The Supreme Court’s Missed Opportunity to Save Genus Claims in Life Sciences Patents
Alexander Franzosa The life sciences industry is a vital sector of the American economy, and its success is reliant on the protection of patent holder rights. One common feature in life sciences patents is the genus claim, a claim type traditionally allowing the patent holder to claim a group of related species based on common functionality. A novel interpretation of “written description,” a required element for patent applications, has emerged in recent decisions by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. This new interpretation has caused concern among some members of the life sciences industry regarding the validity of...
The Secret Life of Platform Intellectual Property Adjudication
Shih-wei Chao An emerging trend in intellectual property law is e-commerce platforms adjudicating infringement disputes. When platforms receive right holder complaints and decide whether to remove product listings, suspend the seller, or destroy the infringing inventory—intentional or not—they are acting as “courts,” applying unique “laws” and granting platform-style “remedies.” To provide a peek into this nascent realm of intellectual property alternative dispute resolution, this article first compiles what is known about platforms’ adjudication mechanisms, from complaint to decision, from enforcement to “appeals,” covering both platforms’ basic complaint systems and Amazon’s UPNEP/APEX program. Normatively, however, there are concerns that platforms are...
The Search to Find a Legal Remedy for Regulating Censorship on Social Media
Kristen Cuetos The rise of Big Tech has led to concern over social media companies’ power in regulating user content. Social media users are claiming, more frequently now than ever, that their posts, ideas, and views are being censored by social media platforms. Contrarily, other users are arguing that platforms aren’t doing enough to moderate and curb harmful or offensive speech online. Many have filed lawsuits against social media companies for infringing on users’ First Amendment freedom of speech. These lawsuits fail because of the legal barriers that protect social media companies from such liability. As a result, controversy has...
Choreographic Works in the Age of Social Media: The Issues and Implications of Copyrighting TikTok Dances
Patricia Garza Gonzalez Keara Wilson, the creator of the “Savage” dance on TikTok successfully registered her dance as a choreographic work with the U.S. Copyright Office, making it the first viral TikTok dance protected under the Copyright Act of 1976. She is one of numerous TikTok dance creators seeking copyright protection for their works as the social media platform has bolstered dance dissemination through dance challenges that encourage users to reproduce and post their versions of short routines. Nevertheless, under the current guidelines for choreographic work copyright, TikTok dances are not entitled to copyright protections because of their categorization as...
From Canvas to Designer Cloth: The Exploitative Nature of the Fair Use Doctrine in the Arts
Victoria Schmidt This Essay examines the controversial launch of the 2020 COACH® x Basquiat Collection featuring the signature image of Jean- Michel Basquiat on Coach purses and clothing. These signature images were part of a larger work of art by Basquiat that aimed to critique racial segregation, police brutality, and the capitalistic pull of American society. Basquiat supporters critique the collaboration as a misappropriation of the artist’s message. Under this assumption, this Essay evaluates the scope of the fair use doctrine through a hypothetical copyright infringement claim against Coach. This Essay examines the provisions of current copyright laws and advocates...
A Welcome Limit on Design Patent Protection: Curver Luxembourg, Sarl v. Home Expressions
Casey Houlton In 2019, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit addressed the scope of design patent law in Curver Luxembourg, SARL v. Home Expressions. The court held that a design patent must be limited to a particular article of manufacture. As such, claim language may be used to limit the scope of a design patent to a particular article of manufacture if an article is not specified in the claim’s figures. Although the court’s failure to define an article of manufacture may result in some difficulties with Curver’s application, the court’s decision is consistent with the...
Potential Impact of Section 106 of the Stronger Patents Act on the Biotechnology Industry
Jeffrey Buckman A permanent injunction is the strongest remedy available to a patent holder in a patent infringement case. Throughout much of U.S. patent litigation history, plaintiffs were presumptively entitled to a permanent injunction when a defendant infringed the plaintiff’s valid patent. In 2006, however, in eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, the Supreme Court of the United States altered the standard for awarding permanent injunctions in patent infringement cases. In eBay, the Court held that patent holders are not presumptively entitled to permanent injunctions and instead must satisfy the traditional four-factor permanent injunction test. In June 2019, the House of Representatives...
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
Inequitable Results in Transnational Patent Infringement Liability: Closing the Method Loophole
Alejandro Valencia A set of recent patent infringement cases are primed to have major impacts and, some argue, inequitable effects on the current patent scheme in the United States. A problem has arisen concerning what kind of patent protection, or lack thereof, method and process patents should receive when certain steps of those methods or processes are implemented outside the U.S. Read literally, as the courts have, current law requires a method to have taken place in the U.S. for protection. But what results when a method or process patent is infringed partially in the U.S. and partially abroad? Should...
Is Genericide a Matter of Fact or of Merit?
Shoshana Stern Courts’ analyses of genericness are rarely straightforward. Because few courts either say what they are doing or do what they say on this count, it can be difficult to determine what is actually going on. Through analysis of a number of historic cases and a few contemporary ones, this paper will explore the ways in which genericide has been treated. It will also investigate the extent to which courts’ vagueness in defining what a trademark owner must do to protect its mark has compelled mark owners to be excessively zealous in prosecuting infringers, out of fear that inaction...