Recently, state governments have begun to claim a copyright interest in their official published codes of law, in particular arguing that ancillary
materials such as annotations to the statutory text are subject to state-held copyright protection because those materials are not binding commands that carry the force of law.
Patent term extension (PTE) is a statutorily-based mechanism to compensate inventors for patent term loss due to regulatory delay during the drug approval process at the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In the context of pharmaceutical products, PTE is only available for the active ingredient of a drug formulation.
Some perceive trademark protection as a reward for a mark owner’s labor in cultivating his business goodwill. However, among legal scholars and academics, the prevailing theoretical explanation for trademark protection is utilitarian, focusing on increasing consumer welfare.
Mickey Mouse, the iconic mascot of the Walt Disney Company, is one of the most recognizable and beloved characters in the world.
Our Spring 2020 issue, Volume 9, Issue 2, is comprised of five individual pieces that explore significant, current themes in intellectual property and entertainment law, ranging from providing guidance from practice and experience, to questioning the very underlying legal framework of trademark law.
Immediate recognition is the epitome of success for musical artists. Few artists attain the level of success at which fans easily identify
their sound from a mere snippet of a track, joining the ranks of artists like Frank Sinatra, Dolly Parton, The Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, and Ella Fitzgerald. Their unique sounds are almost immediately recognizable and easily distinguished from other artists in their genres. In the modern rap and pop world, Pitbull has attained this level of notoriety.
Our Fall 2019 issue, Volume 9, Issue 1, includes an exciting and rich collection of works that spans an unusually broad, yet timely and relevant, variety of topics in the areas of IP and entertainment law and policy.
This Article addresses the black market for college athlete services that results from the NCAA’s restrictions on athlete compensation based on the purported need to preserve amateurism. Specifically, this Article focuses on the NCAA’s name, image, and likeness (NIL) restrictions that prevent college athletes from making use of their own reputations for commercial purpose.
It’s the policy of an increasing number of news outlets to retain ownership of the professional
social media accounts of their reporters. In the first case of its kind in the United States, one media company took a former employee to court over the question of ownership.
This Article explores the law and economics of “literary fan art”—unauthorized derivative works by third parties that are based on someone else’s literary work product. What is the legal status of such fan art?