Apple Bites Back: An Antitrust Analysis of Qualcomm’s Licensing Practices
Marie Weisfeiler Both Apple and the Federal Trade Commission filed lawsuits against Qualcomm alleging antitrust violations. Specifically, both alleged that Qualcomm used its monopoly power to engage in unfair licensing practices and create an exclusive deal with Apple, in violation of its industry commitment to use fair practices in licensing its patents. This essay compares Qualcomm’s practices to those of Microsoft in 1998, which, because of Microsoft’s restrictive licensing and exclusive deals, were deemed to have violated the Sherman Act. It then considers the implications for licensing, technology, and antitrust law if a similar case is litigated in the future....
Patent Law in Space
Marie Weisfeiler The potential for private technological expansion into space raises questions of how to protect intellectual property rights of inventions that are both brought into space and made in space. While there are international treaties governing space law, none of these treaties discuss how to designate or enforce patent rights in space. The International Space Station has implemented a solution of quasi-territoriality to establish patent rights. This essay suggests, however, that this solution will be deficient when private entities venture further into space exploration. This essay then explores the possibility of a universal approach to patent law in space...
Legislative and Non-Legislative Approaches to Deterring Product Counterfeiting
Alec Weinberg Product counterfeiting has been a fast-growing problem in the U.S. economy. As a solution, Congress enacted several statutes to deter illegal counterfeiting. Nevertheless, the effectiveness of Congress’ efforts is questionable. To strengthen the deterrence effect, legislators should consider amending current laws to punish consumers and implementing alternative measures such as track and trace technologies. This approach would better protect businesses and consumers by expanding oversight responsibilities, creating barriers against counterfeit products, and changing public perception of counterfeit goods. Read Full Text Here
Protect Your Own Data: Interactive Streaming Narratives and Data Privacy Concerns
Sabra Paige Hopkins Black Mirror: Bandersnatch exemplifies the value of data gathered from interactive streaming narratives. Netflix can utilize its wealth of subscriber data to push targeted product placements to subscribers based on their demographic data. Data on subscriber choices could also be used to increase the accuracy of Netflix’s recommendation algorithm. In the wake of data privacy regulations, companies must justify their data collection and processing practices. Read Full Text Here
Litigation Misconduct and the Inequitable Conduct Defense: An Argument for Limiting Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Merus N.V.
Connor Romm Inequitable conduct is a defense to a claim of patent infringement that can invalidate the underlying patent. At its inception, the defense was meant to encourage honest representations in the patent prosecution process. It later morphed into a source of troubling litigation tactics. In May 2011, in Therasense, Inc. v. Becton, Dickinson & Co., the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, sitting en banc, sought to address disturbing trends in the doctrine and raised the standard required to prevail on the defense. In July 2017, in Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Merus N.V., the same court...
The Cancer Immunotherapy Pilot Program and Chimeric Antigen Receptor-T Cell Treatments
Ellen Shamansky The Cancer Immunotherapy Pilot Program (also known as Patents 4 Patients) provides fast-track review to patent applications describing methods of treating cancer with immunotherapy, such as chimeric antigen receptor (“CAR”)- T cell treatments. This article explores considerations for claiming CAR-T cell treatments, including court rulings and examiner guidelines on patentable subject matter in the life sciences, the Federal Circuit’s decision in NantKwest, Inc. v. Lee in 2017, and pending applications and current litigation over CAR-T cell treatments. Read Full Text Here
Get Out of My Head: An Examination of Potential Brain-Computer Interface Data Privacy Concerns
Kevin Y. Li Brain-computer interfaces (“BCI”), which interpret brain impulses and translate them into real world outputs, currently exist in a variety of forms. With the continued development of BCIs and their increasing complexity, privacy issues will arise in regards to the data that they collect. Existing federal statutes, such as HIPAA, as well as state data privacy statutes offer some protection to BCI users, but it remains to be seen whether these laws will be sufficient to accommodate the amount and sensitivity of the data likely to be generated by future BCIs. Lastly, this article explores the possibility of...
Bring Your Own Trademark: Compensating College Football Players Through Trademark Royalties
Sarah Murphy College football players deserve compensation for the value they create in the sport. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (“NCAA”) Amateurism Rule, however, prohibits paying student-athletes, while coaches earn millions of dollars per year. A potential solution to combat this inequality is for universities to collect intellectual property licensing royalties from coaches and use that money toward compensating players. Additionally, college athletes should be informed about their right to trademark and should collect their own trademark licensing royalties in accordance with the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit’s decision in O’Bannon v. NCAA in 2015. Read...
IP Protection for Startups: The Role of Legislation in Stopping Patent Trolls and Encouraging Innovation
Kristin Garr In the past five years, the rate of startups entering the market has drastically increased, and it continues to see an upward trend, giving rise to the phenomenon known as the “startup boom.” While the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) has implemented major changes to the patent system in the past decade, the agency has not been able to address the problem that is crippling the success of emerging companies: patent trolls. Various states’ legislatures have recognized this issue and enacted statutes prohibiting bad faith patent assertions as a result. This article explains the startup industry’s...
Blockchain and Copyright: Vain Hope for Photographers?
Jason Kim Blockchain technology has near unlimited application potential, and its influence could extend all the way to the copyright industry. For photographers, blockchain technology might serve as a safe and efficient tool to detect infringement. However, this notion must be treated with caution. Blockchain’s security applications are indeed a valuable prospect, but the technology has critical flaws that prevent it from becoming the panacea for photographer. Read Full Text Here