Intellectual Property Law Commons^™

Notes On Unplanned Coauthorship, Wendy J. Gordon, Shyamkrishna Balganesh

Scholarship Chronologically

Unplanned coauthorship refers to the process by which contributors to a creative work are treated by copyright law as coauthors of the work based entirely on their observable behavior during its creation. The process entails a court imputing the status of coauthors to the parties ex post, usually during a claim for copyright infringement. For years now, courts and scholars have struggled to identify a coherent rationale for unplanned coauthorship and situate it within copyright's set of goals and objectives. This Article offers a novel framework for understanding the rules of unplanned coauthorship using insights from theories of shared intentionality. …

Functionality And Graphical User Interface Design Patents, Michael Risch

Working Paper Series

Modern designers of graphical user interfaces, or GUIs, have obtained design patent protection for creative computer software displays, a realm previously limited to copyright. The difference in protection is important because design patents do not traditionally allow the same defenses - life fair use - associated with copyright. Apple's nearly billion dollar judgment against Samsung, which included such a GUI patent, brought this issue to the forefront.

This article answers three emerging questions:

1. Aren't GUIs something that should be protected by copyright only? Why should there be a patent? The answer is relatively simple: the law has, since 1870, …

Copyright Users' Rights In International Law, Margaret Ann Wilkinson

Law Publications

No abstract provided.

Pinterest's Secondary Liability: The Dmca Implications Of Holding Pinterest Responsible And What Pinterest Can Do To Avoid Liability, Monica Yun

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

This note explores Pinterest's possible liabilities for copyright infringement and what it can possibly do to shield itself from prosecution. Part II will address the basics of Pinterest and how it relates to other social media and online service providers. Part III will delve into the legal background of the Copyright Act of 1976, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, secondary liability, the fair use defense, and legislation that has already been proposed to address this issue. Part IV will analyze Pinterest's indirect liability and how it may use the fair use defense. And finally, Part V will propose …

Borrowed Fiction And The Rightful Copyright Position, Viva R. Moffat

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Works of “borrowed fiction” — unauthorized sequels or retellings of literary works — have long prompted legal, cultural, and social backlash. With respect to copyright disputes, this is because borrowed fiction entails a range of legitimate but conflicting interests. Copyright law has historically elevated the interests of the “original” author over those of other writers and the reading public. Scholars have offered a range of proposals to counter this tendency, but these reforms have focused on the infringement analysis and the fair use doctrine. Each of those, however, involves a binary decision, one that is not amenable to accommodating the …

The Copyright/Patent Boundary, Viva R. Moffat

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Since the passage of the 1976 Copyright Act, the scope of protection for industrial design has been one of the most troublesome areas of copyright law. Many everyday items, from smart phones and gaming devices to bicycle racks and clothing mannequins, blend form — which is protected by copyright law — and function — protected by patent — and therefore lie at the boundary of the two areas of law. Courts and scholars have persistently struggled with copyright’s useful article doctrine, which seeks to delineate that boundary, but none of the approaches has proved to be either practically or theoretically …

Rediscovering Cumulative Creativity From The Oral Formulaic Tradition To Digital Remix: Can I Get A Witness?, 13 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 341 (2014), Giancarlo F. Frosio

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

For most of human history, the essential nature of creativity was understood to be cumulative and collective. This notion has been largely forgotten by modern policies that regulate creativity and speech. As hard as it may be to believe, the most valuable components of our immortal culture were created under a fully open regime with regard to access to pre-existing expressions and re-use. From the Platonic mimesis to Shakespeare’s “borrowed feathers,” the largest part of our culture has been produced under a paradigm in which imitation—even plagiarism—and social authorship formed constitutive elements of the creative moment. Pre-modern creativity spread from …

Navigating Cybersquatting Enforcement In The Expanding Internet, 13 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 321 (2014), Jordan A. Arnot

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

It has always been a considerable task to police something as vast at the Internet for trademark violations and abuse. As the Internet develops with the ongoing launch of hundreds of new generic Top-Level Domains, so does the host of enforcement options available to those seeking to protect the value of trademarks and other intellectual property. This article outlines seven criteria to consider when selecting a remedy, or combination of remedies. The traditional cease and desist letter is still a viable and effective option, and so, of course, is litigation. These tools were greatly enhanced in 1999 when the Internet …

An Evolving Ncaa Leading To An Expanding Client List, 13 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 463 (2014), Frank Battaglia

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

On the heels of the popular March Madness National Collegiate Athletic Association (“NCAA”) Basketball tournament, and following Northwestern University student-athletes’ success in unionizing, the extent of student-athlete publicity rights is now more contentious than ever. The divide between an ever-profiting NCAA and exploited NCAA student-athletes has sparked an evolving class-action lawsuit by former student-athletes, who challenge the licensing of their images and likenesses. This lawsuit has become a landmark test of the NCAA’s governance and notions about amateurism in college athletics. The outcome of this case will be a possible sign that compensation for both current and former student-athletes may …

Cls Bank V. Alice Corp.: What Does It Mean For Software Patent Eligibility?, 13 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 601 (2014), Charles F. Green

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

For more than forty years, patent attorneys, software engineers, examiners, and judges have debated the patent eligibility of software. For most of the 1980s and 90s, the USPTO has viewed software as generally patent-eligible subject matter. Starting with the State Street v. Signature Financial case in 1998, courts have examined subject matter patent eligibility with greater scrutiny. This comment reviews six recent software patent eligibility cases, of which the court upheld software’s eligibility twice and rejected its eligibility four other times. In particular, the CLS Bank v. Alice Corp. case serves as a basis for examining several approaches to the …

The Impact Of The America Invents Act On Trade Secrets, 13 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 497 (2014), Edward Manzo

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (“AIA”) is the largest revision to the patent statute in over sixty years. One might ask whether the AIA changed the balance between trade secret law and patent law and what the new relationship will be between these different approaches to protecting technology. This article answers four particular questions that arise in addressing this topic. First, what, if anything, the AIA says specifically about trade secrets; second, whether someone who commercially uses a trade secret for over one year can patent it under the AIA; third, whether a new inventor may patent an invention that …

A Solution-Based Approach To Rejecting Trademark Licenses In Bankruptcy, 13 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 621 (2014), Chandra J. Critchelow

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

The Seventh Circuit created a circuit split in bankruptcy law regarding the rejection of trademark licenses in its 2011 decision in Sunbeam Prods., Inc. v. Chi. Am. Mfg. LLC. All other courts have held that when a trademark license is rejected under 11 U.S.C. § 365 in a Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding, the licensee may no longer use the licensed trademark. All other forms of intellectual property are subject to § 365(n), which prevents automatic termination of the licensee’s rights. In Sunbeam, the court held that the rejection of a trademark license under § 365 does not automatically terminate the …

Implementing And Enforcing Intellectual Property Rights In West Africa, 13 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 782 (2014), Ganiyou Gassikia

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

The World Trade Organization (WTO) created the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement to monitor and enforce intellectual property rights around the world, to uneven success. There are problems with enforcement in many developing countries, specifically countries in West Africa. By some estimates, for example, the majority of drugs used in those countries are counterfeit, which can lead to serious injury or even death for those using the counterfeit drugs. Stronger IP enforcement not only encourages innovation but can serve to reduce the risk of death of those in developing countries. There are major challenges facing implementation of IP rights …

The Consistently Inconsistent "Instance And Expense" Test: An Injustice To Comic Books, 14 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 91 (2014), Thomas Deahl Ii

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

Joe Simon once said that “we always felt, we wuz robbed.” He is not alone. This article will discuss Jack Kirby’s estate’s case against Marvel and how the current state of the law robs creators of the rights to their own works. The evaluation of case law will show that the application of the ‘instance and expense’ test creates an injustice of inconsistent results in litigation, where creators attempt to regain control of their works. If the court continues to inconsistently apply the law to these work-for-hire cases, then the Supreme Court or Congress needs to address the intended purpose …

Trademarks, Domain Names, And Icann: An Evolving Dance, Sheri Lyn Falco

St. Thomas Law Review

The aim of this article is to provide insight into the various policies trademark owners can utilize to ensure protection of their domain name-related trademarks on the United States Patent and Trademark Office ("USPTO")' Principal Register as well as the various mechanisms trademark owners can use to protect their registered or non-registered marks against third party activities within the domain name system. The article will examine the USPTO's policies regarding trademark registration on the Principal Register for marks that contain top-level domains ("TLDs") as a part of the domain name in the applied for mark as well as for marks …

Ascending The Intellectual Property Management Pyramid, Harry J. Gwinnell, Katherine S. Boyle

Cybaris®

No abstract provided.

Copyright, Fair Use And The Digital Age In Academic Libraries: A Review Of The Literature, Amanda Mccormick

Law Librarian Journal Articles

Copyright law in the United States has gained a certain notoriety for its complexity and ambiguity, which has only been compounded by the evolution (or, some would say, revolution) of print resources to electronic resources. The purpose of this literature review is to review the current understanding of copyright law within the context of academic libraries in universities and colleges. Additionally, this review will describe what issues academic librarians face in complying with copyright law in this new digital age while continuing to perform duties such as processing course reserve materials, developing an institutional repository, and maintaining a digital collection. …

Innovation And Incarceration: An Economic Analysis Of Criminal Intellectual Property Law, Christopher Buccafusco, Jonathan S. Masur

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Disclosing Big Data, Michael Mattioli

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This Article reveals that the law is failing to adequately encourage producers of “big data” to disclose their most innovative work to the public. “Big data” refers to a new industrial and scientific phenomenon that holds the potential to transform diverse industries—from medicine, to energy, to online services. At the heart of this phenomenon are innovative and complex practices by which experts shape featureless digital records into valuable information products. The fact that these big data practices are unlikely to be widely disclosed to the public is worrisome for familiar reasons: the law generally prefers to induce technological disclosure in …

Rethinking Resistance: Reflections On The Cultural Lives Of Property, Collective Identity, And Intellectual Property, 47 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1349 (2014), Caroline Joan Picart

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.