Intellectual Property Law Commons^™

Stewarding The Common Law Of Copyright, Shyamkrishna Balganesh

Faculty Scholarship

Copyright law is today perceived as principally statutory in origin. The Copyright Act of 1976 is thought to have codified most questions of copyright policy and doctrine, and delegated a fairly limited set of questions to courts for them to resolve incrementally on a case-by-case basis. This is in contrast to prior copyright enactments, which were brief and open-ended in structure, and seemingly envisaged a more active role for courts in rule- and policy-making. Judge Leval thus notes how over time, the idea of a constructive "partnership" between the legislature and courts in making and developing copyright law that once …

How Hard-Fought Is Copyright Litigation?, James Gibson

Law Faculty Publications

As I mentioned in my last essay, my colleague Chris Cotropia and I have recently completed a data collection project in which we examined pleadings from approximately 1,000 copyright cases filed in federal court over a four-year period. We are still evaluating the data, but our preliminary findings indicate that copyright litigation differs from other federal civil litigation; it takes longer and appears to be contested more – yet ends up in much the same place.

A little background first. During the period we studied (2005-2008), the cases fell into three broad categories. The first comprised those cases in which …

The Top Three Copyright Cases Of 2012, James Gibson

Law Faculty Publications

In my last entry in this series, I examined three important patent law cases from 2012 – one at the Supreme Court level, one at the appellate level, and one at the trial court level. I’ll now do the same thing with regard to copyright cases.

My Supreme Court choice is Golan v. Holder, in which the Court upheld a statute that restored U.S. copyright protection to certain foreign works, thus removing them from the public domain. Such works had lost their protection – or had never acquired it in the first place – because of their failure to comply …

Alienability And Copyright Law, Shyamkrishna Balganesh

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter examines the interaction between copyright and the concept of alienability to show that it holds important structural and normative lessons for our understanding of the nature of the copyright entitlement, and its limitations. My use of the word ‘interaction’ is deliberate here, since my focus is not just on the question of whether and how inalienability restrictions internal to copyright doctrine motivate our theoretical understanding of copyright and its allied rights (for example, moral rights), a project that others have focused on previously. The chapter will instead attempt to understand how the copyright entitlement has addressed the basic …

Gandhi And Copyright Pragmatism, Shyamkrishna Balganesh

Faculty Scholarship

Mahatma Gandhi is revered the world over for his views on freedom and nonviolence – ideas that he deployed with great success during India’s freedom struggle. As a thinker, he is commonly considered to have been a moral idealist: anti-utilitarian in mindset and deeply skeptical of market mechanisms. Yet, when he engaged with copyright law – as a writer, editor, and publisher – he routinely abjured the idealism of his abstract thinking in favor of a lawyerly pragmatism. Characterized by a nuanced understanding of copyright law and its conflicting normative goals, Gandhi’s thinking on copyright law reveals a reasoned, contextual, …

Copyright Infringement Markets, Shyamkrishna Balganesh

Faculty Scholarship

Should copyright infringement claims be treated as marketable assets? Copyright law has long emphasized the free and independent alienability of its exclusive rights. Yet, the right to sue for infringement – which copyright law grants authors in order to render its exclusive rights operational – has never been thought of as independently assignable, or indeed as the target of investments by third parties. As a result, discussions of copyright law and policy rarely consider the possibility of an acquisition or investment market emerging for actionable copyright claims and the advantages that such a market might hold for copyright’s goals, objectives, …

The Uneasy Case Against Copyright Trolls, Shyamkrishna Balganesh

Faculty Scholarship

The copyright troll and the phenomenon of copyright trolling have thus far received surprisingly little attention in discussions of copyright law and policy. A copyright troll refers to an entity that acquires a tailored interest in a copyrighted work with the sole objective of enforcing claims relating to that work against copiers in a zealous and dogmatic manner. Not being a creator, distributor, performer, or indeed user of the protected work, the copyright troll operates entirely in the market for copyright claims. With specialized skills in monitoring and enforcing copyright infringement, the troll is able to lower its litigation costs, …

The Legal Landscape: Session 1, Laura Gasaway, Jane C. Ginsburg, Maria Pallante, Shira Perlmutter, Richard Rudick

Faculty Scholarship

Good morning everybody, and thanks for coming. I’m June Besek, the Executive Director of the Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts, and we are especially grateful to those of you who planned to come in November, and when that was postponed still came today. We really feel very grateful to you. This symposium is on copyright exceptions for libraries and section 108 reform, and we are doing this in cooperation with the U.S. Copyright Office. I thank Maria, Chris and Karen for all the work that they put into this as well. I want to thank our sponsors …

Information May Want To Be Free, But Information Products Do Not: Protecting & Facilitating Transactions In Information Products (Reprint), Kristen Jakobsen Osenga

Law Faculty Publications

Information products-products that are used to organize, provide context, and distribute information-have gone largely unprotected by intellectual property regimes. As a result, producers of information products, such as databases and software, have resorted to alternative mechanisms to protect their investments. These mechanisms have resulted in both over-protection and under-protection ofthe information products. Further, the uncertainty in the boundaries of coverage, coupled with the resort to self-help mechanisms, may well inhibit, rather than facilitate, information flow. What is needed is a sui generis protection scheme for information products that clearly defines the boundaries and protection requirements for these works and that …

Dios Mio: The Kiss Principle Of The Ethical Approach To Copyright And Right Of Publicity Law, Michael D. Murray

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

To copy or not to copy, to exploit the famous celebrity image or not to exploit it; these are the questions. The message of the modern legal world communicated through multiple voices in the academy is that copying often is perfectly acceptable and even laudable. An artist or designer might conclude that it is both legal and ethical to use whatever you can, use whatever you can get away with, and use it until you get sued for using it. Yet plagiarism in the arts and sciences is nearly universally condemned. This Article proposes an ethical approach to the use …

Pushing Ahead With The Pro Bono Assistance Program, 12 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 286 (2013), John Calvert

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

Lawyers often contribute their time and energy helping the under-resourced through pro bono work, whether because it’s required of them or because of a personal desire to assist those less fortunate. But until 2011, few, if any programs were available for IP Professionals to volunteer their time for patent legal services, leaving them to contribute to areas of law outside their expertise. A group of IP law experts from LegalCORPS and a pro bono program created by the America Invents Act (AIA) has changed that. In this brief Article, John Calvert, author of the AIA provision that created the USPTO …

Patent Portfolio Strategy For The America Invents Act, 12 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 289 (2013), George Wheeler

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act made significant changes to U.S. patent law when it was enacted on September 16, 2011. Some provisions did not immediately take effect, however, and arguably the most important of these delayed provisions are the new rules under section 102 relating to prior art and the transition from a “first to invent” system to a “first inventor to file” system. This Article provides a guide to understanding the new rules relating to prior art and the impact these changes have on patent prosecution. Then, several strategies and techniques are discussed for managing a patent portfolio in …

On Measuring The Expertise Of Patent-Pilot Judges: Encouraging Enhancement Of Claim-Construction Uniformity, 12 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 309 (2013), Etan S. Chatlynne

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

A Pilot Program to “encourage enhancement of expertise” in patent cases among district judges recently got underway in the federal courts. The program is designed to funnel patent cases to judges who volunteer to become “pilot judges.” The idea is that as these judges hear more patent cases and become more familiar with patent law, they will be able to craft claim constructions and opinions that are increasingly likely to survive the scrutiny of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Unfortunately, the Federal Circuit’s jurisprudence may itself encumber these efforts because of a split among the Federal Circuit …

The Trademark/Domain Name Protection War: A Comparative Study Of The U.S., Udrp And Taiwanese Law, 12 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 350 (2013), Chih-Hong (Henry) Tsai

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

Trademarks have ancient origins, and a long developmental history that has informed and shaped modern approaches to trademark disputes. Many of these disputes are familiar. Yet others are a product of technological developments, such as the threats modern trademark owners face as a result of young and vibrant domain names. The United States Congress and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) have each attempted to address conflicts between trademarks and domain names, while Taiwan has not. After surveying the U.S. and ICANN attempts, and comparing each to existing Taiwanese law, this Article provides a set of recommendations …

The Biosimilars Act: The United States’ Entry Into Regulating Biosimilars And Its Implications, 12 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 322 (2013), Shawn P. Gorman, Adrian Pishko, John Iwanicki, Judith Stone-Hulslander

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is most well-known for creating a mandate requiring individuals to have health insurance. However, another provision of the Act, the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act, created a new process for companies to introduce biosimilars, products that are highly similar to licensed drugs in terms of purity, safety, and potency, but have minor differences in the inactive ingredients. This provision seeks to alleviate strain on companies introducing biosimilars by creating an abbreviated pathway for their approval by the Food and Drug Administration, similar to an Abbreviated New Drug Application under the Hatch-Waxman Act. …

As Seen On Tv: Your Compromising Cameo On National Reality Programming, 12 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 403 (2013), Ryan Westerman

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

The pop-culture phenomenon of reality television has taken over national programming. With the click of a remote, viewers can gain an inside look into the daily lives of celebrity families, toddler pageant queens, wealthy housewives, even pregnant teenagers. Reality television also profiles different professions: repo-men, pawn shop owners, and real estate agents all have television time slots. While it seems everyone is desperate for their fifteen minutes of fame, there are still those who wish to avoid the public spotlight. However, a recent Illinois ruling may make avoiding prime-time attention impossible for certain individuals caught on tape in compromising, and …

“Cyberanarchy” In The Digital Age: Developing A System Of Human (Copy)Rights, 12 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 424 (2013), Michael L. Boyle

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

“Cyberanarchy,” broadly refers to the idea that legal regulation of the Internet is an infeasible objective. One prime example is current online enforcement mechanisms’ inability to quell copyright infringement. These mechanisms do little more than perpetuate a technological arms race between copyright holders and infringers. Moreover, with notable public relations failures, such as the RIAA lawsuits and digital rights management schemes, society has taken on a nonchalant attitude towards online infringement. Examining traditional justifications behind obedience to the law, this blasé attitude takes root in societal feelings of inadequacy both in “normative” and “instrumental” perspectives of justice. Normatively, there lacks …

#Bewareofovershare: Social Media Discovery And Importance In Intellectual Property Litigation, 12 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 449 (2013), Jennifer K. Gregory

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

As the use of social media continues to expand, lawyers will increasingly rely on evidence gleaned from social media sources. This is already true in several areas of litigation, including various types of intellectual property litigation. Thus far, the rules of civil procedure, evidence, and professional conduct have addressed many of the issues that arise regarding the acquisition and use of social media evidence. Lawyers should at least investigate social media usage by key parties in each particular case in order to be aware of what social media evidence could be available. Lawyers are also responsible for having a basic …

Mad Men Posing As Ordinary Consumers: The Essential Role Of Self-Regulation And Industry Ethics On Decreasing Deceptive Online Consumer Ratings And Reviews, 12 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 462 (2013), Lucille M. Ponte

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

Technology provides consumers with new ways to avoid advertisements, such as fast forwarding through TV commercials and using filtering software to block pop-up ads. Accordingly brand sponsors and their advertising marketing firms have sought alternative methods to pierce through consumer resistance to ads. Social media offers an optimal platform to reach millions of consumers on a nearly daily basis who interact and often rely heavily on the reviews and rankings of fellow consumers. However, many of today’s branding campaigns now mask sponsored ads as ordinary consumer reviews or “Like” and “Don’t Like” responses to a service or product. Unbeknownst to …

Outspoken: Social Media And The Modern College Athlete, 12 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 509 (2013), Meg Penrose

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution grants American citizens the right to free speech. However, in the case of college athletes, this right is not without limitation. In exchange for the privilege of participating in college level athletics, college athletes voluntarily agree to terms that restrict their abilities to speak freely, specifically in the context of social media platforms. This article details situations in which college athletes have made offensive statements via social media for which they later needed to delete, explain, and apologize. These examples support the notion that restrictions on college athletes’ speech are not only …

The Emerging Reality Of Social Media: Erosion Of Individual Privacy Through Cyber-Vetting And Law’S Inability To Catch Up, 12 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 551 (2013), Saby Ghoshray

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

The rise of social media means that data about a large number of people is available in public and quasi-public digital locations. Employers, keen on taking advantage of this additional data to decrease the risk associated with an offer of employment, are engaging in “cyber-vetting”—non-consenting social media searches conducted by third parties or the employers themselves. To the extent that current law applies to this practice, the regulation it provides is weak and attacks only part of the problem. Left unchecked, cyber-vetting has the potential to fundamentally alter the scope of prospective employees’ rights. This article surveys the legal and …

What Close Cases And Reversals Reveal About Claim Construction At The Federal Circuit, 12 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 583 (2013), Thomas W. Krause, Heather F. Auyang

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

Claim construction is central to patent litigation and has been the focus of a voluminous body of scholarship. Researchers have collected data from all aspects of claim construction cases, looking for answers to questions such as why the Federal Circuit reverses district courts’ claim constructions so frequently, why Federal Circuit judges reach different conclusions from one another, and what methodologies these judges are utilizing. This paper takes a novel approach to analyze these questions. Rather than focus on all claim construction cases, this paper focuses only on cases where the Federal Circuit was divided and a dissent was written, and …

Should There Be A Presumption Favoring Awards Of Attorney’S Fees In Copyright Litigation?, 12 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 630 (2013), William T. Mcgrath

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

Section 505 of the Copyright Act allows courts to award attorney’s fees to the prevailing party in a copyright case. Almost twenty years ago, the Supreme Court in Fogerty resolved a split among the circuits over the interpretation of that statute. First, it held that courts should apply several nonexclusive factors when determining if the prevailing party, whether defendant or plaintiff, should be entitled to recover attorney’s fees. Second, the Court refused to apply a presumption that the prevailing party will automatically recover attorney’s fees, opting instead for the districts courts to apply “equitable discretion” in awarding fees. But in …

Idea Into Practice: How Well Does U.S. Patent Law Implement Modern Innovation Theory, 12 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 644 (2013), Stephen M. Maurer

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Graham v. John Deere (1966) placed neoclassical economic insights at the heart of modern patent law. But economic theory has moved on. Since the 1990s, legal scholars have repeatedly mined the discipline to propose ad hoc rules for individual industries, such as biotech and software. So far, however, they have almost always ignored the literature’s broader lessons for doctrine. This article asks how well today’s patent doctrine follows and occasionally departs from modern economic principles. The analysis begins by reviewing what neoclassical economists have learned about innovation since the 1970s. Legal scholars usually divide …

A Context-Sensitive Inquiry: The Interpretation Of Meaning In Cases Of Visual Appropriation Art, 12 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 746 (2013), Elizabeth Winkowski

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

As Andy Warhol’s famous depiction of a soup can has demonstrated, the meaning of a work depends on its context. While the Campbell’s label signified one thing to shoppers in supermarkets, it raised new questions when presented as a work of art. Warhol’s work is just one example of what has come to be known as appropriation art, an artistic practice that borrows and repurposes images from the media, popular culture, and other sources. Unsurprisingly, this art form is in frequent tension with copyright law. This comment suggests that in analyzing the“purpose and character” factor of the fair use inquiry, …

Million-Card Monte: Reforming The Markush Claim Post-Aia To Save Synthetic Chemical Innovation, 12 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 720 (2013), Adam Sussman

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

The Markush patent claim arose as a solution to the challenging problem of describing inventions that could not be defined any other way than by a list of the members of a group. The original Markush group, claimed in 1923, listed only three alternatives; in the years since, the populations of these groups have swelled to totals beyond calculation, as pharmaceutical companies took advantage of the opportunity to claim multitudes of alternative chemical compounds by systematically iterating the functional groups at various molecular positions. However, without completing the now-impossible task of synthesizing and testing each of innumerable chemical compounds for …

Reverse Payment Settlements: The U.S. Supreme Court Has Finally Agreed To Resolve The Issue, 12 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 787 (2013), Tyler Cho

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

Paragraph IV of the Hatch-Waxman Act provides a mechanism for litigating pharmaceutical patent infringement disputes. Many of these cases have been settled with “reverse payments” from the brand to the generic in return for delayed generic entry. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has contested a number of these settlements with mixed results. On July 16, 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit issued a decision holding that pharmaceutical patent settlements that restrict generic entry and contain a payment to the generic company are presumptively unlawful under U.S. antitrust laws. By holding that a patent settlement can …

Directed To Or Encompassing A Human Organism: How Section 33 Of The America Invents Act May Threaten The Future Of Biotechnology, 12 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 768 (2013), Ava Caffarini

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

Biotechnology is a rapidly growing field that has pushed the limits of patent eligible subject matter. In response to the expansion of biotechnology, critics have emerged with both economic and moral concerns over the development and patenting of these technologies. On the economic front, critics are wary of the potential development of an“anticommons.” On the moral front, critics are concerned with the potential to erode human dignity and “play God.” Congress has responded to the moral concerns with section 33 of the America Invents Act. Section 33 states that“[n]otwithstanding any other provision of law, no patent may issue on a …

I Like Cabernet And Merlot But I'M Not Drinking Bordeaux: Certified Confusion, 13 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 203 (2013), Angela Huisingh

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

A trademark’s purpose is to help consumers identify a service or product’s source. To this end, trademark owners may prevent others from using their marks on similar goods. But to ensure that a few savvy businesspersons do not monopolize certain terms, the Lanham Act carves out specific exceptions to trademark protection. Some of these exceptions include indications of geographic origin, such as Bordeaux and Napa Valley. Wine, however, has long been identified primarily by the geographic region in which its grapes grow. To ameliorate this fundamental divide, and to preserve the integrity of their Geographical Indications in the eyes of …

How The Internet Has Removed The Historical Rationale For "Non-Analogous Arts", 13 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 68 (2013), Hal Milton

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

The growth of the Internet has affected countless aspects of daily life, including the patent system. Internet-based legal research has grown considerably, given the convenience of general search agents such as Google, legally-focused search agents such as Westlaw and Lexis, and patent-focused search agents such as the PAIR system of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. These legal research tools have not only made it easier to find prior art, they have also expanded the volume of information that is available to one of ordinary skill in the art. Consequently, the traditional rules of so-called “analogous arts” are changing. …