyamkrishna Balganesh

Faculty Scholarship

The use of property as a regulatory mechanism in the telecommunications sector is hardly novel. Since the early twentieth century, policy makers and regulators in the United States have experimented with different mechanisms for allocating private rights in the radio spectrum. In 1959, Ronald Coase proposed that the FCC auction rights in the broadcast spectrum and convert broadcast licenses into tradable commodities. However, it was not until very recently that the FCC implemented Coase's idea. At least part of the reason for the long delay in implementing this seemingly efficient mechanism lay in the public nature of broadcasting and the …