Intellectual Property Law Commons^™

Hart V Finnis: How Will Positivism And Natural Law Account For The Socio-Legal Paradigm In Wikipedia, Siyuan Chen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

There is little doubt that Wikipedia is one of the world’s most influential websites today – and its sphere of influence is set to grow in days to come. The evidence for this is strong. As of December 2010, Wikipedia is the Internet’s 6th most popular website (by virtue of the Alexa Traffic Rank), and it is also the most popular "general reference" site in cyberspace, with almost 4 million articles in the English language edition. It has been and will continue to be the flagship of Web 2.0, with every single edit being potentially scrutinised by a global audience, …

Paying It Forward: The Case For A Specific Statutory Limitation On Exclusive Rights For User-Generated Content Under Copyright Law, Warren B. Chik

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This article examines user-generated content (“UGC”) and the significance of re-inventions in the context of an increasingly user-centric internet environment and an information sharing society. It will explain the need to provide a statutory limitation in the form of an exception or exemption for socially beneficial UGC on the exclusive rights under copyright law. This will also have the effect of protecting the internet intermediary that hosts and shares UGC. Nascent but abortive attempts have been made by Canada to introduce just such a provision into her copyright legislation, while some principles and rules have also emerged from various interest …

Book Review Of Intellectual Property And Human Development: Current Trends And Future Scenarios, Benjamin J. Keele

Library Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Copyright And Research In Google Book Search, Benjamin J. Keele

Library Staff Publications

Many researchers—even trained professionals—often use the Google search engine to begin searches for information. Google’s many products enable researchers to search public websites, scholarly articles, and even patents. One vast area of information not yet thoroughly indexed by Google is print books. Google Book Search (also at times referred to as Google Books, Google Print and Google Library Project) is the company’s effort to digitize and index the world’s print literature.

Probabilistic Knowledge Of Third-Party Trademark Infringement, Mark P. Mckenna

Journal Articles

This essay views secondary trademark liability in light of tort law’s treatment of parties whose actions expose a plaintiff to third party-wrongdoing. Broadly speaking, tort law imposes liability on a party for contributing to the tortious activity of another in two different ways. In vicarious and accomplice liability cases, courts impose the same liability on the defendant as they would have on the direct tortfeasors, had they been defendants: if the third-party wrongdoer is a batterer, the defendant is liable for battery. Another line of cases imposes liability for unreasonably putting a defendant at risk of third-party wrongdoing, and these …

Thirty Two Short Stories About Intellectual Property, Stephen M. Mcjohn, Lorie Graham

Suffolk University Law School Faculty Works

In the United States, intellectual property law is usually viewed as serving economics, by providing an incentive for authors and inventors to create works. The incentive policy, however, ill fits the actual contours of intellectual property law and how artists and inventors use it. Adding other approaches offers a fuller explanation. Intellectual property plays a greater role than economic theory suggests in disclosing technology, and in serving to coordinate cultural values in technology. Intellectual property can serve human rights (similar to the moral rights approach in some jurisdictions), by allowing people to control the way that their works are publicly …

Top Tens In 2010: Patent, Trademark, Copyright And Trade Secret Cases, Stephen M. Mcjohn

Suffolk University Law School Faculty Works

This piece discusses notable intellectual property decisions in 2010 in the United States. Viewed across doctrinal lines, some interesting threads emerge. The scope of protection was at issue in each area, such as whether human genes and business methods are patentable, whether a product idea may be a trade secret, and where the constitutional limits on copyright legislation lie. Secondary liability remains widely litigated, as rights holders seek both deep pocket defendants and a means to cut off individual infringers. The courts applied slightly different standards as to the state of mind required for secondary liability. Many of the cases …

Leverage: Review Of Burk & Lemley, 'The Patent Crisis And How The Courts Can Solve It', Stephen M. Mcjohn

Suffolk University Law School Faculty Works

Dan L. Burk and Mark A. Lemley’s “The Patent Crisis and How the Courts Can Solve It” (The University of Chicago Press, 2009) is valuable for anyone interested in patent law. The book serves two goals. First, it suggests how patent reform in the United States can best be accomplished: not through Congressional amendment of the patent statute, but by judicial implementation of industry-specific reforms, in interpreting the existing act. Some jurisdictions, such as India, already differentiate between industrial sectors more explicitly in patent policy than the United States. Second, of interest to patent law worldwide, the book provides a …

Copyright In The Digital Environment: Restoring The Balance, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

Good evening. Please find your seats, and it's wonderful to see so many people here. Welcome to the Twenty-Fourth Annual Manges Lecture. The Horace S. Manges Lecture and Conference Fund was established by the firm of Weil, Gotshal and Manges in memory of Horace S. Manges, Columbia Law School Class of 1919. Mr. Manges was a distinguished trial lawyer who worked on behalf of countless writers and publishers.

Tonight's speaker, Dr. Francis Gurry, was appointed Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO, on October 30, 2008. During a career at WIPO that began in 1985, Francis Gurry was …

Impartial Patents, Clarisa Long

Faculty Scholarship

Over the past decade or more, a rising sense of dissatisfaction with patent law has begun to creep across the patent community. A number of factors no doubt have contributed to this sense of dissatisfaction, among them the perception that patents are too often being enforced by “trolls” (if you don’t like them) or “nonpracticing entities” (if you want to remain neutral). Professor Parchomovsky and Mr. Mattioli propose a solution in which they create two new forms of patent protection that they call “quasi-patents” and “semi-patents” – or generically, “partial patents.” Partial patents are designed to be cheaper to obtain …

Hot News: The Enduring Myth Of Property In News, Shyamkrishna Balganesh

Faculty Scholarship

The “hot news” doctrine refers to a cause of action for the misappropriation of time-sensitive factual information that state laws afford purveyors of news against free riding by a direct competitor. Entirely the offshoot of the Supreme Court’s decision in International News Service v. Associated Press, the doctrine enables an information gatherer to prevent a competitor from free riding on its efforts at collecting and distributing timely information. Over the last few years, newsgatherers of different kinds have begun using the doctrine with increased frequency, believing it to create and protect an ownership interest in news. This Article argues …

Making Coasean Property More Coasean, Thomas W. Merrill, Henry E. Smith

Faculty Scholarship

In his pioneering work on transaction costs, Ronald Coase presupposed a picture of property as a bundle of government-prescribed use rights. Not only is this picture not essential to Coase’s purpose, but its limitations emerge when we apply Coase’s central insights to analyze the structure of property itself. This leads to the Coase corollary: in a world of zero transaction costs, the nature of property does not matter to allocative efficiency. However, as with the Coase theorem, the real implication is for our world of positive transaction costs: we need to subject the notion of property to a comparative institutional …

The Anti-Bootlegging Provisions: Congressional Power And Constitutional Limitations, Craig W. Dallon

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Courts and scholars have considered the constitutional validity of 17 U.S.C. § 1101 (civil), and 18 U.S.C. § 2319A (criminal), known together as "the anti-bootlegging provisions." These provisions prohibit unauthorized recording, copying, and distribution of live musical performances. The provisions have been challenged in three cases, resulting in five published opinions. Two district court opinions held the provisions unconstitutional, but subsequent opinions vacated those decisions. Notwithstanding a sharp division among copyright scholars, the courts have upheld these provisions. The discussion surrounding them is part of a continuing struggle to ascertain limits on congressional power to regulate copying and distribution of …

The Kindle Controversy: An Economic Analysis Of How The Amazon Kindle's Text-To-Speech Feature Violates Copyright Law, Jeremy B. Francis

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

In 2009, Amazon released the Kindle 2 with a text-to-speech feature. This feature allows users of the Kindle 2 to download software to the device that will read e-books aloud. Authors and publishers of e-books immediately objected to the feature, arguing that it essentially created an unauthorized audiobook. Amazon maintained the legality of the text-to-speech feature, arguing that it does not copy, perform, or create a derivative work. Amazon decided to avoid a legal battle by allowing rightsholders to decide whether to enable the text-to-speech feature for each individual title. The copyright community, however, responded swiftly and nearly unanimously, siding …

What's Wrong With U.S.?: Why The United States Should Have A Public Performance Right For Sound Recordings, William Henslee

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

This Article discusses the need for the United States to implement a public performance royalty for sound recordings. Under the current system, song writers are compensated for the use of their musical works, but performers on sound recordings do not receive any compensation. Radio and television stations currently pay the performing rights societies a royalty for playing the sound recordings, but they do not pay a performance royalty to the artists who perform the music and record companies that promote and release the sound recordings. Proposed legislation will add a performance royalty for artists and record companies to the current …

Keep America Exceptional! Against Adopting Japanese And European-Style Criminalization Of Contributory Copyright Infringement, Salil K. Mehra

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

This brief Article, written in connection with a Symposium hosted by the Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law, addresses nascent criminal enforcement against contributory copyright infringement in connection with P2P file sharing. Using Judge Posner's analysis in the Aimster case as a lens, it discusses recent cases in Japan and Sweden. This Article contends that criminalization involves an inherent uncertainty involving an innovator's knowledge of, and intent for, the future uses of the platform by others. Despite the difficulty of this task, since Japan and the E.U. have seen criminal prosecutions brought against contributory infringers, it should not evoke …

Information Wars And The Challenges Of Content Protection In Digital Contexts, Raymond T. Nimmer

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

We are in the midst of a fundamental conflict in law and policy between those who favor maintaining and expanding copyright and related rights in the digital context ("rights enhancers"), and those who favor letting rights atrophy ("rights restrictors'). This Article argues that strong intellectual property rights are essential. At minimum, they are important to support creativity in contexts where the creation, collection, or distribution of the content requires substantial investment of time and resources. The case for allowing creators' rights to weaken is both untested and structurally suspect. Copyright law must construct a balance that fully supports creative activity …

What's In A Name?: Predictably Regulating Cyberfraud To Protect The Democratic Political Process, Whitney C. Boshers

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

In recent elections, political candidates have capitalized on the Internet as a central organizing resource. As a result of the low-cost, high-reward nature of campaign websites, some candidates have begun to register Web addresses--or domains--in opponents' names in order to disrupt the democratic political process. Engaging in a practice known as cyberfraud, these individuals register for domains containing the candidate's name, such as 'firstnamelastname.com." Then, instead of finding themselves on the candidate's official campaign website, voters access a website operated by the candidate's opponent that contains misleading or outright false information. Unfortunately, most political candidates have little recourse for such …

Three Statutory Regimes At Impasse: Reverse Payments In Pay-For-Delay Settlement Agreements Between Brand-Name And Generic Drug Companies, Rudolph J.R. Peritz

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

What Role For “Women,” “Men,” And Transpeople/Intersex People In Gender Equality: A Commentary, Edward D. Stein

Articles

This has been a very rich opening panel to what promises to be a terrific conference. The panelists' comments go in such varied directions that it is a challenge to be both a commentator and summarizer, especially when I have just a few minutes to speak. What I plan to do is say a little bit to draw together some of the themes that the panelists have been talking about that are connected to a couple of topics I have been working on while at the same time trying to look forward to some of the things I hope we …