CPIP has published a new policy brief by CPIP Senior Fellow for Innovation Policy Jonathan Barnett entitled The Long Shadow of the Blackberry Shutdown That Wasn’t. The policy brief looks at how the Blackberry litigation and the “patent troll” narrative ultimately contributed to the Supreme Court’s 2006 decision in eBay v. Read more
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New Paper Looks at “Ill-Advised Legislative Proposals” to Address Pharmaceutical “Evergreening”
The following post comes from Yumi Oda, an LLM Candidate at Scalia Law and a Research Assistant at CPIP.
By Yumi Oda
Many believe that drug prices in the U.S. are unnecessarily high because the pharmaceutical industry is exploiting legal loopholes and acquiring dubious patents to extend protection and delay generics from entering the market (so-called “evergreening” behavior by drug innovators). Read more
Copyright Office Questions Legality of Internet Archive’s National Emergency Library
On March 24, the Internet Archive (Archive) unveiled what it called the “National Emergency Library” (NEL) in order to “address our unprecedented global and immediate need for access to reading and research materials.” The announcement specified that Archive would suspend the waitlist for 1.4 million books in its unlicensed “lending library” until at least June 30, thus allowing an unlimited number of people to download electronic copies of the same book at the same time. Read more
Consumer Perception Wins the Day: A Case Overview of USPTO v. Booking.com
The following post comes from Ryan Reynolds, a rising 3L at Scalia Law and a Research Assistant at CPIP.
By Ryan Reynolds
Last week, the Supreme Court in USPTO v. Booking.com held that a combination of an otherwise generic term and a generic top-level domain (TLD) may be protected as a trademark so long as consumers perceive it as capable of distinguishing among the members of a class of goods or services and not as a reference to the class itself. Read more
(Patented) Life Begins at Forty: CPIP Celebrates the Ongoing Legacy of Diamond v. Chakrabarty
The following post comes from Colin Kreutzer, a rising 2E at Scalia Law and a Research Assistant at CPIP.
By Colin Kreutzer
It’s been forty years since the Supreme Court ruled in favor of patentability for a GE scientist and the oil-eating bacterium he’d created, greatly expanding the scope of living matter that was eligible to be patented. Read more
New Paper Explores Possibility of Gold-Plated Patents Beyond the PTAB’s Reach
What if there is a way for a patent applicant to obtain a “gold-plated patent” that is immune to administrative cancellation before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO)? This intriguing notion is the subject of a recent paper by Professor Michael S. Read more
Senate IP Subcommittee Hearing on DMCA Exposes Notice-and-Takedown Problems for Artists and Authors
The following post comes from Yumi Oda, an LLM Candidate at Scalia Law and a Research Assistant at CPIP.
By Yumi Oda
On June 2, the Senate Subcommittee on Intellectual Property held a virtual online hearing entitled Is the DMCA’s Notice-and-Takedown System Working in the 21st Century? Read more
Senator Ron Wyden, Stop Harming Independent Creators
Here’s a brief excerpt of a post by CPIP Senior Scholar Eric Priest and Professor Sean Pager that was published at IPWatchdog:
As the current pandemic eviscerates jobs throughout our economy, Congress has a rare opportunity to improve the lot of one long-besieged group of workers: creators. Read more
Sean O’Connor’s Historical Take on Different Types of Intellectual Property
The following post comes from Professor Camilla Hrdy of Akron Law. It originally appeared on Written Description, and it is reposted here with permission.
By Camilla Hrdy
I truly enjoyed Sean O’Connor’s new paper, forthcoming in the George Mason Law Review, called “Distinguishing Different Kinds of Property in Patents and Copyrights.” Read more
The AM-FM Bill and the Status of Terrestrial Music Broadcast Performance Rights
The following post comes from David Ward, a rising 2L at Scalia Law who is working as a Research Assistant this summer at CPIP.
By David Ward
This past Wednesday, the Senate Intellectual Property Subcommittee, led by its Chairman, Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC), held a virtual online briefing on the current state of music rights. Read more