Intellectual Property Law Commons^™

The Comprador Complex: Africa’S Iprs Elites, Neo-Colonialism And The Enduring Control Of African Ipr Agenda By External Interests, Ikechi Mgbeoji

Articles & Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Canadian Patent Law, Ikechi Mgbeoji

Articles & Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Comment: 3d Printing, Sarah K. Wiant

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Fair Use And The Faces Of Transformation, Part I, James Gibson

Law Faculty Publications

The recent Kienitz v. Sconnie Nation case has been the focus of three recent posts in this Intellectual Property Issues series – from me, Doug Lichtman, and Rod Smolla. In Kienitz, the defendant changed a photograph of the mayor of Madison, Wisconsin, into a stylized, high-contrast image, printed on t-shirts that mocked the mayor’s policies. The U.S Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that the new image constituted a fair use and therefore did not infringe the photograph’s copyright. (The original photo and the stylized version on the t-shirt can be seen here.) …

Copyright Termination And Technical Standards, Jorge L. Contreras, Andrew T. Hernacki

University of Baltimore Law Review

Technical standards, which enable products manufactured by different vendors to work together, form the basis of the modem technological infrastructure. Yet an obscure provision of the U.S. Copyright Act, enacted to allow authors and composers to profit from the later success of their works, now threatens to disrupt this critical technological ecosystem. Enacted in 1976, Section 203 of the Copyright Act permits the author of a copyrighted work to revoke any copyright license or assignment between thirty-five and forty years after the grant was made. For grants made in 1978, the first year to which Section 203 applies, terminations could …

Trademark Law And Consumer Centrality - Part I, James Gibson

Law Faculty Publications

The conventional wisdom provides two traditional justifications for trademark law. The first is the “consumer protection” rationale. If there were no trademark law, an unknown soft drink manufacturer could freely use Coca-Cola’s COKE trademark on its goods. If it did so, consumers would be defrauded; they would buy the unknown’s products thinking that they were Coca-Cola’s. Trademark law prevents this sort of fraud from occurring and thereby protects consumers from fraud.

The second justification is the “producer incentive” rationale. In the preceding COKE example, it is not just the consumer who is happy that fraud has been prevented. Coca-Cola is …

Using Reasonable Royalties To Value Patented Technology, David O. Taylor

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

In the last several years, commentators have expressed serious concerns with the state of the law governing awards of reasonable royalties as damages in patent infringement cases. Given these concerns, the proper assessment of royalties has been a recent, frequent topic for debate among economists and legal scholars. At the same time, all three branches of the federal government have studied ways to improve the law governing reasonable royalties. In this Article, I reframe the ongoing debate by identifying and exploring two basic paradigms for calculating reasonable royalties: valuing patent rights and valuing patented technology. The traditional paradigm, valuing patent …

Judicial Capacities And Patent Claim Construction: An Ordinary Reader Standard, Greg Reilly

Faculty Scholarship

Patent claim construction is a mess. The Federal Circuit’s failure to provide adequate guidance has created significant problems for the patent system. The problems with claim construction result from the Federal Circuit’s inability to resolve whether claim terms should be given (1) the general, acontextual meaning they would have to a skilled person in the field; (2) the specific meaning they have in the context of the patent; or (3) some combination of the two. The claim construction debate largely overlooks the generalist judges who must implement claim construction. This Article fills that gap, concluding that existing approaches are difficult, …

Patent Law Federalism, Paul Gugliuzza

Faculty Scholarship

Most lawsuits arising under federal law can be filed in either state or federal court. Patent suits, however, may be filed only in federal court. Why do patent cases receive exceptional treatment? The usual answer is that federal courts, unlike state courts, provide uniformity and expertise in patent matters. This Article analyzes whether exclusive jurisdiction actually serves those policy aims and concludes that the uniformity-expertise rationale is overstated. If exclusive federal patent jurisdiction is to be justified, attention must also be given to pragmatic considerations, such as the respective quality of state and federal trial courts, the courts’ ability to …

Saving The Federal Circuit, Paul Gugliuzza

Faculty Scholarship

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 …

The Marrakesh Treaty For Visually Impaired Persons: Why A Treaty Was Preferable To Soft Law, Margot E. Kaminski, Shlomit Yanisky-Ravid

Publications

This paper addresses the debates leading up to the recently adopted international treaty on copyright exceptions for the visually impaired, the Marrakesh International Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired, or Otherwise Print Disabled. This treaty was successfully adopted by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in June 2013.

Leading up to the negotiation of this instrument, multiple UN member states pushed for the instrument to be negotiated as soft law instead of a treaty. We argue that making this instrument soft law would have precluded its success. WIPO thus correctly chose to …

Machine Learning And Law, Harry Surden

Publications

This Article explores the application of machine learning techniques within the practice of law. Broadly speaking “machine learning” refers to computer algorithms that have the ability to “learn” or improve in performance over time on some task. In general, machine learning algorithms are designed to detect patterns in data and then apply these patterns going forward to new data in order to automate particular tasks. Outside of law, machine learning techniques have been successfully applied to automate tasks that were once thought to necessitate human intelligence — for example language translation, fraud-detection, driving automobiles, facial recognition, and data-mining. If performing …

Indistinguishable From Magic: A Wizard’S Guide To Copyright And 3d Printing, James Grimmelmann

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

“What He Said.” The Transformative Potential Of The Use Of Copyrighted Content In Political Campaigns —Or— How A Win For Mitt Romney Might Have Been A Victory For Free Speech, Deidre Keller

Journal Publications

In January 2012 Mitt Romney’s campaign received a cease-and-desist letter charging, among other things, that its use of news footage concerning Newt Gingrich’s ethics problems in the House of Representatives constituted a violation of NBC’s copyright. This is just the latest such charge and came amidst similar allegations against the Gingrich and Bachmann campaigns and in the wake of similar allegations against both the McCain and Obama campaigns in 2008. Such allegations have plagued political campaigns as far back as Reagan’s in 1984. The existing literature is nearly devoid of a consideration of such uses as political speech protected by …

Patent Eligibility Post-Myriad: Reinvigorated Judicial Wildcard Of Uncertain Effect, Christopher M. Holman

Faculty Works

In the 1970s and early 1980s the US Supreme Court issued several landmark decisions establishing the contours of patent eligibility, a judicially created doctrine that serves as a gatekeeper to prevent the patenting of subject matter deemed so fundamental as to be better left unpatented. Over the course of the next 25 years the Court of Appeals of the Federal Circuit oversaw a progressive expansion in the scope subject matter deemed patent eligible, highlighted by the adoption in the 1990’s of a “useful, concrete and tangible” test for patent eligibility that for all practical purposes seemed to subsume the patent …

Mayo, Myriad, And The Future Of Innovation In Molecular Diagnostics And Personalized Medicine, Christopher M. Holman

Faculty Works

Contrary to popular perception, the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., finding certain patent claims reciting isolated genomic DNA molecules patent ineligible is likely to have a relatively minor impact on the patenting of diagnostics and personalized medicine. Method claims generally play a much more important role than isolated DNA claims in the patenting of innovations in this important technological sector, and the Court’s earlier decision in Mayo v. Prometheus Labs that held claims directed towards non-genetic methods of personalized medicine to be patent ineligible will likely prove significantly more problematic in this …

Does Cariou V. Prince Represent The Apogee Or Burn-Out Of Transformativeness In Fair Use Jurisprudence? A Plea For A Neo-Traditional Approach, Kim J. Landsman

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Quiet On Set! We Have A Trademark To Sell, Brittany Robbins

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Funding Era Free Speech Theory: Applying Traditional Speech Protection To The Regulation Of Anonymous Cyberspace, Katherine Mccabe

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

“You Never Got Me Down, Delay”: Petrella V. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. And The Availability Of Laches In Copyright Infringement Claims Brought Within The Statute Of Limitations, Daniel Sheerin

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

A Real Separation Of Powers Or Separation Of Law: Can An Article I Administrative Agency Nullify An Article Iii Federal Court Judgment?, Shashank Upadhye, Adam Sussman

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

This Article concerns whether and how Article I administrative agencies can overturn the final judgment of an Article III federal court. The Article identifies if there really is a constitutional crisis afoot because of a violation of the separation of powers doctrine. It also addresses the concern that the federal court is the final arbiter of a legal dispute and that neither Congress nor an agency can step in to undo that which the federal court has done. The Article focuses on the newly enacted America Invents Act and the current use of administrative agency proceeding to reexamine issued patents …

Fame, Property & Identity: The Purpose And Scope Of The Right Of Publicity, Daniel Gervais, Martin L. Holmes

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

This Article examines the overlaps between the right of publicity and rights granted by trademark law and other deception-based restrictions on the use of names and symbols. It shows that the right of publicity creates a more expansive right rooted in a variegated normative soil with elements of privacy, personhood, and property. The Article suggests a proper scope for the right of publicity that protects free speech. The issue of descendibility is also discussed.

Case Ip News, Case Western Reserve University School Of Law, The Spangenberg Center For Law, Technology & The Arts

Case IP Law News

Vol. 1, #1

• Representing Artists, Athletes and Innovators
• Case and Harvard team up for “Creatvity Without Law” conference on Nov. 7
• Law school launches free online course “Representing the Professional Athlete”
• Leading IP scholars from eight countries come to Case Western for summer academy
• Students learn from industry’s best at Sports an Entertainment Law Academy
• Pegah Zardoost is first student to enroll in JD-MA in Art History & Museum Studies dual degree
• World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Research Lab debuts at law school
• Faculty Updates

In Re Innovatio Ip Ventures, Llc Patent Litigation, Alexander M. Noble

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Uncertifiable Swarm: Why Defendant Class Actions And Mass Bittorrent Copyright Litigation Don’T Mix, Joshua A. Druckerman

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Copyright In The Expanded Field, Xiyin Tang

Hofstra Law Review

Intellectual property law and the art forms it is meant to protect are expanding. In our information age, artists hoping to assert their rights frequently assert a combination of trademark, copyright, and right of publicity or moral rights claims in order to maximize their chances of success. This Article looks beyond IP law to some of its more unlikely complements — tort and property law — as a viable means of redress for artists who may be ineligible for copyright protection. Specifically, recent cases involving a specific form of hybrid art — land art, or “site specific art” — have …

How To Be An Authentic Indian, M. Alexander Pearl

Faculty Articles

The mascot and team name of the Washington, D.C. professional football team is making headlines. What do Authentic Indians really think about it? This essay clears the air by replacing the liberal media talking points with an actual viewpoint from Indian Country. This perspective gives an inside view into the significant efforts to maintain longstanding traits of “Indian-ness” against an onslaught of political correctness gone mad.

“I’M A Lawyer, Not An Ethnographer, Jim”: Textual Poachers And Fair Use, Rebecca Tushnet

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This short article, written for a festschrift for Henry Jenkins, discusses the influence of his work on media fandom in legal scholarship and advocacy around fair use.

More Than A Feeling: Emotion And The First Amendment, Rebecca Tushnet

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

First Amendment law has generally been leery of government attempts to change the marketplace of emotions—except when it has not been. Scientific evidence indicates that emotion and rationality are not opposed, as the law often presumes, but rather inextricably linked. There is no judgment, whether moral or otherwise, without emotions to guide our choices. Judicial failure to grapple with this reality has produced some puzzles in the law.

Part I of this Symposium contribution examines the intersection of private law, the First Amendment, and attempts to manipulate and control emotions. Only false factual statements can defame, not mere derogatory opinions. …

Statutory Royalty Damages Under The Uniform Trade Secrets Act And The Federal Patent Code, Richard F. Dole Jr.

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Optional statutory royalty damages are provided for by both the version of the Uniform Trade Secrets Act that has been enacted by most of the forty seven adopting states and the federal patent code remedies for infringement of utility patents. Notwithstanding periodic recommendations that the Uniform Act follow the patent code concept of statutory royalty damages, this article takes the position that differences between the Uniform Act and the Patent Code regarding monetary remedies make it reasonable for the Uniform Act statutory royalty provisions to be construed more objectively than their federal counterpart. This will preclude statutory royalty damages acquiring …