Intellectual Property Law

Thoughts on Scott Hemphill?s Network Neutrality paper

Posted on April 29, 2008
Scott Hemphill has posted an excellent, thoughtful paper on network neutrality. I’ll post the abstract along with a few comments on the paper below the fold: Abstract: This Article examines zero?price regulation, the major distinguishing feature of modern “network neutrality” proposals compared to traditional regulation of infrastructure industries...

Remember Invisible Ink? How About Vanishing Ink?

Posted on April 29, 2008
CNET reports that PARC (formerly Xerox Parc) the folks who have had a large hand in “laser printing, distributed computing and Ethernet, the graphical user interface (GUI), object-oriented programming, and ubiquitous computing” have invented vanishing ink...

New Paper on Cultural Models

Posted on April 23, 2008
Shameless self-promotion alert:  I’ve just posted a short paper on SSRN, titled “Intellectual Property and Americana, or Why IP Gets the Blues.” (Download it here.) It’s just been published in a symposium issue of the Fordham Intellectual Property Media & Entertainment Law Journal, along with pieces by Mark Lemley, Dan Burk, Rob Frieden, and Tal [...

The Webbies are Coming: Vote Today

Posted on April 17, 2008
As many people know, there is an election brewing in Pennsylvania.  As fewer people know, that election involves the annual awards known as “The Webbies,” sometimes known — semi-seriously at least, and undoubtedly without the blessing of AMPAS — as the Oscars of the Internet...

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Against Cyberproperty

Posted on April 15, 2008
This post is a plug for an article that I’ve recently completed with my colleague Michael Carrier at Rutgers-Camden. The article is here. It is very short (for a law review article — 36 pages) and is our best effort to decisively end to the doctrine of “cyberproperty,” a...

Trademark use, Pepsi, and new technology

Posted on April 15, 2008
In case anyone did not catch it, Rebecca Tushnet has a very nice recap of a recent conference in Iowa on the subject of trademark use. I’m very grateful to Rebecca for all the conference blogging she’s done over the past few years — it’s been wonderful to be a virtual attendee at so [...

Alcott Update

Posted on April 15, 2008
A year and a half ago, I posted a brief note on a non-law, non-IP topic:  My friend John Matteson, a recovering lawyer now teaching English at John Jay College, had just published a well-received biography of Louisa May Alcott and her father, Bronson Alcott...

A Fair Use Lexicon

Posted on April 14, 2008
Even the person who gets the news from CNN.com (which is today, much of American humanity) knows that the much-anticipated copyright trial of the young century started today in New York:  J.K. Rowling and all things Harry Potter vs. Steve Vander Ark, publisher of The Harry Potter Lexicon, online here and, the federal courts willing, [...

a late post on legal education

Posted on April 14, 2008
Last week, I was busy and so I tried to follow the discussion; in fact, I had a few discussions in “real space” with colleagues about some of the posts. But I did not post anything; so here goes, a little late. It’s been a fantastic discussion on a wide array of [...

Getting a Tax Refund? Buy A Book ? Zittrain?s The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It

Posted on April 14, 2008
Jonathan Zittrain?s new book, The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It, was released today. There is much to recommend in the book and too much to address well in a blog post. Still, having finished it, I can say that it offers many insights. In short, as Zittrain explains in three principles: [...

Mobblog Wrap-Up

Posted on April 12, 2008
The Madisionian Mobblog comes to a partial end today. The blog will now return to a mix of pieces on law, technology, and society. Nonetheless, there may be additonal posts on the topic so stay tuned for those. In addition, I want to take a moment and thank all involved with this event...

Renaissance Education

Posted on April 11, 2008
In reading the posts in this mobblog one thing comes through: right now many factors push on law and legal education. One could say the game is over. One could say stay the course. One could say radical change is required. Whether such positions are accurate or apply to all depends on the facts...

?Because things are not so bad the way they are?(on the law review front)

Posted on April 11, 2008
Perhaps appropriately on the last day of this fascinating stream of mobbloging, I thought I would try and offer a partial defense of the-way-things-are-right now on the law review front: Don?t romanticize the alternative: When one begins to publish in the peer-reviewed world, the whole romantic notion of blind review becomes somewhat tainted — in all [...

Congressional Hearing on Virtual Worlds

Posted on April 02, 2008
Today there was a hearing convened by the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet (a subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee) on the potentials and policy concerns raised by virtual worlds. Archives of the hearing are here...

Thought Experiment: Why Not A Teaching Law Firm To Increase Experiential Learning?

Posted on March 27, 2008
As Mike Madison has noted almost two years ago, in general innovations in law school curriculum have not kept pace with business schools. That may be changing. Washington & Lee has made a splash by changing its curriculum to an experiential model...

Yari Loses

Posted on March 27, 2008
Just over a year ago I pointed to a lawsuit brought by Bob Yari, producer of the 2006 Best Picture Oscar winner Crash, against the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) and the Producers Guild of America.  AMPAS writes the rules for the Academy Awards, and in 2005, before the competition that resulted [...

USNews Rankings and Fair Use

Posted on March 27, 2008
The annual USNews ranking of law schools (indeed, of graduate programs generally) became broad blogospheric knowledge yesterday, thanks to “leaked” announcements (see here and here).  The magazine is supposed to be released tomorrow — Friday...

The Future of IP Reform

Posted on March 25, 2008
Jessica Litman came to Pitt last week to deliver our annual “Distinguished Intellectual Property Lecture,” and she argued from the following premise:  Not only are the stars are aligned such that comprehensive copyright reform may be possible — roughly equivalent to what we experienced during the 1960s and early 1970s — but that it is [...

More on Gender

Posted on March 24, 2008
Jill Lepore has a very interesting and provocative essay in a recent New Yorker, teasing apart distinctions between fact and fantasy, between works of popular history and works of popular fiction.  Her thesis?  That the distinction may be gendered: By the end of the eighteenth century, not just novel readers but most novel writers were women, [...

IP Notes from All Over

Posted on March 24, 2008
New and upcoming things: First: The excellent IP team at American University’s Washington College of Law prompts me to remind everyone that the annual symposium titled “IP/Gender: Mapping the Connections” is just around the corner.  The symposium will take place on Friday, April 4, at the WCL campus, 4801 Massachusetts Ave...

Kristin Davis?s Future (and Now Current) Reputation

Posted on March 19, 2008
Some may remember the actress Kristin Davis as the good girl from Sex and the City. Well good compared to the characters around her. The film based on the show is due to be released on May 30. And just in time pictures of someone naked and a sex video that are allegedly of Ms...

Unlimited Music with your iPod?

Posted on March 19, 2008
Arstechnica has a story suggesting that Apple is negotiating to offer unlimited downloads to iPod owners who pay a set fee. The scheme essentially means raising the price of iPods, and “giving away” the music. I speculate that this makes sense as the next development in how consumers spend their entertainment dollars...

Back From the ? (and shameless self-promotion)

Posted on March 19, 2008
Well, I admit to a looonnnggg period away from blogging, but I have an explanation (if not an excuse). My co-author Joe Liu and I have finished a new casebook on copyright that will be published by West in time for fall adoption. One thing I have learned for sure - the last [...

Virtual Law Articles

Posted on March 18, 2008
I’m currently writing a book about law and virtual worlds, and in the course of that I’ve been collecting what I hope is a comprehensive list of published law review articles and student notes that focus primarily on the intersection of law and virtual worlds...

Arthur C. Clarke Is Dead

Posted on March 18, 2008
As many who read this blog probably already know, Arthur C. Clarke died today at the age of 90. Given the length and breadth of his career other sources will have many views of his work. I personally recall his general displeasure at the millennium celebrations...

Call for Papers: Seton Hall Symposium on Pandemic Flu

Posted on March 18, 2008
Having learned a great deal at Maryland’s conference on a similar topic, I am proud to announce that Seton Hall Law is hosting a symposium on pandemic flu this fall. Proposals are due by 4/15; here is the call for papers: No TagsShare This

Mentoring Prawfs

Posted on March 18, 2008
Law professors who teach intellectual property and information law subjects are, on the whole, a pretty lively, friendly, and social bunch, and our numbers are growing.  The market has a seemingly endless capacity to absorb new faculty, as law schools across the rankings spectrum hire first one, then a second, and increasingly a third IP specialist...

More Free and Open Source Law Resources

Posted on March 18, 2008
Law.com has a good summary of projects seeking to make opinions, statutes, and other legal materials free. The history of these efforts goes back to the early 90s, but the recent changes may the ones to threaten the big shots. According to the article Public Resource now offers “virtually all of the Federal Reporter second [...

Lawyers and Innovation

Posted on March 18, 2008
In the most recent issue of The Economist, I found an ad for the upcoming “General Counsel West Coast Roundtable.”  Kent Walker, Google’s GC, will give the keynote presentation.  According to the ad copy, he “argues that lawyers play a critical role in promoting innovation...

Class Action Against RIAA

Posted on March 16, 2008
So the RIAA may be subject to a class action suit in Oregon. As the folks at Recording Industry v. The People note the 109 page complaint begins by invoking the RIAA’s statement that it sometimes catches dolphins when fishing. It is a bold way to show the possible callousness of the RIAA and MediaSentry [...

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