Intellectual Property Law Commons^™

Fixing Our Broken Patent System, Jay Dratler

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

This short Article digests what the Author see as the most important substantive criticism and proposes specific solutions in the form of the "guts" of a new patent statute. Its statutory proposal tracks the current statute's organization and has numerous annotations explaining what is the same, what is changed and why, and what never-before-codified principles of judge-made law are explicitly codified. Among the proposed statute's fundamental changes are: (1) explicit restrictions on patentable subject matter to avoid patents on bare abstractions; (2) adoption of a first-to-file system requiring worldwide novelty; (3) abolition of the doctrine of constructive reduction to practice …

Generic Entry In A Rough Economy - Proposed Legislation May Ease Health Care Costs, Laura J. Grebe

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

When generic drugs seek FDA approval, the pharmaceutical company files an Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA), in which the generic company establishes bioequivalence to its usually patented counterpart. The ANDA filer must also certify that, to the best of the filer's knowledge, the generic will not infringe on a current patent-holder's rights. This can be done by showing (1) no patent on the product exists, (2) the patent is expired, (3) the patent will expire by the time the generic is marketed, or (4) the ANDA filer believes the patent is invalid - called a Paragraph IV certification. A Paragraph …

Complimentary Creation: Protecting Fan Fiction As Fair Use, Rachel L. Stroude

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

This Comment discusses, by focusing on the treatment of fan fiction, the tension a court faces each time it encounters a fair use doctrine analysis. First, this Comment describes the nature of fan fiction, the two types of fan fiction referential works and participatory works, and the potential commerciality of fan fiction. Second, this Comment analyzes courts' treatment of referential works and explains why courts have not encountered participatory works. Next, this Comment discusses that while courts have guided authors of referential works regarding how to create a non-infringing work, courts have yet to consider how to protect participatory works. …

Emerging Scholars Series: A Re-Examination Of The Original Foundations Of Anglo-American Trademark Law, Cesar Ramirez-Montes

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

Contemporary accounts of the normative basis of Anglo-American trademark law frequently describe the purpose of the legal doctrine as having developed to protect primarily the consumers from being misled. Recently, some commentators have offered a different account of the law, as having developed to protect mainly the interests of the traders in not having their trade diverted. Under this account, early trademark law served one master only, the producer, with any additional benefit or protection to consumers being unintended. In this Article, the Author challenges both accounts and suggest that early trademark law was not driven by any judicial desire …

Table Of Contents

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

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Online Auction House Liability For The Sale Of Trademark Infringing Products, Allison N. Ziegler

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

With the rise of the Internet, trademark owners have seen an increase in online trademark infringement. This Comment examines online auction house liability for the sale of trademark infringing products and the methodology used by courts in making this determination. The author outlines contributory trademark jurisprudence in the United States and France and the application of this jurisprudence in Tiffany v. EBay and LVMH v. EBay, respectively. The article then evaluates the implications of the two approaches to determine which approach is more practical and effective. The author concludes that online auction houses should not be liable for trademark infringement …

Book Review: E-Discovery In Canada, Robert J. Currie

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

It is not hyperbolic to say that the proliferation of electronically stored information (ESI) is probably the most prominent change-harbinger and potential havoc-wreaker in civil litigation today — second only, perhaps, to the spiralling costs of litigation itself. Indeed, the practical and legal difficulties associated with the storage, gathering, preservation, disclosure and evidentiary use of ESI have the potential to act as a Trojan Horse, causing what would previously have been ordinary cases to implode under their weight. Increasing recognition of this is evident; electronic discovery (e-discovery) cases have begun to emerge in the reports, a successful co-operative effort by …

Prescription For Failure: Health & Intellectual Property In The Dominican Republic, Georgetown University Law Center, Human Rights Institute

HRI Papers & Reports

No abstract provided.

Intellectual Property And The Safeguarding Of Traditional Cultures, Molly Torsen, Jane Anderson

Aboriginal Policy Research Consortium International (APRCi)

No abstract provided.

The Creation Of University Intellectual Property: Confidential Information, Data Protection, And Research Ethics, Margaret Ann Wilkinson

Law Publications

Protection of commercial confidences is both required as part of the intellectual property provisions of current trade agreements and routinely prerequisite for achieving patent protection. This paper discusses the protection of such commercial confidences and the relationship of this protection with the statutory regime in Canada of personal data protection, but does so within the specific context of an examination of these matters in light of the governance of the processes of research conducted in universities. The nexus of university research and commercial research occurs frequently—for example, in the area of the development and testing of drugs in Canada. The …

Confidential Information And Privacy-Related Law In Canada And In International Instruments, Margaret Ann Wilkinson

Law Publications

Canadians like to think their country is law-abiding and honours its international commitments. Is Our House in Order? explores this public perception while considering whether or not it is correct in terms of domestic law.

Examining a range of topics such as treaty implementation, federal-provincial relations, the environment, international humanitarian law, and the protection of confidential information, contributors disentangle the complex processes involved in implementing international law in Canadian law. They highlight how the federal negotiation and ratification process has been opened up to the public, what is being done to give effect to custom in domestic law, and offer …

A National Security Puzzle: Mosaic Theory And The First Amendment Right Of Access In The Federal Courts, Michael P. Goodwin

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

This article examines the tension between sensitive national security information and transparency in the federal courts. Although courts are public institutions with long histories of public access, courts also have the power to restrict access to information if it poses a threat to national security. In a variety of contexts, restrictions on access have been justified by mosaic theory-the idea that even apparently innocuous information can be harmful to national security interests if pieced together by a knowledgeable observer, such as a foreign intelligence organization. This article traces the development of mosaic theory in the federal courts, and argues that …

Protecting A Jewel Of A Trademark: Lessons Learned From The Dae Jang Geum Litigation On Using U.S. Law To Protect Trademarks Based On Imported Popular Culture Icons, Robert J. Kang

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

U.S. trademark law protects trademarks that have achieved a sufficient degree of fame. This principle extends to trademarks based on foreign popular culture icons, such as Japan's "Hello Kitty." But while that principle seems obvious, caselaw on this subject has been minimal. Without clear judicial guidance confirming that such trademarks are protectable, American infringers may have felt emboldened to misappropriate them. However, in 2007 and 2008, a United States District Court presided over a trademark litigation involving "Dae Jang Geum," the name of the most popular Korean television drama in history. By analyzing the three most important orders issued in …

The Agony Of War And A World Without Law, Josh Zetlin

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

This note analyzes Lewis Milestone's classic film A//.Quiet on the Western Front in order to illustrate the importance of law in society. Philosophers and legal theorists have pondered endlessly on the importance of law and the roles it serves. Building upon the concepts such as the "social contract," the creators of our legal system carved out particular areas of laws to satisfy specific societal wants and needs. Milestone's war epic reveals how war destroys these legal institutions. The chaos of war and unaccountability for immoral acts shatters the foundation of law, bringing great suffering to the characters in the film. …

Judicial Kryptonite: Superman And The Consideration Of Moral Rights In American Copyright, Sean Mcgilvray

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

Superman is one of the most enduring and widely-recognized fictional characters of all time. But behind the scenes of his colorful adventures, a bitter struggle raged between his original creators and the publisher who currently owns the copyright. In a historic recent decision, the United States District Court for the Central District of California granted a summary judgment declaring that the heirs of the writer had recaptured a portion of the copyright in Superman through the Copyright Act's termination and recapture tight provisions. While, not expressly premised upon moral rights considerations, the judgment reflects many of the core values of …

The Wrong Tool For The Job: The Ip Problem With Non-Competition Agreements, Viva R. Moffat

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

In this article, I argue that non-competition agreements should be unenforceable. Although various attacks have been launched at non-competes, most of them have been aimed at reforming the doctrine rather than eliminating enforcement of the agreements entirely. This is because the justifications for non-competes have been left mostly unchallenged, and I undertake that task here.

The most problematic and least examined of these is the IP justification: in an increasingly knowledge-based economy, many argue that non-competes are necessary to protect trade secrets and other intangibles or that non-competes provide an incentive for invention and investment, a classic IP justification. Though …

Patent Law, Hippo, And The Biodiversity Crisis, 9 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 624 (2010), Andrew W. Torrance

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

Planet earth is host to a dazzling variety of living organisms. This diversity of life, or “biodiversity,” is vital to the survival and prosperity of humanity, supplying such vital amenities as food, clothing, shelter, natural biochemicals useful in medicine, industry, and agriculture, and even irreplaceable ecosystem services, such as clean air and water. Despite the prodigious amount of biodiversity on earth, human activities have been depleting it at an accelerating rate that has now reached the level of a mass extinction event. The five greatest threats to biodiversity can be summarized by the “HIPPO” acronym: (1) Habitat loss, (2) Invasives, …

Gene Patenting Debate: The Meaning Of Myriad, 9 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 953 (2010), Miri Yoon

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York recently held in Association for Molecular Pathology v. United States Patent & Trademark Office that Myriad’s patent claims directed to isolated DNA molecules encoding human breast cancer susceptibility genes BRCA1/2 are not patent-eligible subject matter. Even though the court construed that the patent claims are directed to tangible chemical compounds, the overriding importance of unclaimed DNA sequence information renders claimed molecules as unpatentable products of nature. While the immediate impact of this decision is limited to Myriad’s patents-in-suit, this decision reflects the concern about the adverse effects of …

American Exceptionalism, The French Exception, Intellectual Property Law, And Peer-To-Peer File Sharing On The Internet, 10 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 95 (2010), Lyombe Eko

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

A fundamental problem confronting policy makers is how to apply intellectual property rules and regulations developed for tangible intellectual property assets in real space to intangible,dematerialized intellectual property in cyberspace. The United States and France are self-described exceptionalist countries. American exceptionalism refers to the historical tendency of the United States to emphasize its unique status as the beacon of liberty, while l’exception française (the French exception) refers to the French ideological posture that emphasizes the specificity and superiority of French culture. American exceptionalism and l’exception française are functionally equivalent theoretical constructs that describe and explain how the United States and …

Beyond Creativity: Copyright As Knowledge Law, Michael J. Madison

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

The Supreme Court's copyright jurisprudence of the last 100 years has embraced the creativity trope. Spurred in part by themes associated with the story of "romantic authorship" in the 19th and 20th centuries, copyright critiques likewise ask, "Who is creative?" "How should creativity be protected (or not) and encouraged (or not)?" and "Why protect creativity?" Policy debates and scholarship in recent years have focused on the concept of creativity in framing copyright disputes, transactions, and institutions, reinforcing the notion that these are the central copyright questions. I suggest that this focus on the creativity trope is unhelpful. I argue that …