Intellectual Property Law Commons^™

From Music Tracks To Google Maps: Who Owns Computer-Generated Works?, Mark Perry, Thomas Margoni

Law Publications

Increasingly the digital content used in everyday life has little or no human intervention in its creation. Typically, when such content is delivered to consumers it comes with attached claims of copyright. However, depending on the jurisdiction, approaches to ownership of computer-generated works vary from legislated to uncertain. In this paper we look at the various approaches taken by the common law, such as in Canada, and the legislative approach taken in the United Kingdom. The options for how computer-generated works may be treated and suggestions for their best placement in copyright are discussed.

Reconsidering The Georgia-Pacific Standard For Reasonable Royalty Patent Damages, Christopher B. Seaman

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Reinventing Usefulness, Michael Risch

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

First Amendment Based Copyright Misuse, David S. Olson

William & Mary Law Review

We are at a crossroads with respect to the underdeveloped equitable defense of copyright misuse. The defense may go the way of its sibling, antitrust-based patent misuse, which seems to be in a state of inevitable decline. Or—if judges accept the proposal of this Article—courts could reinvigorate the copyright misuse defense to better protect First Amendment speech that is guaranteed by statute, but that is often chilled by copyright holders misusing their copyrights to control others’ speech. The Copyright Act serves First Amendment interests by encouraging authors to create works. But copyright law can also discourage the creation of new …

The Pragmatic Incrementalism Of Common Law Intellectual Property, Shyamkrishna Balganesh

Vanderbilt Law Review

Intellectual property is today thought to be principally of statutory origin. Discussions of the subject invariably revolve around a close scrutiny of the federal statutes involved. Indeed, the frequency with which Congress amends the patent and copyright statutes seems to leave little doubt that it alone determines intellectual property's precise content and coverage.' Nevertheless, there exists a rather robust body of state law that is almost entirely the creation of state courts and is directed at creating entitlements in information, ideas, expression, goodwill, one's image, and other related intangibles. These rights regimes are in turn collectively referred to as "common …

No One Ever Died From Copyright Infringement: The Inducement Doctrine's Applicability To Firearms Manufacturer Liability, Shane Wagman

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Owning Mark(Et)S, Mark A. Lemley, Mark P. Mckenna

Michigan Law Review

Trademark owners regularly rely on claims that the defendant is "free riding" on their mark by making money using that mark, money the trademark owners say should belong to them. We analyze those free-riding claims and find them wanting. The empirical data shows that defendants in unrelated markets can benefit from using a well-known mark, but that neither mark owners nor consumers suffer any injury from that use. A legal claim that a defendant is unjustly benefiting by using a plaintiff's mark is hollow unless it is accompanied by a theory of why that benefit should rightly belong to the …

Speech In The Role Of Fiduciary Law And Trust In The Twenty-First Century, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

As someone who is not a specialist in the area, I am grateful to be included in today's conference. I wanted to be here to mark the admiration I have for Professor Frankel. Like Ken Simons, I have benefited from Tamar's knowledge base which is both deep and wide, her lively and inexhaustible curiosity, her imagination, and the immense intellectual stimulation she inevitably provides. Her new book under discussion today reveals some of her extraordinary powers, in its skillful use of materials from sources as diverse as Hammurabi and Grotius, from histories ancient and modem, traditions religious and secular, and …

Another Look At Bill C-32 And The Access Copyright Tariff: Still Double Trouble For Higher Education, Samuel E. Trosow

FIMS Presentations

Earlier this year, the government tabled Bill C-32, proposed amendments to the Copyright Act. Following a consultation process, the Bill is widely recognized as more reasonable than its predecessor, Bill C-61. On the positive side, the bill would expand fair dealing to explicitly include "education". On the other hand, the digital locks provisions of the Bill are fundamentally flawed and override many existing and proposed users rights. Also this year, Access Copyright filed a proposed tariff for the post-secondary education sector with the Copyright Board. The proposal, which includes a drastic increase in costs as well as numerous new reporting …

Copyright And Author Agreements For Open Access Law Journals, Benjamin J. Keele

Library Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

What Bill C-32 Misses: Copyright In Academic Life..., Margaret Ann Wilkinson

Law Presentations

No abstract provided.

Explaining The Demise Of The Doctrine Of Equivalents, David L. Schwartz

All Faculty Scholarship

This article provides a novel theoretical model and extensive empirical evidence to explain the decline of a historically important patent law doctrine known as the “doctrine of equivalents.” In recent years, distinguished academics have studied the doctrine of equivalents. While these scholars noted that the doctrine of equivalents had decreased in its successful use and provided some grounds for the decline, none clearly explained why. As such, the cause and precise mechanism behind the so-called “demise” of the doctrine of equivalents have largely remained a mystery.

This article explains that the demise occurred because of two complementary forces discussed for …

Intellectual Property Perspectives: Fall 2010, Ip Law Program

Intellectual Property Perspectives

No abstract provided.

The Admissibility Of Electronic Business Records, Ken Chasse

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

The business record provisions of the Evidence Acts determine a record’s admissibility by evidence of its history, which must be the product of “the usual and ordinary course of business” (or comparable “business activity” wording). The electronic record provisions determine a record’s admissibility by the, “integrity of the electronic records system in which it is recorded or stored.” The difference is, records management (RM) based on “paper records concepts” versus “electronic records systems concepts.” The former is subjective — each business determines its own “usual and ordinary course of business”; the latter, objective — in accor- dance with authoritative standards …

Personalization, Analytics, And Sponsored Services: The Challenges Of Applying Pipeda To Online Tracking And Profiling Activities, Eloïse Gratton

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

In 2008, the online advertising industry was found to be worth 27 billion dollars, a figure that was projected to double over the subsequent four years.1 The reason for this extraordinary market growth can be explained by two factors. To begin with, current technology now makes it possible to gather a great variety of information associated with a particular device or individual, including browsing history, which can be used to create a profile specific to that device or individual. This practice facilitates more personalized advertising, tailored to the interests and tastes of the consumer. Secondly, many online services, in the …

Interpreting Copyright Law And Internet Facts, Cameron Hutchison

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

This paper probes interpretation issues elicited by the impact of digital technologies and the Internet on copyright law. The purpose of the paper is to instill a coherent framework for analyzing copyright law when it encounters Internet or digital facts. In part one, I propose a methodology of statutory interpretation that helps suitably adapt statutory language to technological developments. In essence it is this: courts should examine the language of the operative provision in its statutory context and in light of its purpose. A contextual interpretation of a broadly conceived rule can reveal a legislative intention that certain kinds of …

Neutralizing Actual Controversy: How Patent Holders Can Reduce The Risk Of Declaratory Judgment In Patent Disputes, Homer Yan-Hsien Hsu

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

Alleged patent infringers may bring declaratory judgment actions against patentees when actual controversies exist over infringement or validity. Such declaratory judgment actions are important strategic tools because they allow alleged infringers to take initiative and bring actions, thereby eliminating the risk of doing business without knowing whether continued product use would constitute infringement. Declaratory judgment actions also provide alleged infringers an opportunity to choose the forum in which to bring their suits. In order to bring such an action, however, there must be an actual controversy between the parties to establish standing. The United States Supreme Court’s 2007 decision in …

Collaborative Copyright--Or Copyright Is Not Just A Library Issue, Susanne Clement, Jennifer Duncan, Betty Rozum

Library Faculty & Staff Presentations

Copyright law does not change often; the technology that allows us to use copyrighted works changes all the time. Faculty often assume fair use covers all use of copyrighted material in their classes (both face to face and online) and they become confused and frustrated when they learn of limitations in the electronic environment. Students rarely think about copyright; they are generally unaware of how their actions might infringe the rights of copyright holders or that they themselves might hold these rights in their own works. Librarians have traditionally had some copyright knowledge – after all copyright notices have been …

Acta: Risks Of Third Party Enforcement For Access To Medicines, Brook K. Baker

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

In its current near-final draft form, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement [ACTA] being negotiated plurilaterally—and largely secretly—by a self-selected group of countries proposes to allow preliminary and final injunctive relief against third parties (third-party enforcement) to prevent infringement of intellectual property rights and/or to prevent infringing goods from entering into the channels of commerce. There is lingering uncertainty whether the relevant civil enforcement section will apply to the entire range of intellectual property rights or whether patents will be excluded. If patents are excluded, the dangers in ACTA would be reduced but not eliminated—new globalized forms of third-party enforcement would still …

Where Copyright Enforcement And Net Neutrality Collide - How The Eu Telecoms Package Supports Two Corporate Political Agendas For The Internet, Monica Horten

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

This paper discusses a change to European Union (EU) telecoms law which de facto permits operators to impose restrictions on network traffic, and which enables such restrictions to be imposed for the purposes of copyright enforcement—thus it simultaneously facilitates two different policy agendas from the copyright and telecoms industries—‘three-strikes’ as well as ‘traffic management.’ The mechanism is a provision concerning users’ contracts, supported by generic provisions addressed to EU governments and regulators. The change went into law in late 2009, within the so-called ‘Telecoms Package,’ which, together with the E-commerce directive, establishes the EU legal framework for telecoms networks. In …