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Abstract:
As the number, size, and complexity of patent cases have grown throughout the United States over the past several decades - paralleling expansion in the role of high technology enterprises in the U.S. economy - the need for a comprehensive, user-friendly, and practical judicial guide for managing patent cases has become increasingly apparent. Although similar in many respects to other forms of complex civil litigation, patent cases pose distinctive case management challenges. Patent cases feature complex and dynamic technological facts to a degree rarely encountered in most other areas of litigation. Furthermore, they employ unique procedures (such as claim construction hearings) that affect and interact with other aspects of the case (such as summary judgment motions and expert reports) in ways that create unusual scheduling and substantive complexity. In addition, patent cases often entail distinctive and difficult discovery issues, extensive use of experts, and particularly complex dispositive and pre-trial motion practice.

Because of the decentralized, general jurisdiction structure of federal courts in the United States, much of the experience relating to managing patent cases is silo-ed in particular judicial chambers. As one jurist aptly noted, best practices for patent case management have been transmitted largely through word of mouth. Given the crowded, diverse dockets of federal courts, the accessibility and reliability of such knowledge is far from ideal. Judges in some districts have partially codified recommended practices in the form of Patent Local Rules, standing orders, and patent jury instructions, but these documents do not address the full range of distinctive challenges posed by patent litigation. Furthermore, such judicial wisdom continues to evolve.

Recognizing these patterns, the authors undertook in 2006 to survey the range of approaches and perspectives on patent case management, foster discussion and analysis of patent case management techniques, and develop an authoritative guide for judges, law clerks, practitioners, and patent and civil procedure professors and scholars. Given the dynamism of the patent system and patent litigation, the authors plan to revise the Guide on a biennial basis.

Patent, Patent Case Management, Patent Local Rules, Jury Instructions, Patent Settlement, Claim Construction

Abstract:
This chapter of the forthcoming Handbook of Law and Economics (A.M. Polinsky & S. Shavell (eds.)) provides a comprehensive survey of the burgeoning literature on the law and economics of intellectual property. It is organized around the two principal objectives of intellectual property law: promoting innovation and aesthetic creativity (focusing on patent and copyright protection) and protecting integrity of the commercial marketplace (trademark protection and unfair competition law). Each section sets forth the economic problem, the principal models and analytical frameworks, application of economic analysis to particular structural and doctrinal issues, interactions with other legal regimes (such as competition policy), international dimensions, and comparative analysis of intellectual property protection and other means of addressing the economic problem (such as public funding and prizes in the case of patent and copyright law and direct consumer protection statutes and public enforcement in the case of trademarks).

Intellectual Property, Patents, Copyrights, Trademarks

Abstract:
With the rise of intellectual property in the modern economy, bankruptcy treatment of intellectual property assets has taken on ever greater importance. The law in this area must balance different approaches to asset management. Viewing the world from an ex ante perspective, intellectual property laws seek to foster investment in research and development. Freedom of contract plays a central role in maximizing the potential value of intellectual property by encouraging a robust licensing market to exploit the value of intellectual creativity. By contrast, the bankruptcy system generally views asset management from an ex post standpoint, focusing narrowly on how to maximize the value of a failing or failed enterprise. Thus, bankruptcy law affords trustees and debtors substantial leeway to rescind contracts and reorder the affairs of the failed entity. This article examines the rather complex rules governing the treatment of intellectual property assets in bankruptcy and suggests various reforms that could better promote economic efficiency.

bankruptcy, intellectual property, patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, opportunism, economic analysis

Abstract:
Copyright initially developed in response to the printing press and gradually evolved to encompass other methods of mechanically storing and reproducing works of authorship, such as photography, motion pictures, and sound recordings. The advent of broadcasting - the ability to perform works at distant points - led to the expansion of copyright to encompass exploitation of creative expression in new markets. The digital revolution represents a third distinct wave of technological innovation that portends significant changes in copyright protection. By bringing about new modes of expression (such as computer programming and digital sampling of music) and empowering anyone with a computer and an Internet connection to flawlessly, inexpensively, and instantaneously reproduce and distribute works of authorship on a wide scale, digital technology represents possibly the most profound challenge to copyright law. This article divides the analysis of digital technology into two categories: (1) squeezing computer software within copyright's non-functionally oriented protection regime and (2) developing new rules and governance institutions to address the ease of reproduction and porosity of the digital platform. Part I of the article traces the two decades of evolution of copyright protection for computer software and demonstrates that copyright law has proven quite adaptable to this hybrid of expressive and utilitarian creativity. The courts have enabled copyright law to serve effectively as an anti-piracy regime without allowing it to intrude unduly into patent law's domain. This holding of the line has in fact moved the battles over legal protection for software into the patent and contract realms. Part II explores the implications of digital distribution of content for copyright's future. Content industries perceive grave threats to their continued existence (and the production of creative works) while technology companies and a growing array of consumer, programmer, and civil liberty organizations fear that further expansion of copyright protection jeopardizes technological innovation and basic civil liberties. A growing cadre of legal academics predict copyrights ultimate demise. As a basis for assessing these claims and understanding the implications of this new and rapidly improving digital platform, this article examines the technological changes taking place, industry structures, the legal environment, and the evolving social and political landscape. Although these forces remain in flux, the digital revolution can be seen increasingly to shift resources and pressure for reform toward copyright enforcement, standard setting (in an effort to develop effective controls on content distribution), antitrust regulation of standard setting processes, and a more general transformation of copyright law from a property rights orientation toward a regulatory regime.

Copyright, Digital Copyright, Computer Software, Internet

Abstract:
The construction of patent claims plays a critical role in nearly every patent case. It is central to evaluation of infringement and validity, and can affect or determine the outcome of other significant issues such as unenforceability, enablement, and remedies. Yet jurists and scholars have long lamented the challenges of construing patent claim terms. Drawing upon more than a decade of working with the Federal Judicial Center, leading jurists in those districts with the largest patent dockets, experienced litigators, and academics, this article provides a pragmatic and cohesive framework and roadmaps for navigating this rapidly evolving landscape as well as guidance on the best practices for managing claim construction.

Patent, Claim Construction, Patent Case Management, Patent Local Rules

Abstract:
In order to protect authors and artists from unremunerative transfers of copyright, Congress for the first time created, in the Copyright Act of 1976, an inalienable right to terminate transfers of copyrights during a five-year window beginning 35 years from the date of the transfer. Such inalienablity, however, posed substantial uncertainty to the exploitation of many works of authorship. In particular, works combining multiple copyrighted elements - such as collective works and motion pictures - could become unavailable due to the difficulty of relicensing all of the constituent components. For that reason, Congress provided a mechanism for precluding termination of at least some transfers. In the case of a "work made for hire," the hiring party acquires ownership of the copyright upon a work's creation, thereby dispensing with any transfer from the author and hence obviating any termination of such transfer 35 years later. To avoid the exception swallowing the rule, Congress circumscribed the situations under which a work qualifies for treatment as a "work made for hire." It must either be prepared by a true employee or specially ordered or commissioned and fall within one of nine categories, such as "contribution to a collective work" and "part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work."

This article examines a potentially significant and heretofore unrecognized conundrum of the 1976 Copyright Act relating to the "contribution to a collective work" category. Congress defined "collective works" as comprised of "preexisting materials." Yet the work made for hire provision contemplates "contributions to collective works" being specially ordered or commissioned. How is it possible for a publisher or record label to specially order or commission contributions that already exist? The authors' journey into the complex evolution of the 1976 Copyright Act reveals that Congress did not intend that "contributions to collective works" preexist their commissioning, even though the inartful drafting of some of the Section 101 definitions suggest otherwise. For purposes of applying the work for hire doctrine, courts should either ignore the use of the term "preexisting" in the definition of "collective work," or interpret the term "contribution to collective work" to include "contribution to yet-to-be-assembled collective work" in the definition of "work made for hire." The article also elucidates the legislative history underlying the right to terminate transfers, a right which will have justiciable implications beginning in 2003.

Copyright, Intellectual Property, Inalienability

Abstract:
The article examines the recent efforts of the Property Rights Movement to expand the "property tent" to emcompass intellectual property. In eBay v. MercExchange, a case addressing the standard for injunctive relief in patent cases, some property rights advocates argued that the Supreme Court should look to trespass and encroachment cases to establish a strong presumption favoring a right to a permanent injunction. More generally, Professor Richard Epstein has suggested that "structural unity" between real and intellectual property should guide courts and legislatures to use the real property mold in evolving intellectual property law. This article shows that the origins, philosophical foundations, and economic ramifications of real and intellectual property are quite distinct and that uncritically basing intellectual property law on a real property analogy is likely to cause more harm than good. The article also suggests that property rights advocates' effort to expand the "property tent" to include intellectual property is likely to backfire, calling attention to the interdependency of resources and the need for a significant government role in governing allocation and use of property.

intellectual property, property rights, peter menell, PRM, government interference, federal regulation, constitutionality, tangible resources, law, philosophy, court decisions, epstein, utilitarianism, structural unity, property tent

Abstract:
The recent Supreme Court battle over the legal standard for permanent injunctions in patents cases (eBay v. MercExchange) marked an important new front in the Property Rights Movement's campaign to establish a strict and broad interpretation of property rights and their enforcement. This essay explores whether Professor Richard Epstein's embrace of intellectual property rights is likely to produce a durable marriage of traditional property rights theory and intellectual property protection or merely represents a fling that will not withstand divisive relational pressures. It shows that philosophical, functional, intellectual, and political tensions stand in the way of a stable or enduring relationship between advocates of strong and unyielding property rights and intellectual property owners. The need for dynamism and adaptability within the intellectual property rights field may well weaken the support for absolutism in property jurisprudence and policy, reinforcing the shift away from the Blackstonian conception of property.

Intellectual Property, Patents, Property Rights, Takings

Abstract:
This article is based on an amicus brief filed in METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER STUDIOS INC., et al., v. GROKSTER, LTD., a case before the U.S. Supreme Court addressing indirect copyright liability for distribution of software that facilitates file sharing on peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. This case turns on whether the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417 (1984), effectively immunizes the software distributors in this case from contributory or vicarious liability on the grounds that such software is capable of substantial non-infringing use.

The article re-examines Sony's jurisprudential foundation. In that case, the Court transplanted an express categorical limitation on indirect liability from the Patent Act into the Copyright Act, notwithstanding that Congress had only recently reformed the Copyright Act without including any such limitation on liability among the many express exemptions, limitations, and immunities contained in the statute. Furthermore, Congress reaffirmed the continued applicability and evolution of infringement standards through case-by-case adjudication. The Sony decision failed to examine the important differences between patent and copyright protection. Whereas patent law seeks to promote technological innovation and evolved a staple article of commerce doctrine primarily out of concern for unduly expanding patent scope, copyright law seeks to promote cultural and social progress, manifesting a more cautious stance toward technological dissemination, particularly where a technology threatens widespread piracy of expressive works. Products that encourage patent infringement do not threaten harm beyond a single patent or cluster of patents, whereas the technology at issue in the Grokster case threatens systemic harm to the copyright system by promoting rampant unauthorized distribution of all manner of works of authorship. Therefore, the uncritical transplantation of Patent Act's immunity for dual-use technologies into the Copyright Act poses grave dangers that were beyond the Supreme Court's view when it decided the Sony case in 1984, before the digital revolution took hold. Furthermore, amendments to the Copyright Act since the Sony decision demonstrate that Congress does not believe that dual-use technology - i.e., technology that is capable of both infringing and substantial non-infringing uses - should be treated as inviolate under copyright law. Rather, Congress has shown that it sees a need to balance the efficacy of the copyright system for promoting creative expression against social interests in technological innovation and consumer autonomy.

Copyright, Patent, Contributory Liability, Indirect Liability, P2P

Abstract:
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, it was widely reported that the United States faced a solid waste crisis. Existing landfills were reaching capacity or being shut down because of more stringent regulations while waste volumes were continuing to rise. At the time, several market-oriented policy analysts advocated the adoption of variable rate charges for mixed refuse in conjunction with curbside pick-up of recyclables (without charge) as a means of reducing waste volumes and diverting recyclable material to more valuable uses. During the course of the past decade, such policies have been adopted widely throughout the United States - approximately 20 percent of the U.S. population now face variable rate charges for mixed refuse collection. Even more have curbside collection of recyclable materials. This article collects and reviews empirical studies evaluating the effects of variable rate pricing. It finds that these policies have been quite effective as a means of boosting diversion rates beyond the levels that can be achieved through curbside collection of recyclables alone. The overall cost-benefit analysis of such programs is modestly favorable. Since many states and communities have committed to achieving specified waste diversion targets, variable rate policies have been a cost effective policy tool. The experience with variable rate policies represents a promising example of non-coercive, information-oriented government intervention. With a relatively small budget and no authority to impose household solid waste policy on local governments, EPA has been remarkably successful at developing and diffusing effective solid waste management policies. The economic theory underlying variable rate pricing has proven, after some tinkering at the implementation stage, to be quite workable in practice. In fact, the practical realities of implementing charges have shown that theoretical perfection in terms of getting the prices right is less important in the grand scheme than keeping the transaction costs manageable. Looking forward, variable rate pricing can be expected to become even more economically advantageous as recycling markets continue to mature, landfill tipping fees rise, and improved technologies for curbside collection, monitoring, billing, and measuring waste develop.

solid waste regulation, market-based approaches to environmental regulation

Abstract:
The principal recent studies of patent reform (NAS (2004), FTC (2003), Jaffe and Lerner (2004)) contend that a uniform system of patent protection must (or should) be available for anything under the sun made by man based upon one or more of the following premises: (1) the Patent Act requires such breadth and uniformity of treatment; (2) discriminating against any particular field of technology would be undesirable; (3) discrimination among technologies would present insurmountable boundary problems and could easily be circumvented through clever patent drafting; and (4) interest group politics stand in the way of excluding any subject matter classes from patent law or reforming the patent law requirements, duration, defenses, or remedies for a particular subject matter class. As a result, these studies consider and recommend reforms that would apply to all fields of patentable subject matter (systemic reforms) and largely ignore reforms that would either bar particular classes of technology from patent protection (e.g., software, business method, genomic sequences) or afford different classes of patentable subject matter different requirements or remedies (categorical reforms). This article sets forth a method for evaluating and formulating patent policy that considers both systemic and categorical reforms and sketches out how that method could be applied to the current patent crisis.

Patents, Intellectual Property, Economic Analaysis, Software, Business Methods

Abstract:
In his response to my previous Regulation article, Professor Richard Epstein misses the gist and key implications of my criticism of his position. My essay questioned his overreliance on claims of structural unity between real and intellectual property systems, a claim he makes in a 2006 Progress & Freedom Foundation paper. Professor Epstein responds by citing a more balanced view that he espoused in a 2001 Indiana Law Review article. If he is now saying that his 2006 paper does not really express his views, then that clarification is worth noting.

intellectual property, property rights, peter menell, PRM, government interference, federal regulation, constitutionality, tangible resources, law, philosophy, court decisions, epstein, utilitarianism, structural unity, property tent, water law, land rights, infringement, policy, law

Abstract:
Recent advances in digital technology have created the potential to make the vast stock of recorded knowledge searchable using sophisticated tools by anyone with an internet connection. As Google is in the process of demonstrating, it is now feasible to scan the collections of the major libraries of the world within a matter of years, convert these works into an immense searchable digital archive, and enable Internet users to find the most relevant materials easily. The principal impediment to this project, however, appears to be the inherent unpredictability of copyright law's fair use doctrine. Shortly after Google's announcement, leading publishers and authors filed suit alleging that Google's project infringed their copyrights.

The importance of these issues, and the fact that Congress did not foresee the possibilities for a universally accessible, comprehensive archive when it last considered the role of libraries, call for Congress to consider the larger public policy ramifications of digital archiving and search technology. The goals of collecting, preserving, and cataloging human knowledge predate copyright laws. As copyright law developed, it embraced these concerns. Drawing upon this history, this article examines the democratic, cultural, and economic dimensions of developing a comprehensive, searchable database of books and other library materials. It then analyzes the spectrum of institutional alternatives for promoting the goals of preserving and providing access to knowledge while safeguarding copyright law's incentives to create. The article recommends that Congress effectuate these goals through a carefully crafted package of safe harbors, measured liability exposure for technology vulnerable to piracy, and public involvement in the development and management of a searchable digital repository of copyrighted works. For the longer term, the Article recommends that Congress update the deposit requirement to provide for digital deposit of written works and plan for the development of a public comprehensive searchable archive. In the event that legislation is not forthcoming before the Google Book Search Project is litigated, the article shows that copyright law's long-standing access and preservation goals provide an important context for courts applying copyright law's fair use doctrine to digital archiving activities.

Copyright, Access, Preservation, Google, Fair Use, Deposit

Abstract:
Like the proverbial bundle of sticks that property professors invoke to illustrate the evolution of the concept of property from a unified whole to an infinitely divisible and fungible set of rights, property law has become a bundle of topics that has arguably lost its intellectual coherence and centrality to the study of law. Ironically, the growing importance of a wider range of resources - beyond simply land - has contributed to the erosion of the intellectual coherence of the property field. This article suggests that the disparate elements of the property field can be usefully reunified by focusing upon the relationships among resources, culture, and governance institutions (background legal rules, social norms, markets, and politics). By recognizing that land is just one of a range of resources and that resources can be managed in many effective ways, property law can be seen as both intellectually coherent and vital to the study of law. The article shows how this framework can be used as a means of understanding the governance regimes that emerge in particular contexts and in explaining the evolution of such regimes over time.

Property, Comparative Institutional Analysis

Abstract:
The Supreme Court's indirect copyright liability standard, derived in Sony Corporation of America v. Universal City Studios from patent law and reasserted in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd., is widely seen as creating a safe harbor for distributors of dual use technologies. Yet, when one looks to cases decided since Sony, legislative enactments, and the decisions of technology companies in the marketplace, a very different reality emerges. This article explores and explains the broad gulf between the idealized (and idolized) Sony safe harbor and the practical reality. It shows that the law in many respects reflects the tort principles that undergird copyright liability more generally.

Copyright, Contributory Liability, Indirect Liability

Abstract:
The dawning of the digital age has brought the Supreme Court's Sony "staple article of commerce" doctrine to center stage in legal and policy discussions about the proper role and scope of copyright protection. To technology companies, it represents a vital safe harbor for product design; to the content industries, this doctrine remains an Achilles heel. The origins of this doctrine have always been somewhat obscure. With nary a peak at the text or the legislative history of the then-recently enacted overhaul of the copyright system, the Supreme Court adverted to patent law to determine the scope of indirect liability - a fundamental issue that would loom large in the shift from the analog to the digital distribution platform for content. A slim majority of the Supreme Court justified this interpretation of the Copyright Act of 1976 on the basis of a vague assertion of "historic kinship" between patent and copyright.

This article scrutinizes this critical logical premise. Part I exhaustively reviews the litigation and correspondence of the justices to understand why the Court paid so little attention to the legislative materials and so much to the patent law. It finds that gaps in the information provided to the Court, in conjunction with the justices' lack of familiarity with copyright law generally and the Copyright Act of 1976 in particular, led the Court astray. Part II tests the "historic kinship" premise, finding that it cannot withstand scrutiny. Had the Court traced the origins of copyright and patent back to their source, it would have seen that they both derive from a common wellspring: tort principles. Concerns about patent misuse and improper leveraging of monopoly power led the courts, and later Congress, to carve out an express safe harbor in patent law for those selling "staple articles of commerce" - products suitable for substantial non-infringing uses. Part III demonstrates that the 1976 Copyright Act envisioned that courts would continue to use the traditional tort wellspring, informed by the distinctive challenges of copyright enforcement. This would have brought the reasonable alternative design framework of products liability law into play. The article shows that this approach would almost certainly have resulted in the same outcome that the Sony Court reached, but of critical importance, it would have provided a more sound and dynamic jurisprudential framework for calibrating liability as new technologies develop. Part IV examines Sony's legacy, showing that subsequent legislative activity, court decisions, and the marketplace reflect a practical reality that lies closer to the reasonable alternative design standard than a broad "staple article of commerce" safe harbor. In reality, Sony's "staple article of commerce" doctrine has proven largely symbolic and unworkable, as Congress, the courts, and businesses in the marketplace have sought to promote product innovation without unduly jeopardizing copyright protection. The failure to recognize that reality, however, breeds doctrinal confusion, distorts case law evolution, and stultifies the larger policy debate over copyright protection in the digital age.

Copyrights, Indirect Liability, Contributory Liability, Statutory Interpretation, Patents, Supreme Court

Abstract:
In the aftermath of the Supreme Court's decisions constraining Congress' ability to abrogate state sovereign immunity, Professor Peter S. Menell examines the propensity of states and state actors to infringe federal intellectual property rights, the viability of alternative means of protecting federal intellectual property rights, and potential implications of the Supreme Court's decisions for international intellectual property diplomacy. He concludes that although state sovereign immunity for violations of federal intellectual property rights is unlikely to impair the rights of intellectual property owners because of a broad array of legal, market, social, and political restraints upon states and state actors, such immunity could violate international treaty obligations and complicate foreign diplomacy. These latter concerns potentially provide an alternative basis for congressional abrogation of state sovereign immunity for infringement of federal intellectual property rights.

Abstract:
Drawing on Justice Brandeis's oft-cited observation that states can serve as "laboratories" of policy experimentation, this Article develops a framework for assessing the allocation of governance authority for regulating Internet activities. In particular, it focuses on whether states should be free to experiment with regulatory approaches or whether the federal government should have principal, if not exclusive (preemptive), regulatory authority over Internet-related activities. Using recent efforts to regulate spyware and adware as a case study, the analysis shows that the lack of harmonization of, and uncertainty surrounding, state unfair competition law produces costly, confusing, multi-district litigation and pushes enterprises to adhere to the limits of the most restrictive state. Such a governance regime unduly hinders innovation in Internet business models. On this basis, the Article favors a uniform federal regulatory system and pre-emption of state statutes and unfair competition common law as applied to spyware and adware. The final section of the Article extrapolates from this study of spyware and adware regulation to the larger context of Internet governance.

spyware, adware, unfair competition

Abstract:
Over the past decade, numerous scholars and commentators have asserted that the indirect copyright liability standards applied in the Napster, Aimster, and Grokster decisions, among others, significantly chill technological innovation. This article examines this critical conjecture and offers both a broader framework for assessing the relationship between indirect copyright liability and technological innovation and some suggestive empirical results. The conceptual analysis demonstrates that the question of whether indirect copyright liability chills technological innovation inherently requires consideration of a broader range of social balances, market mechanisms, and roles for mediating institutions. Several countervailing forces, such as the relatively modest capital requirements associated with the technology at issue, the nature of the many established research environments, the philosophical and cultural orientation of many digital technology researchers, various liability-insulating institutions, the ability of investors and technology companies to manage risk, and the importance of technological advance in fields unaffected by copyright liability, suggest that the effects of indirect copyright liability on innovation in replication and distribution technologies will be less dire and more complex than the conjecture suggests. Moreover, the Chilled Innovation conjecture downplays the beneficial effects of indirect copyright liability on the development of balanced technologies (those that tend to balance incentives to create copyrighted works with advances in information dissemination) while ignoring the adverse effects of broad immunity, which fosters deployment of parasitic technologies that tend to drive out balanced technologies. To the extent that the Chilled Innovation conjecture has force, it is not at the basic research and development stages of the innovation pipeline, but rather at the commercialization stage – which is where in the innovation process such effects are most appropriately focused. This limits the effects of choking innovation in its infancy. The article also offers a partial test of the chilled innovation conjecture by examining academic research and patent data. The findings indicate that the Napster-Aimster-Grokster trilogy does not appear to have derailed technological innovation in the peer-to-peer field.

copyright, indirect liability, technological innovation

Abstract:
In this brief filed in Bilski vs. Kappos, pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, we argue that the "useful Arts" limitation of the the Intellectual Property Clause of the U.S.Constitution restricts the scope of Congress's patent power to technological advances. Beyond this constitutional limitation, Congress has not extended patent protection to business methods. The subject matter provision of the 1952 Patent Act merely codified existing subject matter categories and limitations, including the exclusion of business methods. The First Inventor Defense Act of 1999 did not alter this limitation on patentable subject matter. It did not amend the subject matter provision. It merely created a prior user defense. To read § 273 to override more than two centuries of jurisprudence as well as § 101 without an express statement to that effect would be unwarranted and unwise.

We also address warnings that upholding the business method exclusion would hamper innovation. Economic research indicates that restoring the business method exclusion could well promote progress, innovation, and competition. Although we doubt that these considerations bear significantly if at all on the interpretive questions before the Court, they should certainly not be weighed on the side of extending patent protection to business methods.

The courts and the Patent Office successfully navigated the line between technological and non-technological fields for over two centuries. Patent systems throughout the world continue to do so. Reestablishing technological advance as the touchstone for patent protection in the United States will help to restore confidence in, the efficacy of, and the logic of this vital institution.

Patents, Business Methods, Intellectual Property, Constitutional Interpretation, Statutory Interpretation, Innovation, Patentable Subject Matter

Abstract:
For a century, Congress has sought to protect authors and their families by allowing them to grant their copyrights for exploitation and then, decades later, recapture those same rights. After judicial interpretation of the 1909 Act frustrated this intent, Congress spoke unambiguously in 1976: Termination of the grant may be effected notwithstanding any agreement to the contrary . . . . 17 U.S.C. Section 304(c)(5). Yet, in Penguin Group (USA) Inc. v. Steinbeck, 537 F.3d 193 (2d Cir. 2008), the Second Circuit eviscerated that clear Congressional command by enabling a grantee to renegotiate the terms of the grant so as to frustrate recapture by the author's family. This ruling follows a Ninth Circuit decision similarly allowing a grantee to go through the charade of rescinding and regranting a copyright license for the express purpose of blocking the author's family members from exercising their statutory termination rights. Milne v. Stephen Slesinger, Inc., 430 F.3d 1036, 1046 (9th Cir. 2005). Notwithstanding the unequivocal meaning of the word any in Section 304(c)(5), explicated unmistakably in the legislative history, these decisions invite grantees to engage in all manner of opportunistic behavior to frustrate Congress' clearly expressed language and intent. In this amicus brief supporting grant of certiorari by the Supreme Court in the Steinbeck case, the authors argue that the Court can restore the intergenerational equity that Congress legislated and remove the cloud now hanging over innumerable copyrighted works.

Abstract:
If the intent of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, ERISA, was to assure that beneficiaries of insolvent pension plans receive adequate pension benefits, sharp increases in nominal rates of interest have blunted that purpose. Without an increase in these rates, the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation, PBGC, the insurance agency established to guarantee benefits, faced large liabilities on the terminations of pension plans. We examine the economics of pension funds and the funding of pension funds before and after the enactment of ERISA. The Act changed the economics of pension funds. The PBGC, the employer, and the employees have interests in the assets of the pension plan. The PBGC can tax corporations to pay off liabilities and to fund guaranteed benefits; employers can terminate pension plans or overfund them; employees can ask for more benefits or claim the assets in the fund. Although the PBGC insures benefits, the insurance agent forbears, not acting quickly to protect its own interests. To prevent potential huge increases in its liabilities, the PBGC could require that employers hedge the guaranteed benefits, and fund their increases in promised benefits. Given its policies, these requirements could protect the PBGC.