Prof. Rodney A. Smolla, Duke University School of Law April 24, 2014 In September 2012, I reported on a fascinating copyright infringement lawsuit arising from undercover, surreptitious, and deceitful newsgathering by the Bloomberg financial service, which had violated the rules of engagement in an earnings call by the Swatch Group, and sold the intelligence it [...]

Prof. Robert P. Merges, University of California at Berkeley School of Law April 16, 2014 Introduction There is an anomaly in the IP policy discourse these days.  There is great concern about excess litigation and litigation costs.  In addition, many are concerned with the sheer numbers of patents that must be licensed to sell products [...]

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. Jane C. Ginsburg*, Columbia University School of Law March 17, 2014 On February 13 of this year, the Court of Justice of the European Union rendered its decision in Nils Svensson, Sten Sjögren, Madelaine Sahlman, Pia Gadd v. Retreiver Sverige AB (Case C-466/12).  The case concerned a news-clipping service, Retriever Sverige AB, which linked [...]

Prof. Randal C. Picker, University of Chicago Law School March 11, 2014 On Feb. 26, 2014, the Ninth Circuit released its opinion in Garcia v. Google and the copyright law professor community went ballistic.  I measure that by the volume of tweets that I saw in my twitter feed and then by the traffic on [...]

Peter S. Menell, Koret Professor of Law and Director, Berkeley Center for Law & Technology, University of California at Berkeley School of Law March 4, 2014 The Supreme Court will soon confront whether Aereo’s service – which affords subscribers access to over-the-air television signals through the use of dime-sized, customer-specific antennas and remote digital video [...]

Prof. Jane C. Ginsburg, Columbia University School of Law* February 18, 2014 This column will address the Aereo1 controversy currently pending before the Supreme Court from an international perspective, in light of the EU Commission’s condemnation of an Italian law authorizing “remote DVR” services, and the Court of Justice for the European Union’s rejection of [...]

Prof. Robert P. Merges, University of California at Berkeley School of Law February 15, 2014 Under U.S. patent law, it is irrelevant whether an infringement defendant copied from the patentee or independently invented the patented invention.  Many commentators have decried this aspect of patent law.  The consensus is clear: Patent law needs an “independent invention” [...]

Prof. Rodney A. Smolla, Duke University School of Law February 4, 2014 On Jan. 10, 2014, the Supreme Court granted the petition for certiorari filed by broadcasters in ABC, Inc. v. Aereo, Inc., in a case that puts in play the American television broadcast industry as we know it.  The petitioners in the case are [...]

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 [...]