Scholarly Commons @ UNLV Boyd Law Scholarly Works Faculty Scholarship 2013 Wag the Dog: Using Incidental Intellectual Property Rights to Block Parallel Imports Mary LaFrance University of Nevada, Las Vegas -- William S. Boyd School of Law Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.law.unlv.edu/facpub Part of the Intellectual Property Law Commons, and the International Trade Law Commons Recommended Citation LaFrance, Mary, "Wag the Dog: Using Incidental Intellectual Property Rights to Block Parallel Imports" (2013). Scholarly Works. 1184. https://scholars.law.unlv.edu/facpub/1184 This Article is brought to you by the Scholarly Commons @ UNLV Boyd Law, an institutional repository administered by the Wiener-Rogers Law Library at the William S. Boyd School of Law. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. WAG THE DOG: USING INCIDENTAL INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS TO BLOCK PARALLEL IMPORTS Mary LaFrance* Cite as: Mary LaFrance, Wag the Dog: Using Incidental Intellectual Property Rights to Block ParallelImports, 20 MICH. TELECOMM. & TECH. L. REv. 45 (2013). This manuscript may be accessed online at repository.1aw.umich.edu. Federal law grants owners of intellectual property rights different de- grees of control over parallel imports depending on the nature of their exclusive rights. While trademarkowners enjoy strong control over un- authorized imports bearing their marks, theirprotection is less compre- hensive than that granted to owners of copyrights and patents. To broaden their rights, some trademark owners have incorporatedcopy- righted material into their products or packaging, enabling them to block otherwise lawful imports in contravention of the policies underly- ing trademark law. A 2013 Supreme Court decision has significantly narrowed the importation ban of copyright law, but there may be pres- sure to reinstate it.