Inventions Made for Hire
Despite the continued reliance on the rhetorical device that modern invention is performed by individual inventors in their garages, few would disagree that today most patentable inventive activity occurs in…
Post-Booker Judicial Discretion and Sentencing Trends in Criminal Intellectual Property Cases: Empirical Analysis and Societal Implications
As a result of the Supreme Court’s 2005 decision in Booker v. United States that rendered the United States Sentencing Commission’s Sentencing Guidelines advisory only and no longer mandatory, district…
Conception and Misconception in Joint Inventorship
The Patent Act’s omission to define inventorship leaves a paramount concept in a legal vacuum. Where courts have stepped in to fill the void, they have largely deferred to the…
Copyright Conspiracy: How the New Copyright Alert System May Violate the Sherman Act
In July 2011, a consortium of major content providers and Internet service providers announced their intention to implement the Copyright Alert System, a graduated response plan aimed at stemming online…
The Most Fascinating Kind of Art: Fashion Design Protection as a Moral Right
In recent years, politicians, academics, and industry professionals have argued vehemently that copyright protection should extend to cover fashion designs, which are currently excluded under the “useful articles” doctrine. Copyright…
Work as Weapon, Author as Target: Why Parodies That Target Authors (Not Just Their Works) Should Be Fair Uses
In April 2011, comedic musician “Weird Al” Yankovic sought Lady Gaga’s permission to release his song “Perform This Way,” a spoof on Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” that parodied the…