Intellectual Property Law Commons^™

Blood Diamonds Of The Digital Age: The Need For Multi-Perspective Legislation On Cryptocurrency, Peter Derdzinski

Marquette Intellectual Property & Innovation Law Review

This comment examines how cryptocurrency is used in illicit cross-border transactions before examining some of the means currently employed to combat this criminal activity. Through analysis of the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulations, this Comment proposes a multi-perspective approach for new legislation in the United States beyond the GENIUS Act of 2025. Specifically, this Comment argues that any new legislation needs to approach cryptocurrency as both a medium of exchange and as an investment vehicle or a store of value. Such legislation is necessary to create a trellis for cryptocurrency growth and to provide an organized approach for …

A Conceptual Map Of The Right To Repair: Where Upcycling Fits In, Anthony D. Rosborough

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The chapter maps contemporary approaches to the Right to Repair along a spectrum from decentralised freedoms to centralised standard setting and product design. Decentralised approaches propose a Right to Repair that resembles a 'negative right' in that it protects user autonomy through dismantling legal and market barriers. Centralised repairability models, on the other hand, align more with a positive right that is built through stringent product design standards, obligations on manufacturers to repair products directly, and situate repair within larger circular economy governance models.

Using the US and EU approaches to Right to Repair policy as illustrative poles, the chapter …

Re-Imagining Tomorrow: A Technology, Innovation Law, And Ethics Symposium On Addictive Technology And Children, Margaret Chon

Seattle University Law Review

In this Foreword, Professor Margaret Chon introduces Seattle University's Technology, Innovation Law, and Ethics (TILE) program, the 2024 TILE Symposium, and Dr. Gaia Bernstein’s Unwired: Gaining Control Over Addictive Technologies.

Decency And Responsibility: Preserving Egyptian Tally Cloth Cultural Heritage And Protecting The Intellectual Property Of Egyptian Artisans., Noha Fawzy Ph.D, Marwa Zein Ph.D, Ahmed Elseragy Ph.D, Catherine Harper Ph.D

Arts and Design

Tally is an exquisite Egyptian netting fabric, cotton or linen with nickel silver, copper or brass strip embroidery, a powerful symbol of Egypt's opulent textile and artisanal culture. Traditionally handmade, it originated in Upper Egypt’s Asyut region where ancient Egyptian makers pioneered embellishment of translucent cloth with metallic threads. Its iconography - geometric flora, fauna, humans and camels – in black, white or ecru. With beautiful drape and fluidity, it is a highly valued part of Egypt’s rich cultural heritage.

Preserving Tally and protecting the intellectual property rights of its artisans is urgent to ensure sustainable livelihoods, safeguard this unique …

The Impact Of Artificial Intelligence On Copyright Infringement Liability, Sarah M. Rizzo

Touro Law Review

Although the rise of artificial intelligence platforms has been promoted as a solution to many of our problems, it is important to address the possible issues this new technology may be creating. With artificial intelligence evolving at such a rapid rate, questions arise as to how to effectively regulate and control this technology. Specifically, in the realm of intellectual property, how will copyright protection be ensured and how will liability for copyright infringement be apportioned with the expanding use of artificial intelligence? Users of artificial intelligence platforms should be able to employ such artificial intelligence products freely and confidently without …

A Patent System For Temple Grandin, Andrew Chin

Touro Law Review

This article explores the intersection of neurodiversity and innovation through the lens of Temple Grandin’s contributions to livestock handling systems and her philosophical alignment with the U.S. patent system. Drawing on cognitive research by Simon Baron-Cohen, archaeological insights from Penny Spikins, and personal reflections, I argue that autistic cognitive styles—characterized by heightened “folk physics” aptitudes and visual thinking—have historically driven technological progress. Grandin’s patented inventions, motivated by sensory-based empathy for animals, exemplify how neurodivergent inventors seek to embed their conceptions of ethical utility into the nation’s technological infrastructure. The article critiques modern patent litigation trends, advocating instead for a system …

Stars, Statutes, And Sharing: Designing Global Ip Frameworks For Space-Based Discoveries, Ed Koellner

Marquette Intellectual Property & Innovation Law Review

As humanity stretches farther into space physically, commercially, and intellectually, contemporary legal frameworks are beginning to creak under the pressure. Intellectual property laws seem to be playing catch-up. Those laws were written for a world bound by borders and gravity, not for orbital labs, the Earth’s Moon, or AI-generated inventions drifting above the Earth.

This article takes a closer look at the increasingly complex intersection of space law, intellectual property, and artificial intelligence. This domain is no longer reserved for state-led missions or high-level treaties. Now and in the near future, a university lab or a private startup might be …

Perception Pending: What Do Patents Signal To Consumers?, Alexander Billy, Neel Sukhatme

Articles

Patent law encourages inventors to label their products as “patented,” to mark their legal status and potentially secure monetary damages from infringing competitors. We examine whether such labels might have a separate and direct impact on consumers, by affecting how they view patented products and influencing what they purchase. We develop and conduct two experiments to isolate the impact of patent status on consumer behavior. In an online randomized experiment, we demonstrate how increasing the salience of patent status heightens consumers' beliefs that products are innovative and well made. We also reveal consumers' surprisingly sophisticated understanding of the patenting process …

A Patent And A Prize, Keith N. Hylton

Faculty Scholarship

This paper examines a simple and old question: should innovators receive a patent or a prize? The answer I provide is equally simple: they should receive both. The literature on patents versus prizes has proceeded mostly under the assumption that there should be a choice between a regime of patents and a regime of prizes in which patents fall into the public domain upon award of the prize. There are significant “public choice costs” under the prize plans. By this I mean there are risks of inappropriate transfers to patentees – that is, looting – and of confiscation of patentees, …

Kei Briefing Note 2024:8 The Basic Proposal For The Design Law Treaty (Dlt) And Its Inappropriate Restrictions On Transparency, James Love

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is holding a diplomatic conference from November 11 to 22, 2024 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to conclude and adopt a Design Law Treaty (DLT). The negotiators will be working from the documents dated May 10, 2024: a thirty-one page “Basic Proposal For The Design Law Treaty” (DLT/DC/3), and a sixteen page “Basic Proposal For The Regulations Under The Design Law Treaty” (DLT/DC/4), both documents submitted by the Director General of WIPO, as well as a nineteen page, “Notes On The Basic Proposal For The Design Law Treaty” (DTL/DC/5), prepared by the WIPO Secretariat.

While …

Questions And Answers On The Future Of Ip For Research And Innovation, Sean Flynn

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

This paper publishes the annotated contents of an interview with PIJIP Director Sean Flynn by the staff of WIPO’s work on the Future of IP. All questions relate to the future of copyright with respect to AI assisted innovation.

The Rights And Obligations Of Mod Creators In Canadian Videogame Law, Christian Clavette

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

This article explores the legal landscape for mod creators in the Canadian video game industry, examining their rights and obligations under Canadian copyright law and End User License Agreements (EULAs). With the growth of the industry, independent creators have increasingly contributed to game development through “mods,” which modify or enhance existing games. While these mods offer significant creative and commercial potential, they also pose legal challenges, particularly regarding copyright infringement and the enforceability of EULAs. The article evaluates relevant Canadian and U.S. case law, highlighting key differences and similarities, and discusses how these legal principles apply to mods. It also …

A Patent Pool-Party: Changing The Current Use Of Patent Pools For Treatment Innovation In Public Health Emergencies, Emma Whitmore

Georgia Journal of Law & Technology

Intellectual property laws have been in tension with the creation of innovation for the public good since their inception. Many intellectual property concepts such as patents create an opportunity for ownership of invention, which in the general market and in typical life circumstances, has the power to aid innovation and work successfully in the market. However, in times of emergency, intellectual property can create a roadblock that costs human life. As highlighted in the current COVID-19 pandemic, intellectual property laws have the power to act as a hinderance to the innovation of lifesaving treatments by not allowing information to be …

Secrets Of Successful Women Inventors: How They Swam With The Sharks And Hundreds Of Other Ways To Commercialize Your Own Inventions. Edith G. Tolchin, Square One Publishers, 2024., Suzanne Reinman

Journal of the Patent and Trademark Resource Center Association

No abstract provided.

Future Market Blueprints: Harnessing Artificial Intelligence In A World Wired For Wonder, David Temprano

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

George, Jane, and the gang from The Jetsons promised us the dream to soar with flying cars. Well, we move forward with self-driving cars. Robot maids? Well, we got a handy dandy Roomba. The Turn-off-the-Boss Button? Well, we have screen share toggling and the mute button. What each of these examples has in common is artificial intelligence (AI). According to some estimates, AI and its innovation have the potential to boost the global economy by trillions of dollars a year, revolutionizing society in the process. In this process comes progress, but also worry and questions, law and intervention, along with …

Building A Text And Data Mining Limitation: The Brazilian Case, Luca Schirru, Allan Rocha De Souza, Claudia Chamas

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

In recent years, there has been a growing body of legal regulation of

TDM. Since 2018, Japan, the European Union, Singapore and others have

promoted changes to their copyright law and included specific limitations and

exceptions for TDM. These changes have been slow in the Global South and

the developing world, even though they are urgently needed there. This report

aims to present the Brazilian copyright legal framework and the policy

documents related to Intellectual Property, Artificial Intelligence and

innovation influencing political and public debate. This set of policies and

legislative texts provides the grounds for the discussion on the …

Antisocial Innovation, Christopher Buccafusco, Samuel N. Weinstein

Georgia Law Review

Innovation is a form of civic religion in the United States. In the popular imagination, innovators are heroic figures. Thomas Edison, Steve Jobs, and (for a while) Elizabeth Holmes were lauded for their vision and drive and seen to embody the American spirit of invention and improvement. For their part, politicians rarely miss a chance to trumpet their vision for boosting innovative activity. Popular and political culture alike treat innovation as an unalloyed good. And the law is deeply committed to fostering innovation, spending billions of dollars a year to make sure society has enough of it. But this sunny …

Inteligencia Artificial (Ia) En La Pràctica De Patentes: Una Revoluciòn Que Empodera, No Reemplaza (Book), Roberto Rosas, Juan Vasquez, Dianisa Erica Sosa, Francisco Javier Hernandez-Rodriguez, Daniel Kovach

Faculty Articles

Este libro titulado ofrece un análisis exhaustivo sobre el papel en constante evolución de la lA dentro del derecho de patentes. A diferencia de un texto legal tradicional, esta obra profundiza en los significativos impactos que la IA tendrá en los Aujos de trabajo y en las practices de las y los abogados de patentes.

La cuestión central es si la IA acabará sustituyendo a los abogados de patentes o será una potente tecnología complementaria. Este estudio sostiene que la IA está preparada para convertirse en una herramienta indispensable que aumente y mejore las capacidades del abogado de patentes en …

Knowledge Commons Past, Present, And Future, Michael J. Madison

Lewis & Clark Law Review

The project now known as Governing Knowledge Commons, or GKC, was launched more than 15 years ago on the intuition that skepticism of intellectual property law and information exclusivity was grounded in anecdote and ideology rather than in empiricism. Structured, systematic, empirical research on mechanisms of knowledge sharing was needed. GKC aimed to help scholars produce it. Over multiple books, case studies, and other work, the scope of GKC has expanded considerably, from innovation to governance; from invention and creativity to data, privacy, and markets; and from social dilemmas focused on things to governance strategies directed to communities and collectives. …

Artificial Intelligence (Ai) In Patent Practice: No Patent Attorneys Were Harmed In The Making Of This Ai Revolution (Book), Roberto Rosas, Juan Vasquez, Dianisa Erica Sosa, Francisco Javier Hernandez-Rodriguez, Daniel Kovach

Faculty Articles

This book provides a comprehensive examination of the rapidly evolving role of artificial intelligence (AI) in the patent law profession. Rather than a traditional legal text, this work offers an in-depth exploration of the profound impacts AI will have on patent attorneys' workflows and practices.

The central inquiry posies whether AI will ultimately replace patent attorneys or serve as a powerful complementary technology. This study contends that AI is poised to become an indispensable tool that augments and enhances the patent attorney's capabilities rather than renders them obsolete. Through detailed analysis of a patent attorney's typical workweek utilizing AI assistance, …

Innovation Originators, Tabrez Y. Ebrahim, Rafeel Wasif

Michigan Technology Law Review

Asian Americans are one of the most striking and undertheorized ethnic groups in the field of innovation. While a prolific ethnic group when it comes to being named as inventors on U.S. patents, very little has been written on this observation, perhaps because of previously limited datasets and unwieldy data analysis on ethnic backgrounds about patenting at the United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO). Research on inventor diversity and ethnicity in innovation has begun to explore some ethnic groups, but a more holistic account should focus on one particular overlooked group. Recently, entrepreneurship studies concerning ethnicity have shown that …

Innovator Ecosystem Diversity As A Global Competitiveness Imperative, Margo A. Bagley

Faculty Articles

There are myriad ways that discrimination and bias can combine to profoundly limit inventor participation in the patent process. The utilitarian purpose of patents is to incentivize inventors to invent and disclose, so it makes sense to incentivize as large and as diverse a group as possible in order to maximize the likely output of innovative activity. This incentive is important in terms of our geopolitical aspirations as a country, but hopefully also because of our democratic commitment to provide opportunities for flourishing and reaching one's potential that are available to all.

Navigating The Game: Balancing Innovation And Intellectual Property Rights In Video Game Development, Alek Giecewicz

Marquette Intellectual Property & Innovation Law Review

No abstract provided.

The High Cost Of Pharmaceutical Acquisitions: Increasing Social Welfare Or Furthering Inequality?, Timothy J. Haltermann

Notre Dame Journal on Emerging Technologies

This note will argue that government and regulatory authorities should focus on easing access to downstream innovation by broadening research exemptions to patent infringement. Part I of this note will focus on the current state of patent protection and exclusivity afforded to pharmaceutical companies. Part II will discuss incentives created that lead rational actors to engage in M&A instead of through internal R&D. Part III will address the development of innovation as a standalone theory of harm in merger review, and the fallacies associated with labeling certain transactions as “killer acquisitions.” Finally, Part IV of the note will look at …

Patents' New Salience, Janet Freilich

Faculty Scholarship

The vast majority of patents do not matter. They are almost never enforced or licensed and, in consequence, are almost always ignored. This is a well-accepted feature of the patent system and has a tremendous impact on patent policy. In particular, while there are many aspects of patent law that are potentially troubling-including grants of unmerited patents, high transaction costs in obtaining necessary patent licenses, and patents' potential to block innovation and hinder economic growth-these problems may be insignificant in practice because patents are under-enforced and routinely infringed without consequence.

This Article argues that technological developments are greatly increasing the …

Korea’S 2011 Copyright Act Amendments And Innovation By Online Service Providers, Michael Palmedo

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

In 2011, Korea amended its Copyright Act to comply with the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement’s intellectual property chapter, which included an obligation to enact a safe harbor for secondary copyright infringement in the online environment. Safe harbors protect internet firms from legal liability when their users post infringing content online, on the condition that the firms maintain a system to efficiently remove infringing content when notified of the infringement by rightholders.

This paper tests whether the newly established safe harbors had an impact on innovation by Korean internet firms. I hypothesize that the amendments alleviated litigation risks faced by internet …

Regulating Uncertain States: A Risk-Based Policy Agenda For Quantum Technologies, Tina Dekker, Florian Martin-Bariteau

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

Many countries are taking a national approach to developing quantum strategies with a strong focus on innovation. However, societal, ethical, legal, and policy considerations should not be an afterthought that is pushed aside by the drive for innovation. A responsible, global approach to quantum technologies that considers the legal, ethical, and societal dimensions of quantum technologies is necessary to avoid exacerbating existing global inequalities. Quantum technologies are expected to disrupt other transformative technologies whose legal landscape is still under development (e.g., artificial intelligence [‘‘AI”], blockchain, etc.). The shortcomings of global policies regarding AI and the digital context teach lessons that …

If A Machine Could Talk, We Would Not Understand It: Canadian Innovation And The Copyright Act’S Tpm Interoperability Framework, Anthony D. Rosborough

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

This analysis examines the legal implications of technological protection measures (‘‘TPMs”) under Canada’s Copyright Act. Through embedded computing systems and proprietary interfaces, TPMs are being used by original equipment manufacturers (‘‘OEMs”) of agricultural equipment to preclude reverse engineering and follow-on innovation. This has anti-competitive effects on Canada’s ‘‘shortline” agricultural equipment industry, which produces add-on or peripheral equipment used with OEM machinery. This requires interoperability between the interfaces, data formats, and physical connectors, which are often the subject of TPM control. Exceptions under the Act have provided little assistance to the shortline industry. The research question posed by this analysis is: …

“This Artwork Is Always On Sale”: The Need For A U.S. Resale Royalty Right For Digital Visual Artists In This Technological Age, And Proof Of Concept Through The Blockchain And Nfts Explosion, Janae Camacho

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

With the explosion of the internet, social media, non-fungible tokens (“NFTs”), and blockchain technology, there has been a shift in how people consume and commercialize art, thus resulting in the increased use of digital visual mediums to create, purchase, and receive payment for visual artwork. This increase has renewed the question of whether the United States should implement a resale royalty right for visual work artists. This question is of concern, especially in this digital age where it has become more difficult for digital visual artists to receive equitable compensation for their work, like that of their musical and written …

Regulatory Sandboxes Enable Pragmatic Blockchain Regulation, Joshua Durham

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

Since blockchain technology supports digitally-native money, the centralized chokepoints that governments have traditionally targeted to regulate commerce no longer apply to our (digital) property. However, competent regulation furthers basic public policy goals and should enable responsible innovation of this promising technology. This Article discusses pragmatic policies that enable responsible innovation by cultivating regulatory expertise required to write enforceable rules. Responsible innovation is necessary because unlike the early internet, where programmers could manipulate simple colors and text on webpages, these same individuals can now create financial services applications that manipulate actual money—we are faced with an inescapable reality that more is …