Intellectual Property Law Commons^™

Massively Multiplayer Online Fraud: Why The Introduction Of Real World Law In A Virtual Context Is Good For Everyone, Ethan E. White

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Acquiring Innovation, Xuan-Thao Nguyen, Jeffrey A. Maine

Articles

In recent years, the innovation market has witnessed a new business model involving companies that are mere patent holding shells and not operating entities. They have no customers or products to offer, but they do have an aggressive tactic of using patent portfolios to threaten other operating companies with potential infringement litigation. The strategy is executed with the end goal of extracting handsome settlements. Acquisitions of patents for offensive use have become a major concern to operating companies because such acquisitions pose the threats of patent injunction, interrupting the business and crippling further innovation.

While many operating companies today know …

Billowing White Goo, Jessica D. Litman

Articles

The title of this symposium is the question: "Fair Use: "Incredibly Shrinking" or Extraordinarily Expanding?" I'd argue that the answer to the question is "no." Fair use isn't doing either. The size of the fair use footprint has stayed remarkably constant over the past 30 or even 50 years. What has expanded, extraordinarily, is the size of rights granted by the copyright law. It may seem as if fair use is either expanding or shrinking, because the greater reach of copyright has made a bunch of uses potentially fair that weren't even potentially infringing 50 years ago. In order to …

Copyright's Empire: Why The Law Matters, Alina Ng

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

Previous intellectual property literature demands a balance between incentives to produce for the creator of a work and access to information, knowledge, and content by the users. However, law and economics jurisprudence does not provide compelling arguments to support the notion that the copyright monopoly is the most efficient way to maximize public welfare by promoting the works of authors. The social cost from expansion of private rights is nonexistent because market structures change as technologies develop, providing society with increased accessibility to creative works. Accordingly, copyright laws need to expand as technology develops in order to realize a fair …

What's Wrong With The Patent System? Fuzzy Boundaries And The Patent Tax, James Bessen, Michael J. Meurer

Faculty Scholarship

The annual number of patent lawsuits filed in the U.S. has roughly tripled from 1970 to 2004. The number of suits was more or less steady in the 1970s, climbed slowly in the 1980s, and exploded in the 1990s. Why? The usual answers point to (1) the growth of the “new economy” and the concomitant explosion of patenting, (2) the failure of the Patent Office to reject patents on old or obvious inventions, or (3) the rise of the patent troll. There is an element of truth in all these answers, but even collectively they do a poor job explaining …

Fair Use: Its Application, Limitations And Future. , Sonia Katyal, Paul Aiken, Laura Quilter, David O. Carson, John, Jr. G. Palfrey, Hugh C. Hansen

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

When Second Comes First: Correcting Patent’S Poor Secondary Incentives Through An Optional Patent Purchase System, Jordan Barry

ExpressO

As research has advanced, technologies have become more closely knit, and the relationships between them—both complementary and competitive—have become increasingly important. Unfortunately, the patent system’s use of monopoly power to reward innovators creates inefficient results by overly encouraging the development of substitute technologies and discouraging the development of complementary technologies. This paper explains how an optional patent purchase system could help ameliorate such problems and discusses the implications of such a system.

Illinois Tool Works: Allocating The Burden Of Proving Market Power In Patent Tying Cases, Dennis J. Abdelnour

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Patents And Diversity In Innovation, Brian Kahin

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Over the past quarter-century, the patent system has expanded in scope and significance, claiming a central position in a U.S. economy increasingly based on knowledge and intangible assets. This historic expansion has come at the cost of controversy and, within the past five years, growing public scrutiny from outside the system--from the press, business, Congress, and finally the Supreme Court. However, proposed reforms are marked by deepening divisions between sectors of the economy. The information technology (IT) and services industries favor strong reforms while pharmaceutical and biotech industries, as well as the patent bar, favor modest, incremental reforms. This yawning …

The Myth Of Inherent And Inevitable Industry Differences: Diversity As Artifact In The Quest For Patent Reforms, Robert A. Armitage

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

The University of Michigan Law School hosted a two-day conference entitled "Patents and Diversity in Innovation." The morning of the first day featured a panel devoted to "industry differences." This panel took up the task of dealing with the following questions: How has diversification of innovation and the expansion of patentable subject matter affected patent practice? How do markets for technology vary from sector to sector? And how do they reflect or influence patent practice? To what extent are business practices and competitive markets shaped by the nature of the technology, product, or service?[...] A conference titled "Patents and Diversity" …

A Method For Reforming The Patent System, Peter S. Menell

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

The principal recent studies of patent reform (NAS (2004), FTC (2003), Jaffe and Lerner (2004)) contend that a uniform system of patent protection must (or should) be available for "anything under the sun made by man" based upon one or more of the following premises: (1) the Patent Act requires this breadth and uniformity of treatment; (2) "discriminating" against any particular field of "technology" would be undesirable; (3) discrimination among technologies would present insurmountable boundary problems and could easily be circumvented through clever patent drafting; and (4) interest group politics stand in the way of excluding any subject matter classes …

Compulsory Patent Licensing: Is It A Viable Solution In The United States, Carol M. Nielsen, Michael R. Samardzija

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

As technology continues to advance at a rapid pace, so do the number of patents that cover every aspect of making, using, and selling these innovations. In 1996, to compound the rapid change of technology, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that business methods are also patentable. Hence in the current environment, scores of patents, assigned to many different parties, may cover a single electronic device or software--making it increasingly impossible to manufacture an electronic device without receiving a cease and desist letter or other notice from a patentee demanding a large royalty or threatening an injunction. Companies, particularly those in …

What Is Hiding In The Bushes - Ebay's Effect On Holdout Behavior In Patent Thickets, Gavin D. George

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Importantly, at least a few relevant patent holders are inevitably left out of an industry organization's collection of patents. These left-out patent holders, known as "holdouts," can undermine the collective arrangement with demand letters and infringement suits.[...] The first part of this Note explains why holdouts exist in the first place, given the benefits of joining an organization of collected patents. In the second part of this Note, I explore the lack of legal protections against holdout demands offered by pre-eBay patent law. The third part of this Note introduces the eBay decision as revolutionary addition to list of legal …

Promoting Diverse Cultural Expression: Lessons From The U.S. Copyright Wars, Raymond Shih Ray Ku

Faculty Publications

In 2007, the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expression (CCD) with the goal of creating an environment that encourages individuals and social groups to create, distribute, and have access to diverse cultural expression from their own cultural and from cultures around the world. With regard to domestic and international efforts to implement the CCD and reconcile its goals with other international norms, the author argues that valuable lessons can be learned from current trends and issues in U.S. copyright law. Specifically, the author argues that the current debate over copyright's …

Keep Your Eye On Your Ball: Patent Holders' Evolving Duty To Patrol The Marketplace For Infringement, Aaron B. Rabinowitz

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Choosing Between The Advice Of Counsel Defense To Willful Patent Infringement Or The Effective Assistance Of Trial Counsel: A Bridge Or The Troubled Waters, Christopher A. Harkins

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

Trouble is brewing for patent infringement defendants who use lawyers from one law firm to act as trial counsel and other lawyers from the same or different firm (albeit perfectly screened off from the trial team) to prepare a non-infringement opinion as an advice of counsel defense to allegations of willful infringement. The 2006 Federal Circuit decision in EchoStar has set off a veritable feeding frenzy of attacks by patentees' counsel on the most sacred of attorney client communications and work product: that of trial counsel. In a case of first impression, one federal court has even granted a motion …

Extra-Judicial Decision Making For Drug Safety And Risk Management: Evidence From The Fda, Hazel Mcmullin, Andrew B. Whitford

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Overcoming The Achilles Heel Of Copyright Law, Haochen Sun

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Is Apple Playing Fair? Navigating The Ipod Fairplay Drm Controversy, Nicola F. Sharpe, Olufunmilayo B. Arewa

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Times May Have Changed, But The Song Is Still The Same: Why The Supreme Court Was Incorrect To Stray From Sony's Reasoning In Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Inc. V. Grokster, Ltd., Julie A. Wooten

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

National Cable & Telecommunications Association V. Brand X Internet Services: Resolving Irregularities In Regulation?, Amy L. Signaigo

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

The Emerging Bric Economies: Lessons From Intellectual Property Negotiation And Enforcement, Robert C. Bird, Daniel R. Cahoy

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Will India And China Profit From Technological Innovation?, David Orozco

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Global Intellectual Property Rights And Economic Growth, Linda Y. Yueh

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

This article argues that the global intellectual property rights regime will affect the economic growth prospects of developing countries. The trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS) provisions under the WTO articles will eventually cover all of its member countries, currently at around 150 and representing 95% of world trade. It is a significant change in the global legal system with implications for economic growth. One of the key mechanisms generating convergence in global economic growth rates is the transfer of technology from developed to developing countries. According to the neoclassical models of growth, technology is embodied within the capital …

What Multinational Companies Need To Know About Patent Enforcement And Patent Litigation In China, J. Benjamin Bai, Peter J. Wang, Helen Cheng

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Social Networking Web Sites And The Dmca: A Safe-Harbor From Copyright Infringement Liability Or The Perfect Storm?, Jonathan J. Darrow, Gerald R. Ferrera

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

The Duty To Disclose Patent Rights, Richard M. Lebovitz

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Caveat Venditor: Technologically Protected Subsidized Goods And The Customers Who Hack Them, Christopher Soghoian

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

A (My)Space Of One's Own: On Privacy And Online Social Networks, Patricia Sanchez Abril

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Well Duh: Obviousness, Gas Pedals, And The Teaching-Suggestion-Motivation Test, Randall J. Hirsch , M.D.

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.