Intellectual Property Law Commons^™

I Didn't Take The Road Less Traveled, And What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been, Brian A. Glassman

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Promoting Intellectual Property For Economic Growth, Rita Hayes

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The World Intellectual Property Organization, based in Geneva, is a specialized agency of the United Nations that deals with international intellectual property matters. The Organization is perhaps best known for international agreements such as the Patent Cooperation Treaty (the PCT), The Madrid Agreement, and the Hague Agreement, which provide international registration and protection for patents, trademarks, and industrial designs, respectively.

The Organization's work in standard setting--through the development of international intellectual property law--covers the range of intellectual property from industrial property to copyright. Many of you are familiar with the WIPO Internet Treaties, two international treaties that came into force …

Intellectual Property Rights And The Digital Era: Argentina And Brazil, Marcos J. Basso, Adriana C.K. Vianna

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

No abstract provided.

Panel Iii: Www.Thegovernmenthasdecideditisinyour(Read:Our)Bestinterestsnottoviewthis.Com: Should The First Amendment Ever Come Second?, Ann Beeson, Jacob M. Lewis, Charles Sims, Lee Tien

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Patenting Genome Research Tools And The Law., Rebecca S. Eisenberg

Articles

Patenting genes encoding therapeutic proteins was relatively uncontroversial in the early days of biotechnology. Controversy arose in the era of high-throughput DNA sequencing, when gene patents started to look less like patents on drugs and more like patents on scientific information. Evolving scientific and business strategies for exploiting genomic information raised concerns that patents might slow subsequent research. The trend towards stricter enforcement of the utility and disclosure requirements by the patent offices should help clarify the current confusion.

Perfecting Patent Prizes, Michael Abramowicz

Vanderbilt Law Review

When anthrax attacks recently led to a run on the patented antibiotic drug Cipro, politicians and commentators suggested that the government consider purchasing generic alternatives. Some used the occasion to illustrate what they perceived as a broader problem with patent protection: that pharmaceutical companies seeking profits would not allow the sick to obtain access to needed medications. The argument repeated a familiar refrain in the intellectual property debate, as a long history of articles has inquired whether society would be better off with no patent or copyright law at all. Even recently, commentators have questioned the broad scope of intellectual …

Draft Of Rendering Copyright Into Caesar - 2003, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

This article makes a simple suggestion. Copyright rules by money, so let it rule the money-bound. Let a different set of rules evolve for more complex uses, particularly when the users have a personal relationship with the utilized text. Copyright. When new artists make transformative use of existing works in settings not characterized by pre-use commercial negotiations, copyright should avoid imposing a distorting burden.

Navigating Unchartered Waters: Intellectual Property Rights Surrounding Genomics Research & Development Information, Lawrence M. Sung

Journal of Health Care Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

A Profile Of Dolby Laboratories: An Effective Model For Leveraging Intellectual Property, Pamela Hawkins Williams, Dotcy Isom Iii, Tiffini D. Smith-Peaches

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Vertical Restraints And Intellectual Property Law: Beyond Antitrust, Michael J. Meurer

Faculty Scholarship

This Article describes how intellectual property (IP) law regulates six types of vertical restraints: restrictions on the field or location of use; restrictions on sharing; control over the frequency of use; restrictions on repair and modification; packaging requirements; and impediments to a buyer's decision to exit its relationship with a seller. There are three reasons to focus on IP oversight of vertical restraints separately from antitrust oversight. First, IP law covers a broader range of vertical restraints. Second, economic analysis of the antitrust-IP conflict focuses mainly on the potential of vertical restraints to exclude downstream competitors. IP doctrines that regulate …

Some Realism About Indigenism, Michael Henry Davis

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The debate about creating so-called intellectual property (“IP”)--legal monopolies--over indigenous information (a product mostly of Third World countries) is habitually (almost stereotypically) characterized by qualifications that such monopolies really don't fit, and further qualifications that although they don't fit they are the best alternative. But underlying both sets of qualifications is often a confusion about what the real problem is. Because of a frequent failure to analyze closely the problem (and sometimes because of misinformation mixed with an unhealthy dose of romanticism), critics far too often jump to the legal monopoly solution to problems that ironically may be in large …

Anticompetitive Settlement Of Intellectual Property Disputes, Mark D. Janis, Herbert J. Hovenkamp, Mark A. Lemley

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Digital Trademark Right: The Troubling New Extraterritorial Reach Of National Law, Xuan-Thao Nguyen

Articles

The Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act authorizes the development of the digital trademark right. Under this new right, a trademark owner can petition a domestic court to transfer a foreign registrant's domain name to the trademark owner. The trademark owner does not need to travel to the foreign land for the litigation or to petition a foreign court for enforcement of the domestic court's decision. The property transfer order has a global effect, enjoining the foreign registrant from further use of its property in its home country. Is such extraterritorial extension of national law permissible? Does the new digital trademark right …

Anti-Circumvention: Has Technology's Child Turned Against Its Mother?, Terri B. Cohen

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Because its function is to protect and support innovation, copyright has been deemed a child of technology. Yet, as copyright laws increase the scope of protection for copyrighted material, one may wonder when such protection will begin to stymie, rather than encourage, emerging technology. The global trend toward internationalizing copyright protection has resulted in the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Copyright Treaty, which was intended, in part, to bring international copyright protection into the digital age. The treaty, however, extends traditional copyright protections by including a requirement that member nations implement anti-circumvention provisions into their laws.

Great debate has emerged …

Whose Rights Are These Anyway?--A Rethinking Of Our Society's Intellectual Property Laws In Order To Better Protect Native American Religious Property, Suzanne Milchan

American Indian Law Review

No abstract provided.

Protecting Tribal Stories: The Perils Of Propertization, Stephen D. Osborne

American Indian Law Review

No abstract provided.

Engaging Facts And Policy: A Multi-Institutional Approach To Patent System Reform, Arti K. Rai

Faculty Scholarship

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, charged with adjudicating appeals in patent cases, has adopted an unusual approach that arrogates power over fact finding while it simultaneously invokes rule-formalism. Although the Federal Circuit's approach may be justified by the fact-finding and policy application deficiencies of the trial courts and the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), it has had a negative impact on innovation policy and has resulted in a patent system that is sorely in need of reform. This Article argues that because of the interdependence of the various institutions within the patent system, reform of the system …

Copyright As Tort Law's Mirror Image: "Harms", "Benefits", And The Uses And Limits Of Analogy, Wendy J. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

This pair of papers involves a reprinting of "Of Harms and Benefits: Torts, Restitution, and Intellectual Property," 21 J. LEGAL STUDIES 449 (1992), along with an introduction to that article for students, entitled "Copyright as Tort's Mirror Image". Both involve comparisons between statutory intellectual property law and common law doctrines.

"Copyright as Tort's Mirror" uses personal injury law to introduce students to copyright, making a link between the doctrines through the notion of "externalities". Just as tort law discourages wastefully harmful behavior by making perpetrators bear some of the costs inflicted, copyright law encourages beneficial behavior by enabling authors to …

Patent Thickets: Strategic Patenting Of Complex Technologies, James Bessen

Faculty Scholarship

Patent race models assume that an innovator wins the only patent covering a product. But when technologies are complex, this property right is defective: ownership of a product's technology is shared, not exclusive. In that case I show that if patent standards are low, firms build "thickets" of patents, especially incumbent firms in mature industries. When they assert these patents, innovators are forced to share rents under cross-licenses, making R&D incentives sub-optimal. On the other hand, when lead time advantages are significant and patent standards are high, firms pursue strategies of "mutual non-aggression." Then R&D incentives are stronger, even optimal.

The Battle Of The Music Industry: The Distribution Of Audio And Video Works Via The Internet, Music And More, David Balaban

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

If Per Se Is Dying, Why Not In Tv Tying? A Case For Adopting The Rule Of Reason Standard In Television Block- Booking Arrangements, Nicole Labletta

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

4th Annual Computer & Technology Law Institute, Office Of Continuing Legal Education At The University Of Kentucky College Of Law

Continuing Legal Education Materials

Materials from the 4th Annual Computer & Technology Law Institute held by UK/CLE in November 2002.

Trips And Ipr : The Heart Of The Matter, T N Srinivasan

IIMB Management Review

T N Srinivasan, currently Samuel C Park Jr Professor of Economics, Yale University and special advisor to the World Bank, raised the three issues which he feels are at the heart of the debate over TRIPS and IPR — Are patents necessary for innovation? What is the best way to provide life saving drugs to the poor at a price they can afford? What is the best way to minimise the cost of production of these drugs? There is the fundamental assumption in the utilitarian view that most IPR regimes subscribe to, that by granting a patent you are going …

Ipr : Pharmaceuticals, Rupa Chanda

IIMB Management Review

In the introductory panel of the Conference on IPR, the speakers included S Chandrasekaran, Deputy Controller of Patents & Designs, Govt of India; M D Nair, Consultant to the Pharmaceutical Industry, Chennai; P P Prabhu, former Commerce Secretary, Government of India; K Raghavendra Rao, MD, Orchid Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals and Jayashree Watal, Consultant to the WTO Secretariat. S Chandrasekaran clarified what constitutes intellectual property, what a patent is, and how an invention may qualify for a patent.He pointed out that as a participant in the TRIPS Agreement, India is obliged to modify her statutes to make her IPR regime TRIPS …

Open Source, Open Arms: An Open-Ended Question, Alana Maurushat

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

This paper is structured to address several aspects and challenges to the open source movement. Beginning with an outline of the historical and cultural components of the open source movement, the paper will move on to explore the economic and philosophical underpinnings of intellectual property. It will be demonstrated that open source finds itself uniquely situated within these theories and doctrines. The questions that open source poses for intellectual property will then be examined. My arguments will stem from the general premise that open source is threatened by three mechanisms: the uncertainty of the validity of open source licenses, potentially …

Notes On Dissemination: The Prop/Tort Distinction - 2002, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

Most of the proviso-based reasons for restricting property rights come into play after dissemination.[1] Is there any other way in which dissemination matters? Yes; the point of dissemination demarks a crucial shift in the Kind of legal protection that must be given- and thus the Kind of institutional decisions that must be made- if the creator is to be protected.

Need Intellectual Property Be Everywhere? Against Ubiquity And Uniformity, David Vaver

Dalhousie Law Journal

Intellectual property is more prevalent in every corner of our working and leisure lives. International pressure, through both bilateral treaties and multilateral treaties is causing intellectual property law to standardize at high levels throughout the world. Legal standardization may be beneficial in general but is not so for intellectual property in either the developed or the developing world. The law in developed countries is currently incoherent and itself requires major reconsideration. The imposition of such a defective law on the developing world is helpful to neither side. The paper argues that current intensification and harmonization trends are therefore undesirable, and …

The Internationalization Of Intellectual Property: New Challenges From The Very Old And The Very New, Daniel J. Gervais

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Intellectual property concepts embodied in international treaties and national laws date back to the eighteenth century. Many fundamental concepts (originality in copyright law; confusion in trademark law; novelty or inventiveness in patent law) vary from one country's national legislation to another. Yet, many critics of the intellectual property system recognize that solutions to the problems, ranging from database protection to the Internet, should ideally be the same worldwide. In today's globalized economy, it makes sense to adopt rules to protect that take account of the laws and practices of other nations and of the work of international organizations. Protecting only …

Hold-Up And Patent Licensing Of Cumulative Innovations With Private Information, James Bessen

Faculty Scholarship

When innovation is cumulative, early patentees hold claims against later innovators. Then potential hold-up may cause prospective second stage innovators to forego investing in R&D. It is sometimes argued that ex ante licensing (before R&D) avoids hold-up. This paper explores ex ante licensing when information about development cost is private. In this case, contracts may not be written ex ante. Moreover, the socially optimal division of profit occurs with weak patents and ex post licensing. Empirical evidence on licensing conforms to a model with private information. In some innovative industries, little ex ante licensing occurs, suggesting hold-up remains a problem.

Beyond Napster: Using Antitrust Law To Advance And Enhance Online Music Distribution, Matthew Fagin, Frank Pasquale, Kim Weatherall

Faculty Scholarship

What should be the broad principles guiding the copyright and competition policy governing online music? In short, what are the key concerns or values that we want preserved in relation to the distribution of music online? We will outline the background to the present investigations and existing law in Part I and argue in Part II that these concerns can be encapsulated in two broad areas: (1) the preservation of some scope for private and personal use and (2) the encouragement and growth of a diverse sector for the distribution of copyrighted works online. We also argue that, at least …