Prof.  Doug Lichtman*, UCLA School of Law February 23, 2010 Last week, U.S. District Court Judge Denny Chin held a much-anticipated “fairness hearing” during which a chorus of interested parties spoke both for and against Google’s proposed settlement to its Book Search litigation.  My own view aligns closely to the view articulated there by the [...]

Prof. Doug Lichtman, UCLA School of Law December 1, 2009 The United States Supreme Court recently heard oral argument in a patent case called In Re Bilski.  At issue is the question of under what conditions an innovative process falls within the subject matter of patent law.  On one view, some processes should be excluded [...]

Prof. Douglas Lichtman, UCLA School of Law Sept. 24, 2009 Section 106(2) of the Copyright Act recognizes in authors the exclusive right to prepare derivative work.  This is in addition to the other exclusive rights listed in Section 106, such as the exclusive right to make reproductions and the exclusive right to engage in public [...]

Prof. Douglas Lichtman, UCLA School of Law June 25, 2009 Ten years ago, a meaningful discussion of copyright law could focus almost exclusively on the federal copyright statute and its related case law.  At that time, the primary powers wielded by copyright holders were rights granted explicitly by the statute, such as the exclusive right [...]

Prof. Doug Lichtman, UCLA School of Law March 4, 2009 A few months ago, Harvard Law School Professor Charlie Nesson took Joel Tenenbaum as a client.  Tenenbaum was up until then just one of the thousands of individuals who had been sued by the music industry for uploading and downloading music online.  But with Nesson [...]