Intellectual Property Law Commons^™

Taxing Facebook Code: Debugging The Tax Code And Software, Xuan-Thao Nguyen, Jeffrey A. Maine

Faculty Publications

This article sets out to analyze both intellectual property laws and tax systems as applied to software. The article also analyzes software within the intellectual property doctrinal framework, and examines both the federal and state tax systems governing software.

Made In America: A Comparative Analysis Of Copyright Law Protections For Fashion Design In Asia And The United States, Alexandra Mackey

American University Business Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Thousand Tiny Pieces: The Federal Circuit's Fractured 'Myriad' Ruling, Lessons To Be Learned, And The Way Forward, Jonathan Stroud

Celebrating WCL Student Authors

The Supreme Court granted, vacated, and remanded the infamous Myriad gene isolation patentability case to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) in light of the recent Prometheus decision, which held 9-0 that a certain diagnostic method was invalid subject matter because it was an abstract idea merely modified by other obvious steps. This Essay argues that Myriad should be affirmed again by the Federal Circuit, particularly in light of Prometheus, in order to inject certainty, clarity, and consistency into the § 101 patentable subject matter jurisprudence

"Hostile Learning Environment:" Developing Student Speech Regulation By Applying The Hostile Work Environment Analysis To Cyberbullying, Carla Diblasio

Journal of Law, Technology, & the Internet

No abstract provided.

Antitrust And Patent License Agreements: A New Look At The Grantback Clause In High Technology Markets, John M. Murray

Journal of Law, Technology, & the Internet

No abstract provided.

Do Robomemos Dream Of Electric Nouns?: A Search For The Soul Of Legal Writing, Ian Gallacher

Journal of Law, Technology, & the Internet

No abstract provided.

The Sound Of Silence: The Legality Of The American "Kill Switch" Bill, Deborah Beth Medows

Journal of Law, Technology, & the Internet

No abstract provided.

How The Traditional Property Rights Model Informs The Television Broadcasting Spectrum Rationalization Challenge, J. Armand Musey

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

This paper examines the role zoning rights and eminent domain may play in the Federal Communication Commission's ("FCC") challenge of reallocating underutilized television broadcast spectrum for use in significantly higher value mobile broadband applications. The government must find a way to reallocate the spectrum in an economically and legally efficient manner, balancing the interests of the politically powerful broadcasters and those of society as a whole. From a strictly legal perspective, the broadcasters have a relatively weak claim to property rights. However, the government has indicated it seeks an incentivized voluntary return of spectrum by the broadcasters, suggesting the government …

The Transformative Tribute: How Mash-Up Music Constitutes Fair Use Of Copyrights, Vera Golosker

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

The music industry faces copyright protection issues in light of the transformative digital sampling trend, which has carved out a new genre: mash-up. Without obtaining licensing agreements, creators of mash-up music use parts of copyrighted songs as the ingredients for a fusion of sounds that arguably amounts to more creative value than the sum of its parts. In confronting the legality of mash-up music, courts and legislators must strike a balance between securing original artists' interest and promoting new frontiers of expression. This article presents a background of digital sampling, applies the fair use defense to mash-up music, and proposes …

Online Business Reviews And The Public Figure Doctrine: An Advertising-Based Standard, Jenna Morton

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

Online reviews exert a powerful influence of consumers, who rely on the reviews to choose restaurants, barbers, doctors, and many other businesses. Businesses also rely on the reviews as an important form of advertisement. False reviews thus harm both businesses and consumers. Businesses that are harmed by false online reviews can bring a defamation action against the reviewer. However, the current legal standard is unclear as applied to businesses, as it looks to whether an individual is a "public figure." This note weighs the costs and benefits of three possible legal standards for businesses bringing defamation actions: (1) a bright …

Of Guilds And Men: Copyright Workarounds In The Cinematographic Industry, Adriane Porcin

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

The motion picture industry utilizes a varied collection of more or less formal mechanisms for dealing with the collective nature of audiovisual works, ranging from collective bargaining to legal presumptions. What these instances of copyright workarounds have in common is that they are all about circumventing traditional notions of authorship (the right to be deemed the author of a work) and ownership (the right to exert control over a work). When considered from an international perspective, the cinematographic industry is fertile ground for an exploration of such mechanisms.

After a recitation of the Berne Convention, this paper will proceed to …

Crowdsourcing A Trademark: What The Public Giveth, The Courts May Taketh Away, Llewellyn Joseph Gibbons

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

There is a long tradition of trademark holders relying on the public to create designations that they then adopt as a trademark. Historically, this has been a long and slow process. Acquiring secondary meaning from the individual's first use of the designation could take years. Web 2.0 and other forms of social media have the potential to speed up this process through the use of User Generated Content ("UGC"). Frequently, coined designations are nicknames for well-known brands, so they are potentially quite valuable. Trademark law is ambiguous regarding who owns a designation created by the public, if the individual claiming …

Competitive Entertainment: Implications Of The Nfl Lockout Litigation For Sports, Theatre, Music, And Video Entertainment, Henry H. Perritt Jr.

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

The 2011 dispute between the National Football League ("NFL" or "League"), representing the football teams, and NFL Players' Association ("NFLPA," or "Players," or "Players Association"), the union representing its football players, oscillated among the collective bargaining table, the National Labor Relations Board ("NLRB"), and the courts. The League preferred labor law as the matrix of the controversy. The Players preferred antitrust law. Ultimately, the union's most powerful weapon was not to withhold player services in a strike, but to challenge various anticompetitive arrangements wanted by the teams under the antitrust laws.

This article begins with a brief review of the …

The Same Song And Dance: F.B.T. Productions, Llc V. Aftermath Records And The Role Of Licenses In The Digital Age Of Copyright Law, John P. Uetz

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Did Learned Hand Get It Wrong?: The Questionable Patent Forfeiture Rule Of Metallizing Engineering, Dmitry Karshtedt

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Hydraulic Fracturing Additives: A Solution To The Tension Between Trade Secret Protection And Demands For Public Disclosure, Travis D. Van Ort

Kentucky Journal of Equine, Agriculture, & Natural Resources Law

No abstract provided.

Harvesting A Lawsuit: Challenging The Enforcement And Validity Of Monsanto's Transgenic Seed Patents, Kelly E. Calder

Kentucky Journal of Equine, Agriculture, & Natural Resources Law

No abstract provided.

Games Are Not Coffee Mugs: Games And The Right Of Publicity, 29 Santa Clara Computer & High Tech. L.J. 1 (2012), William K. Ford, Raizel Liebler

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

Are games more like coffee mugs, posters, and T-shirts, or are they more like books, magazines, and films? For purposes of the right of publicity, the answer matters. The critical question is whether games should be treated as merchandise or as expression. Three classic judicial decisions, decided in 1967, 1970, and 1973, held that the defendants needed permission to use the plaintiffs' names in their board games. These decisions judicially confirmed that games are merchandise, not something equivalent to more traditional media of expression. As merchandise, games are not like books; instead, they are akin to celebrity-embossed coffee mugs. To …

Chinese Patents As Copyrights, 34 Campbell L. Rev. 685 (2012), Benjamin Liu

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

Although harmonization efforts such as the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and the Patent Corporation Treaty regime have brought national patent systems closer, differences among them remain a continuing challenge to innovators in an interconnected global marketplace. The recent development of the Chinese patent system is of particular interest because China is the factory of the world, the most populous market, the home of the patent office that handles the most patent application filings, and the number one source of imports that violate intellectual property rights (IPR). Its patent system affects every company whose supply chain, …

Museum Policies And Art Images: Conflicting Objectives And Copyright Overreaching, Kenneth D. Crews

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

Museums face steady demand for images of artworks from their collections, and they typically provide a service of making and delivering high-resolution images of art. The images are often intellectually essential for scholarly study and teaching, and they are sometimes economically valuable for production of the coffee mugs and note cards sold in museum shops and elsewhere. Though the law is unclear regarding copyright protection afforded to such images, many museum policies and licenses encumber the use of art images with contractual terms and license restrictions often aimed at raising revenue or protecting the integrity of the art. This article …