Prof. James Gibson, University of Richmond School of Law August 20, 2015 Google’s role as a copyright defendant has provided fodder for many an essay in this series, particularly with regard to the Google Books litigation. (Incidentally, that litigation celebrates its tenth anniversary next month – and it’s still going strong.) A more recent Google [...]
Prof. James Gibson, University of Richmond School of Law May 6, 2015 A few months ago, my IP Issues entry demonstrated that the exclusive rights that trademark law provides are rooted in consumer welfare – in the need to ensure that consumers are able to distinguish one producer’s goods from those of its competitors. In [...]
Prof. James Gibson, University of Richmond School of Law January 26, 2015 In my last IP Viewpoints entry, I discussed the origin of “transformation” as a major factor in copyright’s fair use doctrine. In particular, I focused on “expressive” transformation, in which the user changes the actual content of the copyrighted work. Taking old works [...]
Prof. James Gibson, University of Richmond School of Law December 11, 2014 The recent Kienitz v. Sconnie Nation case has been the focus of three recent posts in this Intellectual Property Issues series – from me, Doug Lichtman, and Rod Smolla. In Kienitz, the defendant changed a photograph of the mayor of Madison, Wisconsin, into [...]
Prof. James Gibson, University of Richmond School of Law September 30, 2014 A small copyright decision out of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit last month has gotten a big reaction from copyright experts. The case is Kienitz v. Sconnie Nation, and it involves an entertaining set of facts. In the 1960s, [...]
Prof. James Gibson, University of Richmond School of Law July 22, 2014 The conventional wisdom provides two traditional justifications for trademark law. The first is the “consumer protection” rationale. If there were no trademark law, an unknown soft drink manufacturer could freely use Coca-Cola’s COKE trademark on its goods. If it did so, consumers would [...]
Prof. James Gibson, University of Richmond School of Law April 1, 2014 Anyone who teaches intellectual property law knows how exciting the subject matter can be for students. They inundate professors not only with questions about the classroom material but also with news about emerging technologies, cutting-edge litigation, and legislative initiatives. And the attentive professor [...]
Prof. James Gibson, University of Richmond School of Law January 29, 2014 In two of my earlier entries in this series, I discussed the results of an empirical study of copyright cases that I have been doing with my colleague Chris Cotropia. One of those entries focused on how hard the parties in copyright lawsuits [...]
Prof. James Gibson, University of Richmond School of Law November 20, 2013 It’s back: Google Books, our favorite topic in this Intellectual Property Viewpoints series. Google Books is the project through which Google has brought its search capability to the text of more than 20 millions books (with the number still growing). To do so, [...]
Prof. James Gibson, University of Richmond School of Law September 24, 2013 As I mentioned in my last essay, my colleague Chris Cotropia and I have recently completed a data collection project in which we examined pleadings from approximately 1,000 copyright cases filed in federal court over a four-year period. We are still evaluating the [...]