The Basics of an Intellectual Property Program
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International Intellectual Property Law
ee--RRGG Electronic Resource Guide International Intellectual Property Law * Jonathan Franklin This page was last updated February 8, 2013. his electronic resource guide, often called the ERG, has been published online by the American Society of International Law (ASIL) since 1997. T Since then it has been systematically updated and continuously expanded. The chapter format of the ERG is designed to be used by students, teachers, practitioners and researchers as a self-guided tour of relevant, quality, up-to-date online resources covering important areas of international law. The ERG also serves as a ready-made teaching tool at graduate and undergraduate levels. The narrative format of the ERG is complemented and augmented by EISIL (Electronic Information System for International Law), a free online database that organizes and provides links to, and useful information on, web resources from the full spectrum of international law. EISIL's subject-organized format and expert-provided content also enhances its potential as teaching tool. 2 This page was last updated February 8, 2013. I. Introduction II. Overview III. Research Guides and Bibliographies a. International Intellectual Property Law b. International Patent Law i. Public Health and IP ii. Agriculture, Plant Varieties, and IP c. International Copyright Law i. Art, Cultural Property, and IP d. International Trademark Law e. Trade and IP f. Arbitration, Mediation, and IP g. Traditional Knowledge and IP h. Geographical Indications IV. General Search Strategies V. Primary Sources VI. Primary National Legislation and Decisions VII. Recommended Link sites VIII. Selected Non-Governmental Organizations IX. Electronic Current Awareness 3 This page was last updated February 8, 2013. -
Licensing 101 December 3, 2020 Meet the Speakers
Licensing 101 December 3, 2020 Meet The Speakers Sushil Iyer Adam Kessel Principal Principal fr.com | 2 Roadmap • High level, introductory discussion on IP licensing • Topics – Types of IP – Monetization strategies – Key parts of a license agreement – Certain considerations • Licensing software, especially open source software • Licensing pharmaceutical patents • Trademarks • Trade secrets • Know-how fr.com | 3 Types of IP Patents Trademarks Copyrights Know-how (including trade secrets) fr.com | 4 Monetization Strategies • IP licensing – focus of this presentation – IP owner (licensor) retains ownership and grants certain rights to licensee – IP licensee obtains the legal rights to practice the IP – Bundle of rights can range from all the rights that the IP owner possesses to a subset of the same • Sale – IP owner (assignor) transfers ownership to the purchaser (assignee) • Litigation – Enforcement, by IP owner, of IP rights against an infringer who impermissibly practices the IP owner’s rights – Damages determined by a Court fr.com | 5 What is an IP License? • Contract between IP owner (Licensor) and Licensee – Licensor’s offer – grant of Licensor’s rights in IP • Patents – right to sell products that embody claimed inventions of Licensor’s US patents • Trademarks – right to use Licensor’s US marks on products or when selling products • Copyright – right to use and/or make derivative works of Licensor’s copyrighted work • Trade Secret – right to use and obligation to maintain Licensor’s trade secret – Licensee’s consideration – compensation -
Westlaw Journal INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
Westlaw Journal INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY Litigation News and Analysis • Legislation • Regulation • Expert Commentary VOLUME 24, ISSUE 2 / MAY 10, 2017 EXPERT ANALYSIS Using Open Source Code for Development of ‘Proprietary’ Software By Nancy A. Del Pizzo, Esq. Rivkin Radler LLP “Open source” commonly refers to software “whose code is made freely available to all users” on the theory that a “crowd-sourced product, where the public is permitted to modify the code, “will be superior to a privately developed” product.1 Software developers may use open source code to help them more efficiently develop new software products, which can reduce the cost of their services. But what sounds like a probable benefit to companies that rely on software development could result in legal liability. This is because companies that employ software developers or contract with them to develop proprietary programs may not be aware that open source code, while free to use, may render their “proprietary” products unprotectable. That’s because code provided via “open source” is typically made available under a license that comes with restrictions — even though it allows for free use and distribution. Those restrictions can be quite rigid. For example, they may include a requirement that any new program using the open source code must become open source as well. In fact, there are more than 100 different licenses associated with open source code.2 Some require that any products made using the code also be provided as open source. Others mandate that any new work developed using the code include a copyright notice acknowledging the author of the open source code used. -
A New Look at Trade Secret Law: Doctrine in Search of Justification
California Law Review VOL. 86 MARCH 1998 No.2 Copyright © 1998 by California Law Review, Inc. A New Look at Trade Secret Law: Doctrine in Search of Justification Robert G. Bonet TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction .....................................................................................243 I. Where We Are Today-A Brief Summary of Cur- rent Trade Secret Law ................................................................247 A. Information That Qualifies as a Trade Secret ........................248 B. Improper Acquisition, Use or Disclosure ...............................250 II. How We Got Where We Are-An Intellectual History of Trade Secret Law .......................................................251 A. The Emergence of a General Theory of Trade Secret Law ...........................................................................251 B. The Collapse of the General Theory .....................................259 III. Making Sense of Where We Are-Arguments from Efficiency .........................................................................260 A. Incentives to Create ..............................................................262 1. The General Argument ...................................................262 2. The Argument Applied ...................................................264 3. Intermediate Research Results and Nontechnological Information ........................................270 Copyright © 1998 California Law Review, Inc. t Professor of Law, Boston University School of Law. I am grateful to all those who participated -
Update on Discovery of Patent Prosecution Communications by Jeffrey Thomas, Anne Brody and Pamela Lee
Portfolio Media. Inc. | 111 West 19th Street, 5th Floor | New York, NY 10011 | www.law360.com Phone: +1 646 783 7100 | Fax: +1 646 783 7161 | [email protected] Update On Discovery Of Patent Prosecution Communications By Jeffrey Thomas, Anne Brody and Pamela Lee Law360, New York (June 20, 2017, 5:19 PM EDT) -- In general, communications between an attorney and his client relating to the filing and prosecution of a patent application are privileged. Last year, the Federal Circuit found that such communications between a patent agent and his client are also privileged.[1] But under the joint attorney-client privilege or the common interest doctrine, communications between attorneys and two or more clients may not be privileged in a later dispute between these clients. This article discusses the challenges that courts and companies continue to face in determining whether a party can access these patent prosecution communications in disputes: (1) between two joint owners; (2) between an employer-owner and an employee- inventor; and (3) with respect to a patent agent, in other Circuits and state courts. Jeffrey Thomas Do Joint Owners Share a Joint Attorney-Client Privilege During Patent Prosecution? When a dispute arises between two joint owners, one owner may seek to access the other owner’s communications with the patent attorney relating to the patent prosecution process. In that case, a court would look at a few factors to decide. One factor would be whether the patent prosecution process was handled by only one attorney (e.g., an in-house attorney), or by two attorneys separately representing the two owners. -
Patent Law: a Handbook for Congress
Patent Law: A Handbook for Congress September 16, 2020 Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov R46525 SUMMARY R46525 Patent Law: A Handbook for Congress September 16, 2020 A patent gives its owner the exclusive right to make, use, import, sell, or offer for sale the invention covered by the patent. The patent system has long been viewed as important to Kevin T. Richards encouraging American innovation by providing an incentive for inventors to create. Without a Legislative Attorney patent system, the reasoning goes, there would be little incentive for invention because anyone could freely copy the inventor’s innovation. Congressional action in recent years has underscored the importance of the patent system, including a major revision to the patent laws in 2011 in the form of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act. Congress has also demonstrated an interest in patents and pharmaceutical pricing; the types of inventions that may be patented (also referred to as “patentable subject matter”); and the potential impact of patents on a vaccine for COVID-19. As patent law continues to be an area of congressional interest, this report provides background and descriptions of several key patent law doctrines. The report first describes the various parts of a patent, including the specification (which describes the invention) and the claims (which set out the legal boundaries of the patent owner’s exclusive rights). Next, the report provides detail on the basic doctrines governing patentability, enforcement, and patent validity. For patentability, the report details the various requirements that must be met before a patent is allowed to issue. -
Attorney-Client Privilege and the Patent Prosecution Process in the Post-Spalding World
Washington University Law Review Volume 81 Issue 1 2003 Attorney-Client Privilege and the Patent Prosecution Process in the Post-Spalding World Jonathan G. Musch Washington University School of Law Follow this and additional works at: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_lawreview Part of the Evidence Commons, Intellectual Property Law Commons, Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Commons, and the Legal Profession Commons Recommended Citation Jonathan G. Musch, Attorney-Client Privilege and the Patent Prosecution Process in the Post-Spalding World, 81 WASH. U. L. Q. 175 (2003). Available at: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_lawreview/vol81/iss1/5 This Note is brought to you for free and open access by the Law School at Washington University Open Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Washington University Law Review by an authorized administrator of Washington University Open Scholarship. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ATTORNEY-CLIENT PRIVILEGE AND THE PATENT PROSECUTION PROCESS IN THE POST- SPALDING WORLD I. INTRODUCTION One of the oldest traditions of the Anglo-American judicial system is the concept of attorney-client privilege.1 This privilege and its much younger sibling, the work-product doctrine,2 limit the discoverability of private communications between attorney and client.3 Private communications4 between a patent attorney and a client, however, have not always enjoyed this protection.5 Due to a misconception of the role of a patent attorney within the patent prosecution process, courts denied attorney-client privilege first to all patent prosecution documents, and later to documents containing technical information. This effectively denied the privilege to most documents generated during a prosecution.6 More recently, courts afforded certain documents containing technical information protection, but under a patchwork of different standards.7 Frequently, a disagreement existed between different district courts within a circuit,8 as well as among different circuits.9 The exponential technology 1. -
Property Crime
Uniform Crime Report Crime in the United States, 2010 Property Crime Definition In the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, property crime includes the offenses of burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson. The object of the theft-type offenses is the taking of money or property, but there is no force or threat of force against the victims. The property crime category includes arson because the offense involves the destruction of property; however, arson victims may be subjected to force. Because of limited participation and varying collection procedures by local law enforcement agencies, only limited data are available for arson. Arson statistics are included in trend, clearance, and arrest tables throughout Crime in the United States, but they are not included in any estimated volume data. The arson section in this report provides more information on that offense. Data collection The data presented in Crime in the United States reflect the Hierarchy Rule, which requires that only the most serious offense in a multiple-offense criminal incident be counted. In descending order of severity, the violent crimes are murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault, followed by the property crimes of burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft. Although arson is also a property crime, the Hierarchy Rule does not apply to the offense of arson. In cases in which an arson occurs in conjunction with another violent or property crime, both crimes are reported, the arson and the additional crime. Overview • In 2010, there were an estimated 9,082,887 property crime offenses in the Nation. -
Globalizing Intellectual Property: Linkage and the Challenge of a Justice-Constituency
GLOBALIZING INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY: LINKAGE AND THE CHALLENGE OF A JUSTICE-CONSTITUENCY SAMUELK. MURUMBA* 1. INTRODUCTION There are historical moments in which invisible forces take a perfectly good idea and turn it into an ideology or even an idol. Such seems to be the case with intellectual property. Twenty years ago, intellectual property hardly existed as such. Its individ ual components-copyrights, patents, trademarks , etc.-had been around for a long time, of course, but they had not coalesced into anything comparable to the unified body of law we have today. Nor were they central to legal practice or significant to law school curriculum. Indeed, as recently as the beginning of the 1980s, de bate was still raging over the appropriate name to give to this emerging field ("industrial property" or "intellectual property") and over its precise boundaries. Almost overnight, however, in tellectual property has changed from a complex and generally eso teric body of law-the preserve of specialists in technology and entertainment law-to the stuff of folklore and conversation at cocktail parties, and for some, almost an object of worship. Intel lectual property now frequently appears in the company of such lofty notions as freedom and democracy, and has even been hailed as a more potent weapon than bombs and missiles for use against dictators!*'� * Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School; LL.B. (Honors) (Makerere Uni versity, Kampala); LL.M.; Ph.D. (Monash University, Melbourne, Australia). This paJ?er was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of InternatiOnal Law, International Economic Law Interest Group, Washington, D.C., December 5, 1997. -
Protecting Trade Secrets Through Copyright
PROTECTING TRADE SECRETS THROUGH COPYRIGHT For many years businesses have taken steps to protect valuable trade secrets.' Often these steps have severely restricted access to spe- cial documents or to areas of manufacturing plants that contain secret machinery.2 Businesses commonly require employees to sign pledges not to disclose trade secrets during or after their employment.3 Addi- tionally, licensing agreements frequently contain clauses that prohibit the dissemination of secrets or their use following the termination of the agreements.4 Courts sometimes will imply these clauses,5 even if they are not included expressly in the licensing agreements. Recently, some businesses have attempted to gain additional protection by affix- ing copyright notices to their secrets.6 The wisdom of this practice has yet to be examined closely. In 1980 the American Bar Association Committee on Trade Secrets and Interference with Contracts considered for the first time the propriety of marking trade secrets or confidential materials with a copyright notice.7 The committee concluded that no inconsistency arises in placing a copyright notice on material that bears an admoni- tion forbidding disclosure to third parties. The committee viewed copyright protection as a "backup or complement" to laws prohibiting theft or misappropriation of trade secrets.8 A minority of the commit- 1. See R. ELLIS, TRADE SECRETS §§ 1-16 (1953). 2. See Pakula, Non-ContractualIn-House Procedures'forConfidential Information, in PRO- TECTING TRADE SECRETS TODAY 179-87 (T. Arnold ed. 1973) [hereinafter cited as TRADE SECRETS]. See generally Adams, Protectinga Company's Trade Secretsfrom Theft by Its Employ- ees, in PROTECTING AND PROFITING FROM TRADE SECRETS 1979, at 303-43 (R. -
The Impacts of Technological Invention on Economic Growth – a Review of the Literature Andrew Reamer1 February 28, 2014
THE GEORGE WASHINGTON INSTITUTE OF PUBLIC POLICY The Impacts of Technological Invention on Economic Growth – A Review of the Literature Andrew Reamer1 February 28, 2014 I. Introduction In their recently published book, The Second Machine Age, Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee rely on economist Paul Krugman to explain the connection between invention and growth: Paul Krugman speaks for many, if not most, economists when he says, “Productivity isn’t everything, but in the long run it’s almost everything.” Why? Because, he explains, “A country’s ability to improve its standard of living over time depends almost entirely on its ability to raise its output per worker”—in other words, the number of hours of labor it takes to produce everything, from automobiles to zippers, that we produce. Most countries don’t have extensive mineral wealth or oil reserves, and thus can’t get rich by exporting them. So the only viable way for societies to become wealthier—to improve the standard of living available to its people—is for their companies and workers to keep getting more output from the same number of inputs, in other words more goods and services from the same number of people. Innovation is how this productivity growth happens.2 For decades, economists and economic historians have sought to improve their understanding of the role of technological invention in economic growth. As in many fields of inventive endeavor, their efforts required time to develop and mature. In the last five years, these efforts have reached a point where they are generating robust, substantive, and intellectually interesting findings, to the benefit of those interested in promoting growth-enhancing invention in the U.S. -
Robert P Merges What Kind of Rights Are Intellectual Property Rights?
Robert P Merges What Kind of Rights Are Intellectual Property Rights? Forthcoming in Rochelle C Dreyfuss & Justine Pila (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Intellectual Property Law © RP Merges 2017 Table of Contents 1. Intellectual Property as a Right 1.1 Intellectual Property Rights Are Property Rights 1.2 The Basic Features of Intellectual Property as Property 1.2.1 The Right to Control Uses 1.2.2 The Right to Transfer 1.2.3 The Special Case of Waiver 1.3 Limitations on Intellectual Property Rights 2. What Kind of Rights? Hohfeld and Intellectual Property 2.1 Claim Right/Duty 2.2 Privilege/No Claim 2.3 Power/Liability 2.4 Immunity/Disability 2.5 Hohfeld: Conclusion 3. Obstacles to Conceiving Intellectual Property as Property 3.1 Intellectual Property Acquisition and Misunderstandings About What it Means to be a Right 3.2 What, No Automatic Injunction? That’s Not Property! 3.3 Why Intellectual Property Rights Are Not ‘Regulation’ 3.3.2 The Second Sense of ‘Regulation’ 3.3.3 Freedom and Permission 3.3.4 Freedoms in Historical Perspective 3.4 Intellectual Property Rights as Property Rights: Summing Up 4. Problems With Conceiving Intellectual Property as Property 4.1 Group Ownership 4.2 Intellectual Property As Constitutional Property: The Takings Problem 5. Conclusion 1. Intellectual Property Rights as Rights Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2959073 The phrase is common enough that it rolls off the tongue: intellectual property rights. It even has a well-known acronym, ‘IPRs.’1 But are they really rights? And if so, what kind of rights? Most importantly, what difference does it make that they are rights – what practical import does this carry? These are the questions I take up here.