Intellectual Property Law Commons^™

Challenges Of The New Economy: Issues At The Intersection Of Antitrust And Intellectual Property, Robert Pitofsky

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

There is wide agreement that the last decade or so has presented an unusually lively and challenging period for antitrust analysis. Among many reasons we can point to are deregulation and problems of transition to a free market (telecommunications and electricity production offer leading examples), developments in procedural cooperation and possible substantive convergence in response to the increasing globalization of competition and enforcement approaches, and priorities in addressing an unprecedented merger wave. An additional challenge involves the application of established antitrust principles to the growing high-tech sector of the economy. It is that application of antitrust law to the new …

Antitrust And Intellectual Property: Unresolved Issues At The Heart Of The New Economy, Robert Pitofsky

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The New Economy differs in degree rather than kind from the "old" economy. Part II of this discussion examines the key differences that define the New Economy. Part Ill turns to several implications of those differences as they pertain to antitrust enforcement. I argue that the differences do not justify sweeping generalizations that antitrust enforcement has no place in the New Economy, but do require antitrust enforcement to make adjustments and exercise sensitivity towards intellectual property issues on a case-by-case basis. The goal of a coherent overall competition policy, in deciding both what conduct to enforce against and what remedies …

Fair Use Infrastructure For Rights Management Systems, Dan L. Burk, Julie E. Cohen

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this paper, we consider whether rights management systems can be supported by legal and institutional infrastructures that enable appropriate public access to the works secured by these technologies. We focus primarily on the design challenges posed by the fair use doctrine, which historically has played a central role in preserving such access. Throughout the paper, however, we also use the term "fair use" to refer more generally to the variety of limiting doctrines within copyright law that serve this goal. We begin in Part II by reviewing the contours of the fair use doctrine and the legal and policy …

Patent Scope And Innovation In The Software Industry, Julie E. Cohen, Mark A. Lemley

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Software patents have received a great deal of attention in the academic literature. Unfortunately, most of that attention has been devoted to the problem of whether software is or should be patentable subject matter. With roughly eighty thousand software patents already issued, and the Federal Circuit endorsing patentability without qualification, those questions are for the history books. The more pressing questions now concern the scope to be accorded software patents. In this Article, we examine the implications of some traditional patent law doctrines for innovation in the software industry. We argue that patent law needs some refinement if it is …

Elementary And Persistent Errors In The Economic Analysis Of Intellectual Property, Edmund W. Kitch

Vanderbilt Law Review

The literature on the economic analysis of intellectual property rights evidences a broad scholarly consensus on a number of central and important issues. First, intellectual property rights en- able economic actors to capture some of the benefits of the investment they make in establishing a good reputation, creating expressive works, and inventing new and improved technology. Absent intellectual property rights, copiers are free to take for themselves a significant part of the economic benefit generated by these types of investment and to undermine the incentive to make these in- vestments in the first place. Second, the investment activities induced by …

Intellectual Property Rights And The New Institutional Economics, Robert P. Merges

Vanderbilt Law Review

When someone speaks of "the law and economics of intellectual property rights" (IPRs), an image along the lines of the following diagram is apt to come to mind: Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati Professor of Intellectual Property Law, U.C. Berkeley (Boalt Hall) School of Law. For helpful comments, the author wishes to thank members of the Vanderbilt Law School Conference, "Taking Stock: The Law and Economics of Intellectual Property Rights," April, 2000. The usual disclaimer applies.

This is the basic illustration of monopoly price and output, familiar from introductory microeconomic texts. It is often used to explain the effects of …

Taking The Protection-Access Tradeoff Seriously, Harvey S. Perlman

Vanderbilt Law Review

Law and economics scholarship has contributed much to our understanding of both the nature of intellectual property rights generally and the features of individual intellectual property regimes. Indeed it is hard to imagine a field other than antitrust law that is so explicitly governed by economic thinking. In authorizing the copyright and patent systems, Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution expressly incorporates a social welfare imperative as the basis for its grant of power.' Certainly economists and economically oriented legal academics have given the field the attention it is due.

I am far from being a sophisticated …

Patent Policy Innovations: A Clinical Examination, Josh Lerner

Vanderbilt Law Review

On the domestic front, the dispute has centered on the question of whether the United States should honor commitments made in bi- lateral agreements with Japan to remove idiosyncratic features of its patent system. In particular, legislation to require the publication of pending patent applications and to grant awards to the party that is first to file for an award (as are the practices in most nations) have been fiercely debated in the past few congressional sessions. In the developing nations, the requirements for minimal levels of patent protection in the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariff and …

Copyright And The Perfect Curve, Julie E. Cohen

Vanderbilt Law Review

Everyone agrees that the purpose of the copyright system is to promote progress.' At the same time, though, skepticism about the law's ability to define the substance of progress runs deep within copyright case law and theory. Legal decisionmakers and scholars have quite properly doubted their own ability to evaluate artistic or literary merit, and have worried that efforts to do so would result in an inappropriately elitist and conservative standard. In addition, there is room for substantial debate about whether the metaphor of forward motion leaves out other important measures of what "progress" is or might be. This agnosticism …

The Pharmaceutical Industry And World Intellectual Property Standards, F. M. Scherer

Vanderbilt Law Review

When I was a high school student during the late 1940s, the first so-called "wonder drugs"-initially penicillin and then the broad-spectrum antibiotics such as tetracycline-were entering the U.S. market. From their profitable experience developing the broad- spectrum antibiotics, the leading pharmaceutical companies of America and Europe acquired a strong research orientation that led to a cascade of new therapeutic entities, including additional anti-infectives, vaccines, diuretics, and then other agents to reduce heart attack risks, tranquilizers, antidepressants, birth control pills, anti-fungal agents, immuno suppressants, corticosteroids, AIDS inhibitors, powerful pain relief agents, and many other agents effective against specific diseases. Thanks to …

Who's Patenting What? An Empirical Exploration Of Patent Prosecution, John R. Allison, Mark A. Lemley

Vanderbilt Law Review

Patents are big business. Individuals and companies are obtaining far more patents today than ever before. Some simple calculations make it clear that companies are spending over $5 billion a year obtaining patents in the U.S.- to say nothing of the costs of obtaining patents elsewhere, and of licensing and enforcing the patents. There are a number of reasons why patenting is on the rise; primary among them are a booming economy and a shift away from manufacturing and capital-intensive industries towards companies with primarily intellectual assets. But whatever the reason, it is evident that many companies consider patents important. …

Cruel, Mean, Or Lavish? Economic Analysis, Price Discrimination And Digital Intellectual Property, James Boyle

Vanderbilt Law Review

It is not because of the few thousand francs which would have to be spent to put a roof over the third-class carriages or to upholster the third-class seats that some company or other has open carriages with wooden benches .... What the company is trying to do is to prevent the passengers who can pay the second-class fare from travelling third class; it hits the poor, not because it wants to hurt them, but to frighten the rich .... And it is again for the same reason that the companies, having proved almost cruel to third-class passengers and mean …

Lessons From Studying The International Economics Of Intellectual Property Rights, Keith E. Maskus

Vanderbilt Law Review

When the Uruguay Round negotiations began in 1986, the subject of intellectual property rights ("IPRs") was completely unfamiliar to international trade economists. Presumably the area was ignored because global trade policy concerns had not moved into questions of domestic business regulation. Even today, readers will search in vain for serious treatments of the trade implications of exclusive rights to intellectual property ("IP") in international economics textbooks.

Despite this general inattention, a small but growing literature has emerged in which trade economists have framed specific questions and applied theory and statistical analysis to them. This literature has advanced the understanding of …

Comment On "Lessons From Studying The International Economics Of Intellectual Property Rights", Paul Goldstein

Vanderbilt Law Review

Copyright is the "dog that didn't bark" in Keith Maskus's paper, "Lessons from Studying the International Economics of Intellectual Property Rights." Like virtually every other economic study of intellectual property and trade, the Maskus paper confines its examples and analysis to the industrial side of intellectual property-mainly patents and know-how-and leaves the authorial side-copyright-untouched. As a small step toward repairing this imbalance, and toward opening a corner of policy inquiry that has so far been largely unexamined, I would like here to make a few observations on copyright and trade in developing economies.

The regular omission of copyright from economic …

Lessons From Studying The International Economics Of Intellectual Property Rights

Vanderbilt Law Review

When the Uruguay Round negotiations began in 1986, the subject of intellectual property rights ("IPRs") was completely unfamiliar to international trade economists. Presumably the area was ignored because global trade policy concerns had not moved into questions of domestic business regulation. Even today, readers will search in vain for serious treatments of the trade implications of exclusive rights to intellectual property ("IP") in international economics textbooks.

Despite this general inattention, a small but growing literature has emerged in which trade economists have framed specific questions and applied theory and statistical analysis to them. This literature has advanced the understanding of …

How Federal Circuit Judges Vote In Patent Validity Cases, John R. Allison, Mark A. Lemley

Florida State University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Statutory Interpretation, Property Rights, And Boundaries: The Nature And Limits Of Protection In Trademark Dilution, Trade Dress, And Product Configuration Cases, Gary Myers

Faculty Publications

This article, however, takes the view that the basic landscape in trademark law is unlikely to change in the near future. Congress has only recently enacted the Trademark Dilution Act, and there seems to be little movement to amend it dramatically, let alone repeal it. There have been several recently enacted amendments to the Lanham Act addressing functionality that make great sense and are consistent with the principles suggested here, as will be discussed below. Moreover, the Supreme Court in Two Pesos, Qualitex, Park ‘n’ Fly, and Samara has recently set forth rules that will allow trade dress claims to …

The Death Of Cyberspace, Lawrence Lessig

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Collegiality And Collaboration In The Age Of Exclusivity, Lawrence M. Sung

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Classroom Lecture For Copyright Law, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

The differences between direct, vicarious and contributory liability, Section 512 in related matters. Alright, now let's move on to the next question, which is criminal liability. You read some material on that. And the basic lessons that I want you to take from the material are the following. First, notice that federal copyright law does not impose criminal liability easily as ordinary laws of tangible property do. And I think that that's a good thing. Remember that guy in Les Miserables who's pursued for stealing a loaf of bread. Stealing in the sense of copying one song would not make …

Patent Rights And Licensing, Michael S. Baram, Ashley Stevens, Thomas Meyers, Michael J. Meurer

Faculty Scholarship

This panel will discuss intellectual property - the patent incentive, patentability issues, licensing, and litigation-related matters. It will be moderated by Dr. Ashley Stevens, the Director of the Office of Technology Transfer at Boston University. Ashley has multiple degrees, including a doctorate in physical chemistry from Oxford University. He has worked in the biotech industry for a number of years, mostly with startup companies and academic research organizations such as the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, where he was also Director of Technology Transfer. Ashley was instrumental in the startup and operations of firms such as Biotechnica International, and started his …

Copyright, Wendy J. Gordon, Robert G. Bone

Faculty Scholarship

Copyright is the branch of Intellectual Property Law that governs works of expression such as books, paintings and songs, and the expressive aspects of computer programs. Intellectual products such as these have a partially public goods character: they are largely inexhaustible and nonexcludable. Intellectual Property Law responds to inexcludability by giving producers legal rights to exclude nonpayers from certain usages of their intellectual products. The goal is to provide incentives for new production at fairly low transaction costs. However, the copyright owner will charge a price above marginal cost and this, coupled with the inexhaustibility of most copyrighted products, creates …

Protection Of Intellectual Property Rights And The Impact Of Trips, Sowmiya R.K. Sikal

LLM Theses and Essays

This thesis focuses on the importance of intellectual property rights and its protection in the international arena. Coming from a developing country - India, I have always been fascinated with the area of international intellectual property rights protection because of its severe ramification on the economy and the social structure of developing countries. The impact of heightened protection of intellectual property rights has been a controversial issue between developed and developing countries for many years. In this paper, I have examined intellectual property rights, need for its protection, conventions, treaties and agreements present for the protection of intellectual property including …

Patents And Cumulative Innovation, Clarisa Long

Faculty Scholarship

Proprietary rights to the products of biomedical research have repeatedly been a source of controversy for over twenty years. Patents on biomedical innovations have allowed scientists, academics, and research institutions to raise research funds and have contributed to the growth of the biotechnology industry. But “one firm’s research tool may be another firm’s end product.” Patents have been a source of great concern for academic and basic researchers, who fear that proprietary rights to basic research results will hamper the progress of science, stifle the free flow of new knowledge and the dissemination of research results, and chill the research …

Sweeping The E-Commerce Patent Minefield: The Need For A Workable Business Method Exception, William Krause

Seattle University Law Review

This Comment will trace the history of patent protection for methods of doing business over the past two decades, then it will inspect the problems that this protection has wrought: litigation, increased barriers to e-commerce entrepreneurs, and the threat of a less vibrant electronic marketplace. Because each traditional method of protecting intellectual property -- patent, copyright, and trade secret -- has strengths and limitations in protecting advancements in software technology, this Comment will examine the relative benefits of each method. Finally, this Comment will suggest a simple, easily applied test that will offer patent protection to true innovations while reserving …

Fighting The Phantom Menace: The Motion Picture Industry's Struggle To Protect Itself Against Digital Piracy, S. E. Oross

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Digital technology, combined with the influence of the Internet, represents an increasingly dangerous threat to the protection of copyrights in the global marketplace. Industries like Hollywood with business models based primarily on selling and/or licensing intellectual property have much to lose if that protection falters.

Jack Valenti, the president of the MPAA, knows this all too well. In recent testimony before the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Trade and Consumer Protection of the Commerce Committee, he described how the growing availability of certain digital technology could turn online piracy into the bane of the motion picture industry. Noting that Internet pirates …

From International Treaties To Internet Norms: The Evolution Of International Trademark Disputes In The Internet Age, Ajay K. Mehrotra, Marcelo Halpern

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In today's dynamic, digital economy, there is a global clash between geographically bounded intellectual property rights and the limitless reach of the Internet. Traditionally, discrepancies in international intellectual property rights, such as trademark disputes, have been resolved through time-consuming, multilateral state-to-state treaty negotiations that have global harmonization as the primary goal.

With the explosion of e-commerce and the birth of a New Economy, however, such a traditional process is no longer economically viable. Instead, a new approach towards international intellectual property is fast emerging - one that rests not on treaties between multiple states, but on the private contracting of …

Toward A Doctrine Of Fair Use In Patent Law, Maureen A. O'Rourke

Faculty Scholarship

The intellectual property laws are becoming increasingly stressed as their largely time-worn doctrines grapple with problems posed by new technology. In this Article, Dean O'Rourke argues that this pressure has become particularly acute in patent law where policymakers have expanded protection without concomitantly evaluating the impact of that move on follow-on innovation. The traditional assumption that patentees will efficiently license their inventions is breaking down as market failures are becoming endemic. Dean O'Rourke argues that to ensure that patent law achieves its constitutional goals, it shuld, like copyright law, use a fair use defense to address problems of market failure. …

Square Pegs And Round Holes: Why Native American Economic And Cultural Policies And United States Intellectual Property Law Don't Fit, David B. Jordan

American Indian Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Use Of Intellectual Property As Collateral: Gap In The Perfection Of A Security Interest, Sofia Benammar

LLM Theses and Essays

The purpose of the present thesis is to let French lawyers know which step they need to take in order to best assist their client in securing a more solid investment. Lenders want to be protected. Lenders want to be sure that they can use the intellectual property rights in a commercial environment free from superior claims by third parties. In other words, a lender who provides a large loan to a borrower wants to know how and where its security interest will be perfected and what is the best way for him to have priority over other claims. This …