Internet Law Commons^™

Block Me Not: Are Patented Genes 'Essential Facilities'?, Shamnad Basheer

ExpressO

The biopharmaceutical industry is characterized by the ‘cumulative innovation’ paradigm, wherein the discovery of a gene sequence is only the first step. In order to convert such sequence information into viable products, tests and cures for genetic conditions and diseases, vast amounts of additional time, effort and money have to be spent. It is feared that patents over upstream gene sequences may ‘block’ further downstream research and consequently adversely impact drug discovery, as many diseases today are known to have genetic origins.

This ‘blocking’ or ‘restricted access’ issue has been the subject of several important papers and a wide array …

Material Vulnerabilities: Data Privacy, Corporate Information Security And Securities Regulation, Andrea M. Matwyshyn

ExpressO

This article undertakes a normative and empirical legal inquiry into the manner information security vulnerabilities are being addressed through law and in the marketplace. Specifically, this article questions the current legislative paradigm for information security regulation by presenting a critique grounded in information security and cryptography theory. Consequently, this article advocates shifting our regulatory approach to a process-based security paradigm that focuses on improving security of our system as a whole. Finally, this article argues that in order to accomplish this shift with least disruption to current legal and economic processes, expanding an existing set of well-functioning legal structures is …

Why "Bad" Patents Survive In The Market And How Should We Change?--The Private And Social Costs Of Patents, Jay P. Kesan

ExpressO

In this paper, we formally demonstrate that incorrectly issued patents can survive in the market without judicial review, even when the invention is neither novel nor non-obvious. We support this contention by presenting a game theoretic model that studies the interaction between the patentee and an alleged infringer/challenger. Using this model, we demonstrate the impact of the transaction costs in the patent system at the administrative stage in the Patent Office and at the enforcement stage in the courts, and highlight the inability in our current system to mount effective challenges to improperly granted patents in the current system. We …

Keeping Score: The Struggle For Music Copyright, Michael W. Carroll

ExpressO

Inspired by the passionate contemporary debates about music copyright, this Article investigates how, when, and why music first came within copyright's domain. Although music publishers and recording companies are among the most aggressive advocates for strong copyright protection today, when copyright law was first invented in eighteenth-century England, music publishers resisted its extension to music. This Article sheds light on a series of early legal disputes concerning printed music that yield important insights into original understandings of copyright law and music's role in society. By focusing attention on this understudied episode, this Article demonstrates that the concept of copyright was …

Whose Music Is It Anyway? How We Came To View Musical Expression As A Form Of Property, Michael W. Carroll

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Many participants in the music industry consider unauthorized transmissions of music files over the Internet to be theft of their property. Many Internet users who exchange music files reject this characterization. Prompted by the dispute over unauthorized music distribution, this Article explores how those who create and distribute music first came to look upon music as their property and when in Western history the law first supported this view. By analyzing the economic and legal structures governing music making in Western Europe from the classical period in Greece through the Renaissance, the Article shows that the law first granted some …

Resolving Tensions Between Copyright And The Internet, Walter Effross

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Withdrawal Of The Reference: Rights, Rules, And Remedies For Unwelcomed Web-Linking, Walter Effross

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Property And Innovation In The Global Information Infrastructure, Henry H. Perritt Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.