Intellectual Property Law Commons^™

The Promised Land: Blockchain And The Fashion Industry, Shlomit Yanisky-Ravid, Grace Monroy

Brooklyn Law Review

Despite being a highly creative industry, the fashion industry lacks effective intellectual property (IP) protection in the United States. This article posits that, in the midst of the digital era, blockchain technology, particularly smart contracts, can remedy the failure of IP laws to protect fashion designs and create efficiencies that may dramatically improve the industry. Therefore, if the fashion industry were to adopt a blockchain-based platform, enabled by smart contracts, it could address many of the current challenges stemming from a lack of sufficient IP protection. This article explores the features of blockchain technology, including NFTS, and the application to …

Third Time’S The Charm: Remedying The Lack Of Uniformity And Predictability In Trade Secret Law, Matthew D. Kasner

Brooklyn Law Review

The current legal framework governing trade secrets in the United States lacks the uniformity and predictability necessary to protect businesses. As a result, trade secret litigation has been on the rise over the course of the last decade. Whilst remote work becomes more ubiquitous, even beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, litigation will continue to increase as businesses are forced to entrust confidential information with remote workers. This note examines the current US trade secret scheme, exposes the current framework’s deficiencies, and suggests a “trade secret formalities model” to make for a more organized and efficient doctrine of law. More specifically, this …

Content Moderation Issues Online: Section 230 Is Not To Blame, Reese D. Bastian

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (“Section 230”) is the glue that holds the Internet—as we know it today—together. Section 230 says, “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” Simply put, Section 230 says that websites or platforms are not liable for content posted by third parties. There are many critics who attribute the maladies of the online world to Section 230. Section 230 presents issues such as over-moderation by Interactive Computer Service (“ICS”) providers that can go as far …

Vara Turns Thirty-One: How Amending The Visual Artists Rights Act Of 1990 To Add Guiding Language Can Further Advance The Act’S Purpose, Ana-Victoria Moreno

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

Congress passed the Visual Artists Rights Act (“VARA”) in 1990, introducing the doctrine of moral rights into United States law. Moral rights consist of four rights: attribution, disclosure, withdrawal, and integrity. VARA recognizes the rights of attribution and integrity to preserve the integrity of artworks and of the country’s cultural heritage by encouraging artists to create. The passing of VARA has been met with criticism but also with excitement that Congress recognized the importance of artists’ non‌-economic rights. In the thirty‌-one years since the enactment of VARA, caselaw has developed that shows how courts and parties are interpreting its language. …

Patently Absurd: The Invention Secrecy Order System, Gregory Saltz

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

The current patent application secrecy order system has almost no safeguards to prevent abuse and overreach into private intellectual property rights by the Government. Defense agencies are presently able to have the United States Patent and Trademark Office place secrecy orders on applications by merely deciding for themselves that revelation of information found therein would be detrimental to national security; there are no rules or restrictions on how the agencies go about making this determination. Likewise, the current system contains little in the way of protection for inventors who are left without a meaningful way to challenge these orders. The …

Masalah Penggunaan Ciptaan Sebagai Data Masukan Dalam Pengembangan Artificial Intelligence Di Indonesia, Ari Juliano Gema

Technology and Economics Law Journal

The development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is growing so fast. The availability of input data is important because it has a major impact on how the AI system will be developed. The use of copyrighted works as input data in AI development is also unavoidable. This paper tries to examine how the copyright law in Indonesia relates to the use of copyrighted works as input data for AI development. Based on the results of the study, it is known that the use of copyrighted works as input data for AI development in Indonesia still has to respect the exclusive rights …

Developing Metrics For Nasa Earth Science Interdisciplinary Data Products And Services, Zhong Liu, Chung-Lin Shie, Anthony J. Ritrivi, Guang-Dih Lei, Gary T. Alcott, Mary Greene, James Acker, Jennifer C. Wei, David J. Meyer, Angela Li, Atheer F. Al-Jazrawi

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

Metrics are measures that are able to produce quantifiable information. There are many applications of metrics in Earth science data and services; for example, metrics are frequently used to track service performance and progress. In short, developing, collecting and analyzing metrics are essential activities to better support Earth science research, applications, and education.

As one of the largest repositories of Earth science data in the world, NASA’s Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) Project supports twelve Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs). Standard metrics have been developed by the ESDIS Metrics System (EMS). These metrics are collected and analyzed routinely …

Perlindungan Hukum Terhadap Karya Cipta Pada Layanan Over The Top (Ott), Nuruzzhahrah Diza

Technology and Economics Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Tinjauan Hukum Perlindungan Hak Cipta Film Dokumenter Dan Peluang Hak Ekonomi Insan Perfilman Dokumenter Di Indonesia, Kadenza Adistya Tamara Indratmo

Technology and Economics Law Journal

The film production process requires human resources (power) with certain qualifications according to their roles and functions. At a certain level, the personnel involved in film production must be professionals. One of the significant growths of the Indonesian film industry today is the growth in the number of cinema screens. In addition, new film genres have also emerged, so that the films shown by the public are increasingly diverse. One of these new genres is the documentary film as a cinematographic work which is also protected by Law Number 28 of 2014 concerning Copyright (UUHC). In the midst of such …

Federally Mandated Online Sales Tax: A Logistical Solution For The Future Of E-Commerce, Daniel O'Connor

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Economic Structural Transformation And Litigation: Evidence From Chinese Provinces, To Economic Change And Restructuring, Doug Bujakowski, Joan Schmit

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The "Business Interruption" Insurance Coverage Conundrum: Covid-19 Presents A Challenge, Paul E. Traynor

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Misalighned Incentives In Markets: Envisioning Finance That Benefits All Of Society, Dr. Ryan Clements

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.

[Quote] Hail To The Washington Commanders — And The Power Of The Trademark, Christine Farley

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Guidelines For Publicly Archiving Terrestrial Model Data To Enhance Usability, Intercomparison, And Synthesis, Maegen B. Simmonds, William J. Riley, Deborah A. Agarwal, Xingyuan Chen, Shreyas Cholia, Robert Crystal-Ornelas, Ethan T. Coon, Dipankar Dwivedi, Valerie C. Hendrix, Maoyi Huang, Ahmad Jan, Zarine Kakalia, Jitendra Kumar, Charles D. Koven, Li Li, Mario Melara, Lavanya Ramakrishnan, Daniel M. Ricciuto, Anthony P. Walker, Wei Zhi, Qing Zhu, Charuleka Varadharajan

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

Scientific communities are increasingly publishing data to evaluate, accredit, and build on published research. However, guidelines for curating data for publication are sparse for model-related research, limiting the usability of archived simulation data. In particular, there are no established guidelines for archiving data related to terrestrial models that simulate land processes and their coupled interactions with climate. Terrestrial modelers have a unique set of challenges when publishing data due to the diversity of scientific domains, research questions, and the types and scales of simulations. Researchers in the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) projects use a variety of multiscale models to …

Submission Of The Citizens And Technology (Cat) Lab To The United States Copyright Office, U.S .Library Of Congress, Washington, D.C., Re Notice Of Inquiry Technical Measures Public Consultations [ Docket No. 2021–10 ][ Federal Reg. No: 2021-27705 ], J. Nathan Matias, Jonathon W. Penney, Lucas Wright

Commissioned Reports, Studies and Public Policy Documents

No abstract provided.

Appendix: Cannabis, Consumers, And The Trademark Laundering Trap, Viva R. Moffat, Sam Kamin, Tim Maffett

William & Mary Law Review Online

Appendix to article in William & Mary Law Review vol. 63, no. 6 (2022), "Cannabis, Consumers, and the Trademark Laundering Trap" by Viva R. Moffat, Sam Kamin, and Tim Maffett.

A Musical Cue For Fashion: How Compulsory Licenses And Sampling Can Shape Fashion Design Copyright, Caroline Olivier

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

The fashion industry is the Wild West of intellectual property law. Fashion design protection is essentially non-existent, and designers take what they want when they want in the form of inspiration or complete copying. As technology advances and enables fashion designs to disseminate at high-tech speeds, there is no longer room for an apathetic approach to fashion intellectual property. If the law is a means for protecting the hard work of up-and-coming artists and providing incentives for innovation, changes must be made.

This note demonstrates how the fashion industry can adopt a copyright and licensing scheme similar to that of …

Muddy Waters: Fair Use Implications Of Google Llc V. Oracle America, Inc., Gary Myers

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

Ooh

In the muddy water we’re falling

Ooh In the muddy water we’re crawling

Holds me down

Hold me now

Sold me out

In the muddy waters we’re falling

— Laura Pergolizzi (LP) - “Muddy Waters,” Lost On You (Vagrant Records 2016)

The United States Supreme Court ruling in Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc. ended a long-running dispute between two giant technology companies. The case, which first began in 2010, has received considerable attention and commentary with regard to the scope of copyright protection for software and then about the contours of the fair use defense. The Court ultimately …

Maximizing Social Welfare Through The Tailoring Of Patent Duration And Using Algorithms To Calculate Optimal Patent Duration, Alvaro Cure Dominguez

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

Patents are legal devices granted by the government that confer inventors exclusive rights to their invention for a limited time. In exchange, the U.S. government requires the inventors to publicly disclose their invention to allow individuals to recreate it upon expiration of the exclusivity period. Previously, academics regarded patents as a necessary means to overcome the free-rider dilemma (“FRD”), and they assumed that, without patents, society would be deprived of many potentially valuable innovations. This model has come under criticism. Researchers point to cases where inventors would have innovated regardless of a patent grant. They also highlight instances where patent …

Pleasure Patents, Andrew Gilden, Sarah R. Wasserman Rajec

Faculty Publications

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has granted thousands of patents for inventions whose purpose is to facilitate the sexual pleasure of their users. These "pleasure patents" raise a range of novel questions about both patent theory and the relationship between law and sexuality more broadly. Given that "immoral" inventions were long excluded from the patent system, and that sexual devices were widely criminalized for much of the past 150 years, how have patentees successfully framed the contributions of their sexual inventions? If a patentable invention must be both new and useful, how have patentees described the utility of …

Muddy Waters: Fair Use Implications Of Google V. Oracle America, Inc., Gary Myers

Faculty Publications

The United States Supreme Court ruling in Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc. ended a long-running dispute between two giant technology companies. The case, which first began in 2010, has received considerable attention and commentary with regard to the scope of copyright protection for software and then about the contours of the fair use defense. The Court ultimately left the software copyright questions for another day, but it did render an important decision on fair use, the first major precedent on this important topic since 1994.

The Court’s fair use ruling provides important guidance on the scope of fair use …

Patent Inconsistency, Saurabh Vishnubhakat

Faculty Scholarship

Despite the promise of efficiency through the use of expert agency adjudication in U.S. patent law, administrative substitution continues to fall short. In a variety of ways, the decade-old system of Patent Office adjudication is simply an additional place to litigate rather than the robust technocratic alternative it was meant to be. These problems have arisen from important defects in the statutory design, but also from the enormous expansion and ascendancy of the Patent Office itself. Moreover, while duplicative litigation over patent validity is recognized and criticized, its scale and scope has eluded detailed empirical analysis until now. This Article …

In Memoriam - Professor William Rodolph Cornish, Gordon Ionwy David Llewelyn

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

With the passing of Professor Bill Cornish, the intellectual property law world has lost one of its most revered pathfinders and the “Max Planck Family” one of its most loved and respected members (I do not hesitate to use the adjective “loved”, even though it may not be one that has appeared frequently in the pages of IIC). As long ago as 1979, Professor Cornish (or “Bill” as he was known to his friends and colleagues, for he was not one to stand on ceremony or titles) first found his way to Bogenhausen and the second floor of Siebertstrasse 3, …

Is The Chemical Genus Claim Really “Dead” At The Federal Circuit?: Part I, Christopher M. Holman

Faculty Works

A 2020 law review article entitled The Death of the Genus Claim (“Death”) purports to document a dramatic shift in the Federal Circuit’s interpretation of 35 U.S.C. 112(a)’s enablement and written description requirements, particularly as applied to chemical genus claims. According to the authors of Death, it has become nearly impossible to obtain a chemical genus claim that will be upheld as valid in the face of a challenge for overbreadth under Section 112(a). Death was cited extensively in Amgens’s successful petition for certiorari in Amgen v. Sanofi, a case asking the Supreme Court to overturn the Federal Circuit’s decision …

The Second Transformation Of The International Intellectual Property Regime, Peter K. Yu

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter focuses on the structural changes that international investment norms have posed to the international intellectual property regime. It begins by documenting the regime’s first transformation by the adoption of the TRIPS Agreement and the marriage of intellectual property and trade through the World Trade Organization. The chapter then explores the regime’s potential second transformation when bilateral, regional, and plurilateral agreements and new investor-state disputes have caused international investment norms to intrude into the intellectual property domain. It continues to identify three sets of problems that have emerged from such intrusion. The chapter concludes by proposing three solutions to …

Ai Derivatives: The Application To The Derivative Work Right To Literary And Artistic Productions Of Ai Machines, Daniel J. Gervais

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This Article predicts that there will be attempts to use courts to try to broaden the derivative work right in litigation either to prevent the use of, or claim protection for, literary and artistic productions made by Artificial Intelligence (AI) machines. This Article considers the normative valence of, and the (significant) doctrinal pitfalls associated with, such attempts. It also considers a possible legislative alternative, namely attempts to introduce a new sui generis right in AI productions. Finally, this Article explains how, whether such attempts succeed or not, the debate on rights (if any) in productions made by AI machines is …

Withholding Injunctions In Copyright Cases: Impacts Of Ebay, Pamela Samuelson

William & Mary Law Review

Before the Supreme Court’s 2006 decision in eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C., which ruled that courts should exercise equitable discretion when considering whether to issue permanent injunctions in patent infringement cases, courts routinely granted injunctions in copyright cases when plaintiffs proved that defendants had infringed or had likely infringed copyrights. Such findings triggered presumptions of irreparable harm, which were almost never rebutted. Only rarely would courts consider a balancing of hardships or effects of injunctions on public interests.

In the first several years after eBay, commentators reported that eBay had had little impact on the availability of injunctive …

Licensed To Rock The Campaign Trail: Are The Ascap And Bmi Political Campaign Licenses Violating Their Antitrust Consent Decrees?, Leah Scholnick

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Peer Review Analyze: A Novel Benchmark Resource For Computational Analysis Of Peer Reviews, Tirthankar Ghosal, Sandeep Kumar, Prabhat Kumar Bharti, Asif Ekbal

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

Peer Review is at the heart of scholarly communications and the cornerstone of scientific publishing. However, academia often criticizes the peer review system as non-transparent, biased, arbitrary, a flawed process at the heart of science, leading to researchers arguing with its reliability and quality. These problems could also be due to the lack of studies with the peer-review texts for various proprietary and confidentiality clauses. Peer review texts could serve as a rich source of Natural Language Processing (NLP) research on understanding the scholarly communication landscape, and thereby build systems towards mitigating those pertinent problems. In this work, we present …