Author(s): Year: 2007 Abstract: Consumers expect to be able to do at least as much with digital content as they have been able to do with analog content, and more. Yet, some copyright owners are using technical protection measures to thwart certain consumer uses of digital content, and rarely do they give effective notice to […]
Should Copyright Owners Have to Give Notice about Their Use of Technical Protection Measures?
Addressing Global Health Inequities: An Open Licensing Approach for University Innovations
Author(s): Amy Kapczynski Year: 2009 Abstract: The article describes the current crisis in access to medicines in the developing world, the existing R&D gap, and the role of universities and other public sector research institutions in exacerbating or ameliorating these problems. It proposes that public sector institutions adopt “Equitable Access Licensing” in order to ensure […]
High Technology Entrepreneurs and the Patent System: Results of the 2008 Berkeley Patent Survey
Author(s): Robert P. Merges Year: 2009 Abstract: We offer description and analysis of the 2008 Berkeley Patent Survey, summarizing the responses of 1,332 U.S.-based technology startups in the biotechnology, medical device, IT hardware, software, and Internet sectors. We discover that holding patents is more widespread among technology startups than has been previously reported, but that […]
Author Autonomy and Atomism in Copyright Law
Author(s): Molly S. Van Houweling Year: 2009 Abstract: Digital technology enables individuals to create and communicate in ways that were previously possible only for well-funded corporate publishers. These individual creators are increasingly harnessing copyright law to insist on ownership of the rights to control their musical works, scholarly research, and even Facebook musings. When individual […]
The New Servitudes
Author(s): Molly S. Van Houweling Year: 2009 Abstract: In the age of electronic commerce, consumers routinely acquire intangible products without engaging in any direct human interaction. These products – computer programs, digital music, etc. – often arrive bearing terms that purport to limit the sticks in the consumers’ bundles of rights in ways that depart […]
Still Looking for Lost Profits: The Case of Horizontal Competition
Author(s): Suzanne Scotchmer Year: 2006 Abstract: When infringement of a patent dissipates profit relative to the licensing agreement that would otherwise occur, damages under the lost-profit rule deter infringement, and otherwise not. We develop this point in a general model and give two examples. However, joint profit might not be dissipated by infringement. An important […]
Intellectual Property and the Property Rights Movement
Author(s): Peter S. Menell Year: 2007 Abstract: The article examines the recent efforts of the Property Rights Movement to expand the “property tent” to emcompass intellectual property. In eBay v. MercExchange, a case addressing the standard for injunctive relief in patent cases, some property rights advocates argued that the Supreme Court should look to trespass […]
Judicial Resistance to Copyright Law’s Inalienable Right to Terminate Transfers
Author(s): Peter S. Menell Year: 2009 Abstract: For a century, Congress has sought to protect authors and their families by allowing them to grant their copyrights for exploitation and then, decades later, recapture those same rights. After judicial interpretation of the 1909 Act frustrated this intent, Congress spoke unambiguously in 1976: Termination of the grant […]
The Proper Scope of the Copyright and Patent Power
Author(s): Robert P. Merges Year: 2007 Abstract: As an increasing amount of society’s wealth is tied up in intangible assets, strong, clear property rights can make a good deal of sense. But it is also possible to have too much of a good thing, and our society is in danger of reaching that point. Recent […]
Preliminary Thoughts on Copyright Reform
Author(s): Pamela Samuelson Year: 2007 Abstract: The Copyright Act of 1976 is far too long, complex, and largely incomprehensible to non-copyright professionals. It is also the work product of pre-computer technology era. This law also lacks normative heft. That is, it does not embody a clear vision about what its normative purposes are. This article […]