Intellectual Property Law Commons^™

The Preventative Care Gap: Completing The Aca’S Vision For Health, Abby Nagaich

Seattle University Law Review

This Note examines the preventive care mandate under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the legal, political, and practical challenges that threaten its effectiveness. While the ACA significantly expanded access to no-cost preventive services, gaps remain—particularly in behavioral health, obesity management, and equitable service delivery. Ongoing litigation, potential administrative rollbacks, and shifting political leadership further destabilize this critical component of public health policy.

This Note argues that for the ACA to fulfill its original promise—and for any health framework to succeed—preventive care must be redefined as a comprehensive, early intervention approach grounded in both systemic access and patient education. It …

Open Secrets, Robin Feldman Distinguished Professor Of Law, Vaughn Goehrig -- Center For Innovation

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Patents and trade secrets were never intended to meet, but in the world of biologic drugs, they’ve become as thick as thieves. Patent law’s disclosure requirement has demanded far too little of biologics manufacturers—allowing them to keep vital manufacturing details under trade secret lock and key. This intellectual property patchwork has been devastating for drug affordability: Because the most critical manufacturing information remains hidden, makers of follow-on biologics (called biosimilars) are often stuck reinventing the wheel, even after the original patents have expired. This Article makes two principal contributions to illuminating this problem. First, it presents, for the first time …

Patent Law's Trade Remedy, Michael L. Doane

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Although a trade remedy, not an intellectual property rights statute, Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930 plays an important and controversial role in the enforcement of intellectual property rights in the United States. As a trade remedy, Section 337 is designed and intended to promote innovation and investment in the United States through support of statutorily defined domestic industries against unfair competition from infringing imported products. This Article analyzes Section 337 as a trade remedy from the perspective of intellectual property rights owners and innovators such as start-up companies, universities, individual inventors, and other research and development-focused entities. …

Chopped And Screwed: How The Soundexchange V. Sirius Xm Decision Remixes Section 114 Of The Copyright Act, Cat Wood

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

In SoundExchange, Inc. v. Sirius XM Radio Inc. (S.D.N.Y. 2025), the court held that SoundExchange—the congressionally designated nonprofit that collects and distributes statutory digital performance royalties under 17 U.S.C. § 114—lacks authority to bring suit to recover alleged underpayments. That ruling creates an enforcement paradox at the center of the section 114 statutory-license ecosystem: SoundExchange is the entity built to receive royalty reports, audit compliance, and distribute payments at scale, yet it cannot directly compel payment through litigation when the system fails. This Note argues that the decision misreads statutory structure by treating SoundExchange as a mere administrative clearinghouse rather …

Truth That Lies: How Literal Falsity Lost The Consumer And How To Restore It, Porter Alexander Tynes, Iii

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

The more deceptive the claim, the safer it becomes. Recent false advertising decisions hold that a categorical marketing promise is not literally false so long as it works for someone—even if it fails for ordinary consumers in ordinary use. Under this logic, technical accuracy immunizes practical deception, and truth is measured by theoretical possibility rather than communicative meaning.

This Note argues that this “truth for some” doctrine represents a sharp break from the Lanham Act’s consumer-protection purpose. Decisions such as BPI Sports v. ThermoLife invert the doctrine of literal falsity, transforming it from the Act’s strongest safeguard into a liability …

Using The Uniform For Views: How The Department Of Defense Can Better Protect Its Brand And Image, Maddox Rose

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

Today, the vast majority of American military servicemembers have active personal social media accounts. By creating and posting content online—particularly when in uniform—they run the risk of reflecting poorly on the image of the Department of Defense and their respective branches. Yet, the statutory and regulatory restrictions on content creation are loose and ambiguous. To combat this problem, either the Department and its branches should clarify their regulations, or Congress should amend its statutory protections. There is scholarly disagreement as to whether an entity’s right of publicity is violated when social media content is created that reflects poorly upon that …

Skin In The Game: The Case For Statutorily Excluding Tattoos From Copyright Protection, Emily Gamble

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

The growth of social media, AI-generated imagery, and name, image, and likeness (NIL) licensing has exponentially increased the reproduction of tattoos, yet their status under the Copyright Act remains unsettled. While tattoos arguably satisfy the threshold requirements of Title 17, their fixation on human skin challenges the definition of a "material object" and raises unique conflicts regarding bodily autonomy and publicity rights. Currently, courts address these disputes largely through equitable doctrines like implied license and fair use to avoid public policy failures, resulting in an unpredictable and incoherent legal framework.

This Note argues that judicial improvisation is insufficient to resolve …

Posts, Not Personae: Why Influencer Personae Fall Outside The Doctrine Of Character Copyright, Abbey Brantley

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

Over the past decade, social media has enabled an increasing number of people to pursue influencing as a full-time career on platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. To succeed commercially, these creators make repeated stylistic choices that both conform to online trends and project a carefully curated persona. As these personae become profitable, however, they also become susceptible to imitation. This dynamic raises the question whether copyright law, specifically the doctrine of character copyright, can protect influencers from unauthorized copying of their online identities. This Note argues that influencer personae do not and should not qualify for such protection, …

Patents And Technology Evolution: Altering Innovations And Innovators Via Patent Influences, Richard Gruner

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

Technologies improve primarily through evolutionary change not rational optimization. New technologies emerge as attempts to solve practical problems, the technologies are tested in marketplaces to determine if they are superior in cost and function to alternatives, and those that fare well in the testing gain widespread adoption.  Widely adopted technologies, and their problems, form the basis for the next round of technology improvements and evolution.  Through these steps, evolutionary processes lacking rational direction can generate changing technologies matched to the desires and problems of present society.

As they operate to advance diverse technologies, evolutionary processes governing technology change are subject …

The Expanding Patent Document: Fewer Claims, More Words, And The Drivers Of Growth, Dennis D. Crouch

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

Patent specifications have nearly quadrupled in length over the past four decades, rising from approximately 3,500 words in the early 1980s to over 13,000 words by 2025. At the same time, the average number of claims per patent has declined since peaking in 2005. Using the population of 7.6 million published patent applications from 2005 through early 2025, this Article advances a supply-side explanation for the persistent growth in specification length. The divergence between expanding specifications and contracting claims reflects a structural asymmetry in the USPTO fee schedule: excess claim fees impose a per-unit cost that visibly constrains claim counts …

Using The Inform Consumers Act To Combat China’S Online Counterfeiters, Daniel C.K. Chow

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

Everyday millions of counterfeit goods are shipped from suppliers on Alibaba’s website based in China to retailers on Amazon, Walmart, and other e-commerce platforms and sold to U.S. consumers. The significance of this massive pipeline seems to have eluded brand owners and U.S. government authorities. Most brand owners have concentrated their efforts on suppressing counterfeits on U.S. e-commerce markets after the counterfeits have already appeared on their sites. These efforts have proven to be ineffective as once millions of counterfeits are commingled with genuine products on the internet their suppression becomes an impossible task. The key to successful interdiction of …

Table Of Contents, Jared Brown

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

No abstract provided.

Regularity Clarity At A Cost: The Risks To Everyday Investors If Project Crypto Continues Without Guardrails, Maia Chess

The University of Cincinnati Intellectual Property and Computer Law Journal

No abstract provided.

How Licensing Compromised The Library, Aaron Perzanowski

Seattle University Law Review Online

Public libraries are besieged on multiple fronts: spiraling costs, budget cuts, book bans, patron privacy risks, inaccessible digital exclusives, embargoed titles, and unstable collections—not the mention a general decline in reading coupled with an upswing in reliance on artificial intelligence. No single development can explain all of the many challenges facing libraries today. But this Article argues that the shift from library-owned print collections to licensed digital ones is an overlooked throughline that has contributed to this constellation of challenges in underappreciated ways. For centuries, the first sale doctrine gave libraries broad autonomy over what they acquired, preserved, and lent. …

The Library Of Congress’S Essential Role In Digital Preservation: Reconceiving Mandatory Deposit After Valancourt, Dave Hansen

Seattle University Law Review Online

As the published record shifts to digital formats, the mechanisms that have ensured long-term preservation are breaking down. Most libraries acquire digital materials through licensing agreements that prohibit preservation copying, format migration, and interlibrary loan—contractually overriding the exceptions Congress enacted in the Copyright Act. The Library of Congress occupies a unique position: Through statutory deposit under 17 U.S.C. §§ 407 and 408, it collects copyrighted works pursuant to federal law rather than license agreements, and deposited copies become federal property under § 704, free from contractual restrictions. This Article examines how the Library’s deposit authority can be strengthened after the …

Separation Of Copyright Powers, Blake Reid

Seattle University Law Review Online

The United States Copyright Office’s multifarious roles in the U.S. copyright system have long prompted uncertainty about its position among the branches of the federal government. From its formal home in the Library of Congress, the chameleonic Office has accumulated a wide range of advisory, rulemaking, adjudicative, and administrative functions that have long prompted questions about both agencies’ exercise of dueling legislative and executive powers.

Despite its increasingly sprawling portfolio and unusual configuration, the Office has never faced a serious separation-of-powers reckoning—until now. In the span of just five days in May 2025, Donald Trump fired the Librarian of Congress …

The Library Of Congress At A Crossroads: Executive Overreach And The Future Of Public Knowledge, Leslie A. Street, Amanda Runyon

Seattle University Law Review Online

In May 2025, President Trump's removal of the Librarian of Congress and attempted removal of the Register of Copyrights precipitated a constitutional crisis that exposed fundamental structural vulnerabilities in the nation's knowledge infrastructure. This Article argues that the Library of Congress faces a dual threat: a constitutional breach of separation of powers and a cultural threat to the preservation of America's intellectual heritage. The Library's structural ambiguity — its simultaneous identity as a legislative library, national library, and copyright agency — has left it vulnerable to executive overreach that threatens both constitutional integrity and its role as custodian of national …

Leveraging Technology, Copyright, And Libraries To Benefit The Public Interest, Michelle Wu

Seattle University Law Review Online

Rapid developments in technology have radically changed the practice of copyright; however, this revolution has provided disproportionate, lopsided advantages to corporate interests over public ones. For example, publishers today can charge the same buyer for the same e-book many times over while simultaneously depriving them of the rights normally conveyed with purchase, such as the rights to resale, donation, lending, and bequeathing. Technology itself is a neutral tool, so there is no reason that the current landscape must be so unbalanced. This Article explores two ways in which libraries can both maximize the public benefits of knowledge and provide added …

Separation Of Copyright Powers, Blake Reid

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental, & Innovation Law

The United States Copyright Office’s multifarious roles in the U.S. copyright system have long prompted uncertainty about its position among the branches of the federal government. From its formal home in the Library of Congress, the chameleonic Office has accumulated a wide range of advisory, rulemaking, adjudicative, and administrative functions that have long prompted questions about both agencies’ exercise of dueling legislative and executive powers. Despite its increasingly sprawling portfolio and unusual configuration, the Office has never faced a serious separation-of-powers reckoning—until now. In the span of just five days in May 2025, Donald Trump fired the Librarian of Congress …

Why The Library Of Congress Matters More Than Ever, Hope O'Keeffe

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental, & Innovation Law

No abstract provided.