Intellectual Property Law Commons^™

The Apple E-Book Agreement And Ruinous Competition: Are E-Goods Different For Antitrust Purposes?, Michael Wolfe

Duke Law & Technology Review

Publishers have spent the last decade and a half struggling against falling prices for digital goods. The recent antitrust case against Apple and the major publishers highlights collusive price fixing as a potential method for resisting depreciation.

This Article examines the myriad ways in which digital distribution puts downward pressure on prices, and seeks to determine whether or not collusive price fixing would serve as an appropriate response to such pressure given the goals of the copyright grant. Considering retailer bargaining power, increased access to substitutes, the loss of traditional price discrimination methods, the effects of vertical integration in digital …

Brief For Amicus Curiae Law Professors And Scholars In Support Of Apellee, In Authors Guild V. Google, Inc., Michael W. Carroll, Brandon Butler, Meredith Jacob

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

No abstract provided.

Aggregating Defendants, Greg Reilly

Florida State University Law Review

No procedural topic has garnered more attention in the past fifty years than the class action and aggregation of plaintiffs. Yet, almost nothing has been written about aggregating defendants. This topic is of increasing importance. Recent efforts by patent “trolls” and Bit-Torrent copyright plaintiffs to aggregate unrelated defendants for similar but independent acts of infringement have provoked strong opposition from defendants, courts, and even Congress. The visceral resistance to defendant aggregation is puzzling. The aggregation of similarly situated plaintiffs is seen as creating benefits for both plaintiffs and the judicial system. The benefits that justify plaintiff aggregation also seem to …

Making Room For Cooperative Innovation, Liza S. Vertinsky

Florida State University Law Review

Patent law, created in response to a constitutional mandate to encourage innovation, may be discouraging important forms of cooperative innovation. Advances in technology have enabled new ways of pooling knowledge and computational capabilities, facilitating cooperation among many participants with complementary skills and motivations to collectively solve complex problems. But emerging models of cooperative innovation increasingly run into patent roadblocks.

Why might patent law sometimes thwart instead of support socially beneficial cooperative innovation? The problem lies in the tensions between the market-based incentives that patent law creates and the mechanisms that support emerging models of cooperative innovation. The complexity and cost …

Intellectual Property, Laurence P. Colton

Mercer Law Review

This Article surveys legal developments in the area of intellectual property relevant to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit during the 2013 calendar year, particularly as decided by the United States federal court system, because intellectual property law primarily is determined under federal law. The past year, 2013, was relatively unusual in that the United States Supreme Court ruled on several cases across the intellectual property spectrum, and the last remaining provisions of the federal America Invents Act (AIA) came into effect. Therefore, this year's Article is unique in that it focuses on law that not …

Fixed Perspectives: The Evolving Contours Of The Fixation Requirement In Copyright Law, Evan Brown

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

To qualify for copyright protection under the current Copyright Act, a work must, inter alia, be fixed in a tangible medium of expression. This requirement is easily met when a work is embodied in a historical medium of mass expression like a printed book, photograph, or audio recording. However, when an author departs from such established media of fixation, the requirement can create a more significant barrier to copyrightability. Three decades ago, digital media provided one such challenge. Today, authors and lawyers alike are pushing the conceptual boundaries of communicative media, and this has led to some controversial recent …

Competing With The “Patent Court”: A Newly Robust Ecosystem, Arti K. Rai

Chicago-Kent Journal of Intellectual Property

In a provocative address, Chief Judge Wood of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals suggests exposing the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, created in 1982 to hear all appeals from patent cases, to competition from sister appellate courts. This response, published as part of a Symposium on Chief Judge Wood's address, argues that competition is indeed desirable. Whether such competition is best provided by other appellate courts is unclear, however. The more tractable approach is to improve competitive input from sources that have already emerged. These include dissenting Federal Circuit judges, parties and amici who are not "patent …

Saving The Federal Circuit, Paul R. Gugliuzza

Chicago-Kent Journal of Intellectual Property

In a recent, attention-grabbing speech, the Chief Judge of the Seventh Circuit, Diane Wood, argued that Congress should abolish the Federal Circuit’s exclusive jurisdiction over patent cases. Exclusive jurisdiction, she said, provides too much legal uniformity, which harms the patent system. In this response to Judge Wood’s thoughtful speech, I seek to highlight two important premises underlying her argument, neither of which is indisputably true.

The first premise is that the Federal Circuit actually provides legal uniformity. Judge Wood suggests that, due to the Federal Circuit’s exclusive jurisdiction, patent doctrine is insufficiently “percolated,” meaning that it lacks mechanisms through which …

Federal Circuit Exclusive Appellate Patent Jurisdiction: A Response To Chief Judge Wood, Harold C. Wegner

Chicago-Kent Journal of Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Globalizing Standard Of Patent Protection In Wto Law And Policy Options For The Ldcs: The Context Of Bangladesh, M. Monirul Azam

Chicago-Kent Journal of Intellectual Property

This Article analyzes the globalizing standard of patent protection as adopted under the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and possible options for the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) such as Bangladesh against the experiences of Brazil, India, and South Africa with special reference to pharmaceutical patent issues.

It’S Blonder-Tongue All Over Again, Alex Kozinski, Daniel Mandell

Chicago-Kent Journal of Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Managing The Changes To The Oath Or Declaration Requirement: The Effect Of The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act Oath Or Declaration Change On Corporations, Adam Thompson

Chicago-Kent Journal of Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Online Tracking: Can The Free Market Create Choice Where None Exists?, Benjamin Strauss

Chicago-Kent Journal of Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Reconciling Twombly And Patent Pleadings Beyond The Text Of Form 18, Yoonhee Kim

Chicago-Kent Journal of Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Multipolarity, Intellectual Property And The Internationalization Of Public Health Law, Sam F. Halabi

Faculty Publications

This Article critically examines the proliferation of international legal agreements addressing global health threats like the outbreak of infectious diseases, tobacco use and lack of access to affordable medicines. The conventional wisdom behind this trend is that a global normative shift has occurred which has caused states to regard health as “special” and less subject to the normal rules of international law making because health threats endanger all of humanity. This Article challenges that thesis, arguing that at the same time the number and scope of international health law treaties has grown, developed states have subordinated health law to intellectual …

Abolishing Exclusive Jurisdiction In The Federal Circuit: A Response To Judge Wood, Rochelle C. Dreyfus

Chicago-Kent Journal of Intellectual Property

Part of a symposium of responses to Chief Judge Wood’s suggestion for giving regional circuits a share of the Federal Circuit’s authority over patent law, this article argues that now that a degree of nationwide uniformity in patent law has been achieved, it would be a pity to disrupt it. While Chief Judge Wood is right that the law would improve with percolation, a change in the composition of the court, new procedures for challenging patents in the Patent and Trademark Office, a District Court pilot program, and satellite patent offices will bring to the debate new voices, different kinds …

An Overview Of The International Treatment Of Exceptions, Eric Schwartz

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

This article is intended as a very brief overview and history of the international treatment of “fair use” or its equivalent — that is, a general summary of the treaty obligations and national law exceptions (in statute or by common law) to the exclusive rights of authors and owners of copyrights.

Learning From Copyright's Failure To Build Its Future, Ken Burleson

Indiana Law Journal

Since file sharing emerged in the late 1990s, copyright infringement has been widespread and virtually impervious to legal sanctions. Despite the best efforts of industry representatives and the lawmakers acting at their behest, attempts to scare and shame copyright infringers into compliance with the law have fallen flat. Part I of this Note discusses the ongoing conflict between modern copyright law and socially acceptable behavior, specifically copyright infringement through digital means. Part II explores the various attempts, and subsequent failures, to curb infringement through deterrence measures. Part III explains why deterrence has been ineffective by exploring psychological models of law-abiding …

Generic Entry Jujitsu: Innovation And Quality In Drug Manufacturing, W. Nicholson Price Ii

IP Theory

The manufacturing side of the pharmaceutical industry has been neglected in innovation theory and policy, with the unfortunate result of stagnant manufacturing techniques driving major problems for the healthcare system. This innovation failure has roots in ineffective intellectual property incentives and high regulatory hurdles to innovative change. Changes in pure regulation or intellectual property incentives have significant potential to help the innovation deficit, but are not the only possibility for change. A relatively minor regulatory change could harness the powerful dynamics of pioneer/generic competition surrounding generic drug market entry. If pioneer firms were permitted to make label claims committing to …

Duty And Control In Intermediary Copyright Liability: An Australian Perspective, Kylie Pappalardo

IP Theory

In the internet age, copyright owners are increasingly looking to online intermediaries to take steps to prevent copyright infringement. Sometimes these intermediaries are closely tied to the acts of infringement; sometimes – as in the case of ISPs – they are not. In 2012, the Australian High Court decided the Roadshow Films v iiNet case, in which it held that an Australian ISP was not liable under copyright’s authorization doctrine, which asks whether the intermediary has sanctioned, approved or countenanced the infringement. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 directs a court to consider, in these situations, whether the intermediary had the …

Cultural Cognition Of Patents, Lisa Larrimore Ouellette

IP Theory

Simply making empirical progress is not always enough to influence policy, as demonstrated by the polarized public discourse over issues ranging from climate change to gun control. The current discourse over patents appears to have a similar pathology, in which cultural values — such as respect for strong property rights or concern about limiting access to knowledge — shape priors and affect the weight given to new information, such that advocates and policymakers on both sides of the patent wars often fail to acknowledge the ambiguity of existing evidence. This Essay suggests that the “cultural cognition” framework might help scholars …

United States Department Of Energy (Doe) Response To The Office Of Science And Technology Policy Memo, 2013: Public Access Plan (July 2014)

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

DOE response to OSTP memo, 2013: Public Access Plan (July 2014)

Discovering The Undiscoverable: Patent Eligibility Of Dna And The Future Of Biotechnical Patent Claims Post-Myriad, Alex Boguniewicz

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

In June 2013 the Supreme Court held that naturally occurring human DNA cannot be patented, but synthetically created DNA is patent-eligible. Though a major victory for patients’ rights, the holding of Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics appears to be the latest in a series of restrictions on patents and the human body, much to the annoyance of biotechnology companies. However, this case should not be viewed as the final word in patenting “natural phenomena.” Patent claims of genetic material are still viable when the claim details a new and useful improvement on the naturally occurring product or an …

Myriad Stands Alone, Jacob S. Sherkow, Christopher T. Scott

Articles & Chapters

Myriad took no prisoners on its way to the top of the molecular diagnostics field. That strategy is unlikely to endure.

Myriad Genetics began in 1991 as a small University of Utah startup interested in the then-novel arena of diagnostic genetic testing. After winning a highly publicized race to sequence the BRCA1 and BRCA2 breast cancer genes, the company obtained patents on the gene sequences and methods of using them to determine cancer risk. The patents were broad and interlocking, covering BRCA genomic DNA, cDNA, methods of diagnosis and systems detecting mutations. Myriad also filed for diagnostic 'toolbox' patents, including …

Navigating A Post America Invents Act World: How The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act Supports Small Businesses, Melissa Cerro

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

Trademarks And Transducers: The First Circuit Court Of Appeals Decides On The Standard Of Proof Required To Show Willful Infringement In Lanham Act Cases, Peter Karalis

Catholic University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Taming The Mongrel: Aligning Appellate Review Of Claim Construction With Its Evidentiary Character In Teva V. Sandoz, Jonas Anderson, Peter Menell, Arti Rai

Working Papers

In its seminal Markman decision, the Supreme Court sought to usher in a more effective, transparent patent litigation regime through its ruling that “the construction of a patent, including terms of art within its claim, is exclusively within the province of the court.” In the aftermath of this decision, the Federal Circuit adhered to its prior holding that claim construction is a “purely legal issue” subject to plenary de novo review, downplaying the Supreme Court’s more nuanced description of claim construction as a “mongrel practice” merely “within the province of the court.” Over nearly two decades of experience in the …

The Registrability Of Primarily Geographically Deceptively Misdescriptive Marks: The Development Of § 1052(E)(3), Courtney Liotti

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Brief For The United States Of America

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

United States V. Martignon, Maureen A. Fitzgerald

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.