Intellectual Property Law Commons^™

Legislative And Regulatory Strategies For Providing Consumer Safeguards In A Convergent Information And Communications Marketplace, Rob Frieden

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

The Federal Communications Commission desires to apply a single regulatory category to services and service providers, a process the Commission can achieve when ventures concentrate on one function and offer one readily identifiable service, such as telephony. However, technological convergence, digitization and the ability of the Internet to handle many different service types within a single bitstream now make it possible for companies to offer "quadruple play" bundles of wireless and wireline telephony, video, and Internet access services. Following Comcast Corp. v. FCC, the FCC must rethink how to best serve the public interest and safeguard consumers. Absent a legislative …

The Parents Television Council Uncensored: An Inside Look At The Watchdog Of The Public Airwaves And The War On Indecency With Its President, Tim Winter, Clay Calvert, Robert D. Richards

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

This article addresses the Federal Communication Commission's ("FCC") controversial and contested regulation of indecency on the broadcast airwaves. It pivots on an exclusive in-person interview conducted by the authors in Los Angeles in June 2010 with Tim Winter, president of the Parents Television Council ("PTC"). The PTC is perhaps the most vociferous-and controversial-public watchdog on broadcast indecency, with its members filing thousands and thousands of indecency complaints with the FCC each year. The article is especially timely because, in July 2010, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Fox Television Stations v. FCC declared the FCC's indecency …

All Your Face Are Belong To Us: Protecting Celebrity Images In Hyper-Realistic Video Games, Krista Correa

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

As the law is currently structured, there is no clear protection for a celebrity who is personally offended (but not financially harmed) by another party's use of that celebrity's image. This lack of clarity is particularly problematic today due to the hyperrealism of nextgeneration video games. This article begins with a review of the legal rights and remedies currently available to a celebrity whose face or image is used by a game developer without the celebrity's consent. Part II of the article considers whether the current regime provides sufficient protection, while Part III turns to other sources of law and …

Rebooting Trademarks For The Twenty-First Century, 49 U. Louisville L. Rev. 517 (2011), Doris E. Long

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

Trademarks have long suffered from an "ugly stepsister" status in the realm of intellectual property. Quasi-market regulation tool, quasi-investment property; trademark's historical role as both consumer-information signifier and producer-investment asset has led to increasingly confusing dichotomous treatment under the Lanham Act. The potentially borderless markets of cyberspace, with their new marketing techniques and new competitive spaces, have only heightened this confusion. Stumbling attempts to extend protection for marks under the Lanham Act beyond traditional notions of trademark use and consumer confusion to encompass the investment protection side of trademarks, such as the development of federal dilution and anti-cybersquatting acts, only …

Transformation In Property And Copyright, Christopher M. Newman

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Born To Be Used In The Usa: An Alternative Avenue For Evaluating Politicians' Unauthorized Use Of Original Musical Performances On The Campaign Trail, Matthew J. Cursio

Jeffrey S. Moorad Sports Law Journal (1994 - )

No abstract provided.

Paris Hilton Avoids Getting Slapped: The Application Of California's Anti-Slapp Statute To A Right Of Publicity Claim In Hilton V. Hallmark Cards, Lindsay C. Hanifan

Jeffrey S. Moorad Sports Law Journal (1994 - )

No abstract provided.

The Internet And Copyright Protection: Are We Producing A Global Generation Of Copyright Criminals, Fredrick Oduol Oduor

Jeffrey S. Moorad Sports Law Journal (1994 - )

No abstract provided.

The Right To Remain Anonymous: Anonymous Speakers, Confidential Sources And The Public Good, Jocelyn Hanamirian

Kernochan Center for Law, Media, and the Arts

In the digital age, the news media gives voice to anonymous speakers in two ways: reporters may extend confidentiality to sources in exchange for newsworthy information, or a news website may host an online comment function that allows readers to post their reactions to content pseudonymously. Of these two groups of anonymous speakers, only online posters enjoy certain First Amendment protection against a subpoena seeking disclosure of their identities.

The reporter’s privilege has always been legally defined as the professional privilege of a reporter to maintain the confidentiality of his sources. Yet as with all evidentiary privileges, the reporter’s privilege …

Scientific Productivity And Gender Performance Under Open And Proprietary Science Systems: The Case Of Chile In Recent Years, Bernadita Escobar Andrae

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Implementation, Or The Possible Lack Thereof, Of The Bilski Supreme Court Decision, Abby Bhattacharyya

Journal of Business & Technology Law

No abstract provided.

Top Tens In 2010: Patent And Trademark Cases, Stephen Mcjohn

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Top Tens In 2010: Copyright And Trade Secret Cases, Stephen Mcjohn

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Intellectual Property Rights And Exclusive (Subject Matter) Jurisdiction: Between Private And Public International Law, Benedetta Ubertazzi

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

In the recent past, prestigious courts around the world have refused to adjudicate cases relating to foreign registered or unregistered intellectual property rights (hereinafter: IPRs), where the proceedings concerned an IPR infringement claim or where the defendant in an IPR infringement action or the claimant in a declaratory action to establish that the IPR is not infringed pleaded that the IPR is invalid or void and that there is also no infringement of that right for that reason (so called validity issues incidentally raised). In these cases the refusal to adjudicate the foreign IPRs infringement and validity claims was grounded …

"We Know It When We See It": Intermediary Trademark Liability And The Internet, Stacey Dogan

Faculty Scholarship

The recent history of intermediary liability decisions in copyright and trademark law reflects a notable resistance to rules that might constrain judicial discretion to ferret out bad guys. Indeed, a dichotomy appears to be emerging between two types of defendants: those who want infringement to happen and those who do not. In both copyright and trademark cases, courts are developing two distinct sets of rules to deal with two different classes of intermediaries. Good-faith intermediaries — those with a core business model unrelated to infringement — have an obligation to address infringement upon notice, but need not go out of …

Improving Antibiotic Markets For Long Term Sustainability, Aaron S. Kesselheim, Kevin Outterson

Faculty Scholarship

The world faces a worsening public health crisis: A growing number of bacteria are resistant to available antibiotics. Yet there are few new antibiotics in the development pipeline to take the place of these increasingly ineffective drugs. We review a number of proposals intended to bolster drug development, including such financial incentives for pharmaceutical manufacturers as extending the effective patent life for new antibiotics. However, such strategies directly conflict with the clear need to reduce unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions and could actually increase prescription use. As an alternative, we recommend a two-prong, “integrated” strategy based on prizes administered through the insurance …

Harvesting Intellectual Property: Inspired Beginnings And 'Work-Makes-Work,' Two Stages In The Creative Processes Of Artists And Innovators, Jessica Silbey

Faculty Scholarship

This Article is part of a larger empirical study based on face-to-face interviews with artists, scientists, engineers, their lawyers, agents, and business partners. The book-length project involves the collecting and analysis of stories from artists, scientists, and engineers about how and why they create and innovate. It also collects stories from their employers, business partners, managers, and lawyers about their role in facilitating the process of creating and innovating. The book’s aim is to make sense of the intersection between intellectual property law and creative and innovative activity, specifically to discern how intellectual property intervenes in the careers of the …

Scary Monsters: Hybrids, Mashups, And Other Illegitimate Children, Rebecca Tushnet

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Human creativity, like human reproduction, always makes new out of old in ways that copyright law has not fully recognized. The genre of vidding, a type of remix made mostly by women, demonstrates how creativity can be disruptive, and how that disruptiveness is often tied to ideas about sex and gender. The most frightening of our modern creations—the Frankenstein’s monsters that seem most appropriative and uncanny in light of old copyright doctrine—are good indicators of what our next generation of creativity may look like, especially if creators’ diversity in gender, race, and economic background is taken into account.

On Nontraditional Trademarks, Kenneth L. Port

Faculty Scholarship

This piece regards nontraditional trademarks like sound, color, scent or even the vertical opening motion of a Lamborghini car door. The protection of trademarks has, historically, walked a fine balance. Naturally, as a society, we want to protect trademarks so that transaction costs are lowered as purchasers make a quick and easy purchasing decision. You see Tide, you know Tide, you buy Tide. However, the protection of nontraditional trademarks upsets this fine balance. If we go too far in the protection we grant unwarranted monopolies to companies to stifle the precise competition the law was meant to encourage. Sometimes, we …

The Cloak Of Copyright: How Costco V. Omega Enabled Price Discrimination, Jacinth K. Sohi

CMC Senior Theses

In December of 2010, Costco v. Omega came down from the Supreme Court. The Switzerland-based watchmaker Omega sold Seamaster Collection watches, which were affixed with its copyrighted logo, in the United States as well as in foreign markets. Omega priced watches in the United States market higher than elsewhere. Costco obtained Omega’s watches from a third party that had purchased the watches abroad, then sold them at its membership warehouses for cheaper prices than authorized Omega dealers in the United States. Consequently, Omega sued Costco for copyright infringement. Costco pursued a defense based on the first sale doctrine in response. …