This article argues that competition and innovation in the software industry in the EU will be seriously undermined if the Court of Justice of the European Union in SAS Institute, Inc. v. World Programming Ltd. holds that copyright protection for computer programs extends to the functional...

Copyright law is under considerable stress these days, particularly due to technological advances and the growth of global networks. In recognition of these stresses, the Copyright Principles Project (CPP) was formed to consider whether and what possible improvements could be made to existing...

In the aftermath of Judge Chin's rejection of the proposed Google Book settlement, it is time to consider legislative alternatives. This article explores a number of component parts of a legislative package that might accomplish many of the good things that the proposed settlement promised...

We offer description and analysis of the 2008 Berkeley Patent Survey, summarizing the responses of 1,332 U.S.-based technology startups in the biotechnology, medical device, IT hardware, software, and Internet sectors. We discover that holding patents is more widespread among technology startups...

This Article explains the genesis of the Google Book Search (GBS) project and the copyright infringement lawsuit challenging it that the litigants now wish to settle with a comprehensive restructuring of the market for digital books. At first blush, the settlement seems to be a win-win-win, as...

The five major US intellectual property (IP) regimes — trademark, trade secrecy, copyright, design patent, and utility patent laws — have quite different rules about the availability of disgorgement of infringer profits as a remedy. Traditional principles of restitution and unjust enrichment...

People tinker with technologies and other human-made artifacts for a variety of reasons: to have fun, to be playful, to learn how things work, to discern their flaws or vulnerabilities, to build their skills, to become more actualized, to tailor the artifacts to serve one’s specific needs or...

The compatibility of the U.S. fair use doctrine with international treaty norms has been questioned many times over the years by European and even American commentators. Does the fair use limitation on copyright’s exclusive rights comport with the “three-step test” that regulates the...

Courts have struggled for decades to develop a test for judging infringement claims in software copyright cases that distinguishes between program expression that copyright law protects and program functionality for which copyright protection is unavailable. The case law thus far has adopted...