BLOG POST: Controller in the Courtroom: The Struggle of Collegiate ESports Under the Athletic Banner*
*This writing is a blog post. It is not a published IPTF Journal Article. Noah DeRossi-Goldberg I. Working Without a Basic Understanding A. The Misstep of Navarro Decisions about Collegiate Esports are made without judges ever taking the time to pick up a controller.[1] A recent opinion by a Florida District Court has created a roadblock for any college seeking to establish a competitive, fully funded Esports program within their athletics department.[2] The Florida Institute of Technology (“FIT”) disbanded its men’s rowing team to comply with Title IX’s mandate that men’s and women’s sports receive equal funding.[3] In determining...
BLOG POST: Lessons from the China Initiative: The Perils of Pursuing Foreign Policy Through Prosecutions*
*This writing is a Blog Post. It is not a published IPTF Journal Article. Joshua Nacht One week before Jeff Sessions was fired as Attorney General, he announced the November 2018 creation of the Justice Department’s “China Initiative”.[1] The China Initiative emerged to counter myriad economic and national security threats, including intellectual property (IP) theft, forced technology transfer, cyberespionage of trade secrets and national security information, and efforts to obtain and/or penetrate critical military technology.[2] By some estimates, these PRC-linked efforts cost the United States up to $30 billion a year, and have totaled $600 billion cumulatively.[3] Under Attorney General...
Disclaimers: The Solution to Source Confusion in Sports Merchandising?
William Wheeler This Article evaluates the ramifications of modern trademark law in the context of sports apparel and logos. Collegiate and professional sports teams have utilized modern trademark law to enact a licensing regime where third-party companies must pay royalties to produce apparel with collegiate logos. This regime assumes the inherent value of trademarks on sports apparel is derived from their association with the teams they represent, not the logo itself. This Article examines various approaches courts have taken to address the dichotomy between the necessary consumer association and the reality that the logos themselves are what draw consumers. Most...
Privacy Rights of College Athletes: Controls on the Use of Technology to Collect Player Medical Data
Armen Grigorian College athletic departments are always looking to gain an edge over their competitors. Recently, these athletic departments have been gathering player medical data through various new technologies designed to track player performance in the hopes of better preparing for game day, but this raises many privacy concerns. College athletes are often asked to waive privacy protections for their medical data. This is problematic as there are currently no controls on what the universities can do with said data. For student-athletes to retain their privacy rights, the field must develop and implement restrictions on the accessibility of their personal...
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...
The Edge of Ethics in iParadigms
Michael G. Bennett In an attempt to stem a perceived rise in student plagiarism, educational institutions are increasingly turning to anti-plagiarism technologies. The use of these technological means to police student writings has been controversial, socially, politically, and legally. This article discusses the outcome of A.V. et al. v. iParadigms, to date the most important opinion on the legality of such technology’s use. The author examines the case in detail and presents arguments against the technology’s use, on the grounds that such use undermines educational policy by allowing the ethics of teachers to become a by-product of available technological means and...
Repairing the Bayh-Dole Act: A Proposal for Restoring Non-Profit Access to University Science
Aaron Miller The United States government invests billions of dollars every year in scientific research. Government agencies such as the Department of Energy, NASA and the Pentagon directly employ legions of scientists and engineers. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) funds a tremendous amount of biomedical research. Besides running its own labs, the NIH gives generous grants to hundreds of universities and medical schools, and to the thousands of research professors who fill them. The federal government today provides about 60% of the total research funding for America’s many prestigious research universities. In addition, the government pays private, for-profit contractors...