Intellectual Property Law Commons^™

From Venetian Glass To Contemporary Intellectual Property: Revisiting Tailored Patent Regimes (Book Review), Ana Santos Rutschman

All Faculty Scholarship

This piece reviews Stefania Fusco's “Murano Glass Vase" and "Lessons from the Past." In Murano Glass Vase, Fusco recounts the history of the glassmaking industry in Venice, framing it as the natural experiment from which the patent system sprang into the world. Fusco emphasizes the mix of exclusionary rights and trade secrecy that formed the backbone of Venetian innovation policy against the backdrop of a heavily regulated and protectionist economy. In “Lessons from the Past,” Fusco draws on original research performed at the Venetian State Archives to further the Murano narrative by looking at how the Venetian government fueled an …

Property And Equity In Trademark Law, Mark P. Mckenna

Journal Articles

This essay, delivered as the Nies Lecture at Marquette Law School, focuses on changes in the doctrinal structure of trademark law over the course of the last century — specifically with respect to the relationship between trademark law’s limits and the broader common law of unfair competition. Changes in that relationship, I will argue, meaningfully increased trademark law's emphasis on property — what the plaintiff owns — and deemphasized legal rules that focused on the defendant’s conduct.

Comparative Analysis Of Innovation Failures And Institutions In Context, Mark P. Mckenna

Journal Articles

Many different legal and non-legal institutions govern and therefore shape knowledge production. It is tempting, given the various types of knowledge, knowledge producers, and systems with and within which knowledge and knowledge producers and users interact, to look for reductionist shortcuts — in general but especially in the context of comparative institutional analysis. The temptation should be resisted for it leads to either what Harold Demsetz called the Nirvana Fallacy or what Elinor Ostrom critiqued as myopic allegories.

We suggest that comparative institutional analysis must be accompanied by comparative failure analysis, by which we mean rigorous and contextual comparative analysis …

Tailoring Intellectual Property Rights To Reduce Uniformity Cost, Michael W. Carroll

Contributions to Books

No abstract provided.

Intellectual Property: A Beacon For Reform Of Investor-State Dispute Settlement, Daniel J. Gervais

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Investor-state dispute-settlement (ISDS) clauses give multinational investors (corporations) a right to sue a state in a binding proceeding before an independent arbitration tribunal. This jurisgenerative right to file a claim in an international tribunal with mandatory jurisdiction is generally reserved to States. ISDS is a mechanism meant to protect the private property of multinational investors against certain acts of public authorities.

Intellectual Property differs from the more traditional private (property) law interests that ISDS aims to protect. IP incorporates public policy objectives such as innovation, access to information or public health that are reflected in limitations and exceptions to the …

Craft Beer And The Rising Tide Effect: An Empirical Study Of Sharing And Collaboration Among Seattle's Craft Breweries, Zahr K. Said

Lewis & Clark Law Review

This qualitative empirical research project studies Seattle’s craft brewing industry as a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem that displays widespread collaboration and innovation. Drawing on data collected in 22 face-to-face formal interviews conducted with industry participants, the Article explores the community’s attitudes, practices, and norms with respect to collaboration and intellectual property (IP). It joins a growing body of qualitative empirical IP scholarship that maps misalignments between law and practice “on the ground,” seeking to offer a more accurate and pluralistic account of an innovative industry. The craft brewing community in Seattle cooperates extensively while continuing to compete actively for consumers. In …

Justifying Copyright In The Age Of Digital Reproduction: The Case Of Photographers, Jessica Silbey

Faculty Scholarship

This Article explores the justification for copyright from two sources: seminal court cases and accounts from photographic authors. It takes as its premise that copyright protection requires justification, not only because creative work is frequently made and disseminated without reliance on copyright, but because, in the age of digital technology, practices of creative production and dissemination have sufficiently changed to question the existing contours of the forty-year-old Copyright Act. Why read the photographers’ stories alongside the court cases? Each present contested views of copyright’s relation to creativity. At times, the photographers’ accounts and the case law strengthen and reinforce each …

Copyrights In Higher Education: Motivating A Research Agenda, Jacob H. Rooksby

Law Faculty Publications

The Bayh–Dole Act of 1980 enabled American universities to engage in technology transfer. Thirty years of research has investigated the legislation’s effectiveness and derivative university practices, such as the establishment of technology transfer offices. Unfortunately, the technology transfer literature has focused primarily on patenting as the primary transfer vehicle for protecting intellectual property in universities, overlooking other forms of IP ownership, such as copyrights. Legal scholarship shows, however, that universities are increasingly using copyrights to protect their intellectual property and that the number of university-held copyrights exceeds patents. This paper examines the use of copyrights to protect and transfer university …

Brandeis’S I.P. Federalism: Thoughts On Erie At Eighty, Joseph S. Miller

Scholarly Works

Justice Brandeis is, in intellectual property law’s precincts, most famous for his lone dissent in International News Service v. Associate Press, the misappropriation case one can find in virtually every i.p. survey casebook (and many property law casebooks as well). But in the wider legal world, Brandeis is likely most famous for his earthquake opinion in Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins. Do Brandeis’s opinions in these two cases speak to each other? Can considering them together inform broader reflections on the texture of our federalism in the i.p. context? This piece, prepared in connection with an “Erie at Eighty” conference …

Derivative Works And Making Sense Of The Maxim That 'Others Are Free To Copy The Original. They Are Not Free To Copy The Copy.', David E. Shipley

Scholarly Works

This is a paper about some of the most entertaining and challenging cases in America’s copyright law jurisprudence concerning derivative works as copyrightable subject matter, and the closely related right to prepare derivative works. The cases are entertaining because they involve very familiar works of authorship, and they are challenging because the rulings are often difficult to reconcile due to the fact that the courts are grappling with copyright’s elusive originality standard as applied to derivative works as well the copyright owner’s right to prepare derivative works. Instead of attempting to say something ‘original’ about originality, my goal for this …

Law's Semantic Self-Portrait: Discerning Doctrine With Co-Citation Networks And Keywords, Joseph S. Miller

Scholarly Works

An apex court’s body of cases has an internal texture, continually augmented by recent citations to earlier, topically related cases. How can we best describe that texture? The citation network shows a path. Specifically, what past Supreme Court cases do more recent Supreme Court cases tend to cite together, as if a topical pair? Using a web of those oft-cited pairs, what noun phrases appear in a given cluster of cases more often, relative to the rate at which those phrases appear in writings more generally? To answer these questions is to map, in detail, a body of decisional law. …

Code Revision Commission V. Public.Resource.Org And The Fight Over Copyright Protection For Annotations And Commentary, David E. Shipley

Scholarly Works

This article is about the Eleventh Circuit’s 2018 decision in Code Revision Commission v. Public.Resource.Org concerning the public edicts doctrine and holding that the State of Georgia’s copyright on the annotations, commentary and analyses in the Official Code of Georgia Annotated is invalid. About a third of the States claim copyright in the annotations to their codes so the potential impact of this decision is substantial. The U.S. Supreme Court granted Georgia’s petition for a writ of certiorari on Monday, June 24.

The article’s thesis is that the Eleventh Circuit was wrong and should be reversed. It first discusses the …

Health Care Costs And The Arc Of Innovation, Neel U. Sukhatme, Maxwell Gregg Bloche

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Health care costs continue their inexorable rise, threatening America’s long-term fiscal stability, competitiveness, and standard of living. Over the past half-century, efforts to rein in spending have uniformly failed. In this Article, we explain why, breaking with standard accounts of regulatory and market dysfunction. We point instead to the nexus of economics, mutual empathy, and social expectations that drives medical innovation and locks in low-value technologies. We show how law reflects and reinforces this nexus and how and why health-policy-makers avert their gaze.

Next, we propose to circumvent these barriers instead of surmounting them. Rather than targeting today’s excessive spending, …

Weeding Out Wolves: Protecting Speakers And Punishing Pirates In Unmasking Analyses, Nathaniel Plemons

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

This Note examines the prevalence of anonymous internet speakers, the practical and legal issues that courts confront when balancing the rights of anonymous internet speakers with those of plaintiffs seeking to unmask them, and the serious dangers courts expose speakers to if wrongfully unmasked. Part I argues that internet speech merits the same First Amendment protections as traditional speech, notes the unique benefits of anonymous internet speech, examines the practical difficulties faced by courts and plaintiffs in unmasking anonymous speakers, and details the immense dangers these speakers face if wrongfully exposed. Part II analyzes the most common approaches courts use …

Technical Standards Meet Administrative Law: A Teaching Guide On Incorporation By Reference, Emily S. Bremer

Journal Articles

When an agency incorporates by reference, it promulgates a rule that identifies—but does not reprint—material already published elsewhere. The incorporated materials thus become binding law without actually being printed in the agency's regulations. Sometimes the incorporated materials are privately developed technical standards, which are often copyrighted and available only for a fee. This restriction on access undermines transparency and public participation in the rulemaking process. Finding a solution is challenging because the problem is multidimensional, implicating public policy in the areas of administrative law, federal standards law and policy, and copyright.

This teaching guide is part of module that offers …

A Reconsideration Of Copyright's Term, Kristelia A. García, Justin Mccrary

Publications

For well over a century, legislators, courts, lawyers, and scholars have spent significant time and energy debating the optimal duration of copyright protection. While there is general consensus that copyright’s term is of legal and economic significance, arguments both for and against a lengthy term are often impressionistic. Utilizing music industry sales data not previously available for academic analysis, this Article fills an important evidentiary gap in the literature. Using recorded music as a case study, we determine that most copyrighted music earns the majority of its lifetime revenue in the first five to ten years following its initial release …

The Rearden Problem: Defining Ownership In A Changing Landscape, Jake Altobello

University of Miami Business Law Review

This paper will address the problem that is currently being confronted by the Walt Disney World Company; who owns the creative works made from software stolen from the original creator? Furthermore, does the court’s application of the “lion’s share” theory effectively further the Constitution’s intent to promote the growth of arts and sciences? By looking at the historical progression of intellectual property law and the holdings of key cases in copyright law, this paper will distill into a summary of key concerns the jurisprudence regarding associating property rights in intellectual property. By narrowing the key considerations of the court, this …

Meeting The Challenges To America's Economic Future: Charting The Course In U.S. Intellectual Property & Innovation Policy, With An Introduction By Megan M. La Belle, International Ip Commercialization Council

Catholic University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Ereserves, Annotations, And Registration: Copyright At The 11th Circuit, Stephen Wolfson

Presentations

This presentation discusses eReserves, the 11th circuit and copyright issues surrounding the Georgia State University case heard by Judge Evans in 2008.

Intellectual Property In Experience, Madhavi Sunder

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In today’s economy, consumers demand experiences. From Star Wars to Harry Potter, fans do not just want to watch or read about their favorite characters— they want to be them. They don the robes of Gryffindor, flick their wands, and drink the butterbeer. The owners of fantasy properties understand this, expanding their offerings from light sabers to the Galaxy’s Edge®, the new Disney Star Wars immersive theme park opening in 2019.

Since Star Wars, Congress and the courts have abetted what is now a $262 billion-a-year industry in merchandising, fashioning “merchandising rights” appurtenant to copyrights and trademarks that …

Will Delaware Be Different? An Empirical Study Of Tc Heartland And The Shift To Defendant Choice Of Venue, Ofer Eldar, Neel U. Sukhatme

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Why do some venues evolve into litigation havens while others do not? Venues might compete for litigation for various reasons, like enhancing their judges’ prestige and increasing revenues for the local bar. This competition is framed by the party that chooses the venue. Whether plaintiffs or defendants primarily choose venue is crucial because, we argue, the two scenarios are not symmetrical.

The Supreme Court’s recent decision in TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Foods LLC illustrates this dynamic. There, the Court effectively shifted venue choice in many patent infringement cases from plaintiffs to corporate defendants. We use TC Heartland to empirically …

Black Americans Past And Present Created Frugal Innovations And Embraced Circular Economy Principles: The Marketing Dilemma, Clovia Hamilton

Winthrop Faculty and Staff Publications

Frugal innovation is the practice whereby the rich learns from innovations developed in poor countries, and there is purportedly a current rivalry between India and China in the frugal innovation arena. This research advocates that the concept of frugal innovation did not originate in Asia or India. The practice of the rich taking the poor’s innovations is not new. In particular, Black American slaves and freed slaves developed a number of inventions in poverty conditions. It is imperative that frugal innovation research be more historically accurate so as to reduce the marginalization of contributions developed by poor innovators and to …

Chinese Innovation And Global Integration- Theoretical Framework Of Perceived Insecurities In University Technology Transfer, Clovia Hamilton

Winthrop Faculty and Staff Publications

University technology transfer is growing in China and is vital to China’s innovation and intellectual property program. This paper provides a literature review used to create a theoretical framework for explaining conflicts between university technology transfer participants. Economic development and business competitiveness relies on innovation and intellectual property generation. Given increased investments in university research and Chinese universities, it is important to be aware of conflicts between university technology transfer office staff and faculty within academic exchanges. University technology transfer is growing in China and is vital to China’s innovation and intellectual property program. Conflicts between university technology transfer participants …

Bazaar Transnational Drafting: An Analysis Of The Gnu Public License Version 3 Revision Process, Christopher M. Dileo

San Diego International Law Journal

This Article will step through the drafting process and compare bazaar and cathedral modes of drafting to determine if a bazaar mode can efficiently produce a legal instrument that crosses legal regimes. As the title suggests, the bazaar process analysis case will be the GNU General Public License version 3 (the GPLv3) Revision Process. A comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of the bazaar mode of drafting to the cathedral mode of drafting will hopefully demonstrate the overall value of a transnational bazaar process like the GPLv3 Revision Process.

Harmonizing Cultural Ip Across Borders: Fashionable Bags & Ghanaian Adinkra Symbols, J. Janewa Osei-Tutu

Akron Law Review

Global copyright and trademark laws protect symbols, names, and literary and artistic works. However, when their primary significance is cultural, because they are neither individual original works nor symbols that are used as commercial identifiers, intellectual property laws do not protect these symbols or artistic works. This is true, even if these goods are protected under national laws as part of that nation’s cultural heritage. Once these cultural goods cross borders, there is no international law that will enable the country from which these goods originate to assert its rights in other countries. This Article characterizes these cultural goods as …

The (Re)Newed Barrier To Access To Medication: Data Exclusivity, Srividhya Ragavan

Akron Law Review

This Article is set in the background of the consequences of the WTO’s prescriptions on patenting of life-saving medications which has largely contributed to the morphing of patents o n life-saving medication into a luxury. Remarkably, there has been a transformation of the role of patents in the context of pharmaceutical innovation into a strategic business tool leading to a larger interest in creation and sustenance of regulatory rights. The biggest global development in this area is an increased effort to strengthen exclusivity using regulatory protections for all chemicals, and even, biologics, involved in all stages of drug development. Consequently, …

Intellectual Property, Traditional Knowledge, And Traditional Cultural Expressions In Native American Tribal Codes, Dalindyebo Bafana Shabalala

Akron Law Review

Indigenous peoples and nations have been making demands for protection and promotion of their intellectual property, traditional knowledge, and traditional cultural expressions in domestic and international fora. The power of the basic demand is one that lies in claims of moral duty and human rights. This Article argues that in order for such claims to have power, one of the necessary elements for success is that the demandeurs themselves need to provide such protection within whatever scope of sovereignty that they exercise. In the context of Native American tribes seeking protection for Native American intellectual property under federal law in …

The Lost Tort Of Moral Rights Invasion, Patrick R. Goold

Akron Law Review

Moral rights are often portrayed as an unwelcome import into U.S. law. During the nineteenth century, European lawmakers, influenced by personality theories of authorship, began granting authors rights of attribution and integrity. However, while these rights proliferated in Europe and international copyright treaties, they were not adopted in the United States. According to a common historical narrative, U.S. courts and lawmakers resisted moral rights because they were deemed incompatible with the copyright tradition of treating expressive works as alienable property. What little moral rights U.S. law provides today is thus seen as a necessary evil, grudgingly accepted, simply to comply …

The Porous Court-Agency Border In Patent Law, Saurabh Vishnubhakat

Akron Law Review

The progression toward reevaluating patent validity in the administrative, rather than judicial, setting became overtly substitutionary in the America Invents Act. No longer content to encourage court litigants to rely on Patent Office expertise for faster, cheaper, and more accurate validity decisions, Congress in the AIA took steps to force a choice. The result is an emergent border between court and agency power in the U.S. patent system. By design, the border is not absolute. Concurrent activity in both settings over the same dispute remains possible. What is troubling is the systematic weakening of this border by Patent Office encroachments …

Three New Metrics For Patent Examiner Activity: Office Actions Per Grant Ratio (Ogr), Office Actions Per Disposal Ratio (Odr), And Grant To Examiner Ratio (Ger), Shine Tu

Law Faculty Scholarship

The current metric for examiner prosecution activity is allowance rate, which is calculated by dividing the total number of allowances by the sum of the allowances and abandonments (allowance rate = total allowance/(total allowances total abandonments)). Importantly, however, allowance rates do not consider an examiner’s pending docket. Specifically, allowance rates do not fully capture if the examiner is simply writing office actions thereby prolonging prosecution or allowing cases. This study rectifies this failure by creating and analyzing a dataset that captures every active examiner’s current docket. Calculating the Office Action per Grant Ratio (OGR = Total # of Office Actions/Total …