Can IP Rights Be Reconceived Via Music Modernization Act?
Law360 Expert Analysis, 2020
7 Pages Posted: 28 Dec 2020
Date Written: April 21, 2020
Abstract
The Music Modernization Act, passed in 2018, offers added momentum to a budding reconceptualization of intellectual property rights. First triggered by Oil States Energy Services, LLC v. Greene’s Energy Group LLC, the U.S. Supreme Court effectively "rebundled" patent rights into two separate bundles: private rights and public rights. Included as a public right, notably, is an inventor's right to exclusively own the invention he patents. While the effects have yet to fully come to fruition, there has been overlap into other intellectual property realms, particularly copyright law. Now, the MMA (and subsequent litigation involving the MMA) could impose the same "rebundling" reconceptualization on copyright law.
Keywords: Music Modernization Act, copyright, public rights
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