Prof. Doug Lichtman, UCLA School of Law February 9, 2015 I have been making the rounds the last few weeks, talking with bar organizations and student groups about the most important patent and copyright moments of this past year. My standard talk touches on some familiar cases, like the Supreme Court’s Aereo decision, or the [...]
Prof. Rodney A. Smolla, University of Georgia Law School February 4, 2015 In an IP Viewpoints post in October 2014, I criticized the Seventh Circuit’s decisions in Kienitz v. Sconnie Nation LLC.1 The case was a copyright infringement suit brought by professional photographer Michael Kienitz against Sconnie Nation LLC, which copied Kienitz’s copyrighted photo of [...]
Prof. Justin Hughes, Loyola Law School, Los Angeles January 29, 2015 Last month, The Hill, a Capitol Hill news source, published an op-ed piece by a Los Angeles entertainment attorney, Dina LaPolt. The basic arguments of LaPolt’s “Copyrights different than patents, trademarks” (TheHill.com, Dec. 10, 2014) are that the U.S. Copyright Office “employees are ... [...]
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. Randal C. Picker, University of Chicago Law School January 7, 2015 It is the season for movie awards. Movie reviewers are checking their lists twice to see who has been naughty and nice. And some movies are released right at the end of the year to a limited number of theaters so as to [...]
Prof. Doug Lichtman, UCLA School of Law December 15, 2014 Jane Ginsburg wrote earlier this month about Garcia v. Google, a controversial Ninth Circuit decision that is now pending for en banc review. Her piece is excellent; but I have to admit that, even after reading Jane’s article, I remain baffled by the case. The [...]
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. Jane C. Ginsburg, Columbia University School of Law December 1, 2014 The Ninth Circuit recently agreed to hear Garcia v. Google (original opinion 2-27-14, amended 7-11-14)1 en banc, thus vacating a controversial decision by Judge Alex Kozinski recognizing a film actor’s copyright ownership of her performance in the film. The facts of the case [...]
Prof. Rodney A. Smolla, Duke University School of Law November 26, 2014 I write this IP Viewpoints piece on the eve of Thanksgiving. One of our family rituals during the holidays is to sit down together and watch our favorite holiday films. One of our favorites – and we are not alone – is the [...]
Prof. Jane C. Ginsburg, Columbia University School of Law October 31, 2014 In Cambridge University Press v. Becker,1 three academic publishers sued Georgia State University for systematically infringing their copyrights by implementing a policy that permitted faculty members to make excerpts from the plaintiffs’ works as electronic course reserves through the university library’s website. The [...]