Jan

11

The Conservative Turn in Copyright Politics

Posted by: | January 11, 2012 | Leave a Comment

David Brooks had an interesting column earlier this week in which he asked, “Why aren’t there more liberals in America?” According to Gallup Poll numbers, about 41% of Americans self-identify as conservative, versus 36% moderate and 21% liberal. This strikes Brooks as a bit of a puzzle, since the financial crisis and the economic downturn [...]

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Dec

15

Son of SOPA

Posted by: | December 15, 2011 | Leave a Comment

The House Judiciary Committee held a markup hearing on the Stop Online Piracy Act, H.R. 3261, the bill that is quickly shaping up to be this year’s big copyright battle. I’ve written two prior posts on the bill, Part I and Part II. This is a good opportunity to recap where I came out at [...]

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Dec

8

New Article by Prof. Calboli Explores Tension Between Free Trade and Trademark Rights

Posted by: | December 8, 2011 | Leave a Comment

Irene Calboli grapples with a longstanding controversy over the “first sale rule” in trademark law in her new article, “Market Integration and (the Limits of) the First Sale Rule in North American and European Trademark Law,” 51 Santa Clara L. Rev. 1241 (2011).  As she explains, Trademark law grants trademark owners the right to prevent [...]

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Nov

28

Two Flaws in the SOPA

Posted by: | November 28, 2011 | Leave a Comment

This is the second post in a series looking at the Stop Online Piracy Act, a House bill that’s been getting a lot of attention lately. In Part I of this series I looked at Section 102 and concluded that it was largely unobjectionable. Section 102 essentially provides the DOJ with supplemental provisional remedies it [...]

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Nov

17

What’s Up With SOPA?

Posted by: | November 17, 2011 | 2 Comments

The tech blogosphere is abuzz with discussion of yesterday’s House Judiciary Committee hearing on SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, H.R. 3261. (Mainstream news sites seem not to have noticed; the New York Times website front page mentioned the impending sale of Yahoo, but not SOPA.) A good deal of that discussion refers to SOPA [...]

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Oct

5

One Public Domain to Rule Them All

Posted by: | October 5, 2011 | 2 Comments

The Supreme Court heard oral argument this morning in Golan v. Holder, which considers the constitutionality of Section 104A of the Copyright Act, added in 1994 by the obfuscatorily named Uruguay Round Agreements Act. The constitutional issue is whether Congress can, consistent with the Copyright Clause and the First Amendment, remove works from the public [...]

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Sep

10

Can Intellectual Property Be a Source of Repression?

Posted by: | September 10, 2011 | 1 Comment

Concerned with the current direction of world intellectual property law, an international group of intellectual property and information policy experts has issued the Washington Declaration on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest. The Declaration calls for a re-articulation of the “public interest dimension in intellectual property law and policy” and expresses concern for the “unprecedented [...]

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Jul

20

Combatting Gray Markets: A Copyright-Protected Distribution Right or a Sherman Act Violation?

Posted by: | July 20, 2011 | 3 Comments

At one time, the prospect of stating legal claims against gray market importers looked bleak.  Product manufacturers tried trademark protection, but trademark law proved disappointingly unsuccessful.  One company has now turned to copyright protection, and this company obtained a Ninth Circuit decision that found a store using a gray market importation scheme unable to raise a defense [...]

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Jul

19

New Issue of IP Law Review

Posted by: | July 19, 2011 | Leave a Comment

The latest issue of the Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review is now out in print.  The contents include: Mark Lemley’s Nies Lecture, “Can the Patent Office Be Fixed?” Ysolde Gendreau’s lecture on copyright reform in Canada, “Canada and the Three-Step Test: A Step in Which Direction?” Dalila Hoover’s article, “Coercion Will Not Protect Trademark Owners in [...]

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Jun

15

Levels of Transformativeness

Posted by: | June 15, 2011 | Leave a Comment

Brian Frye has an interesting post up over at Concurring Opinions on Friedman v. Guetta, a recent Central District of California copyright case involving an altered photograph of Run-D.M.C. Somewhat like Fairey v. AP, the issues on summary judgement included whether the original photograph was copyrightable and whether Guetta’s use of it was fair. (You [...]

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Apr

19

DeGuire Award Winner Explores Copyright Remedies

Posted by: | April 19, 2011 | Leave a Comment

Congratulations to 3L Andy Spillane, the winner of this year’s DeGuire Award for best student comment published in the Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review.  Andy’s paper discusses the availability of injunctive relief for copyright violations.  Recently, some courts have abandoned the presumption of irreparable harm that traditionally benefitted copyright plaintiffs seeking injunctive relief.  In the face [...]

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Apr

11

That’s the Same Combination I Have on My Luggage!

Posted by: | April 11, 2011 | 2 Comments

Quick, which service do you think has the most strict password requirements I’ve ever encountered? My bank? Mutual funds? My law firm network login? Credit cards? Paypal? Email providers? Configuring my home server for remote access? Electronics sites like newegg.com and amazon.com? Westlaw and Lexis? No. Not any of those. There is a service that, [...]

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