With growing frequency, people who acquire mass-produced products are modifying them. The producers of some of those products seek to curb this practice. The law currently enables the producers to prevent or penalize some but not all of the ways in which their creations are being modified....

Biobanks and archived data sets collecting samples and data have become crucial engines of genetic and genomic research. Unresolved, however, is what responsibilities biobanks should shoulder to manage incidental findings and individual research results of potential health, reproductive, or...

Sweeping assertions of exclusive trademark rights in brand names and images have a pernicious chilling effect on free expression, including fictional portrayals, commentary, political speech, parody, and comparative advertising. Some disputes lead to lawsuits. More often, speakers capitulate to...

In the two decades since the Supreme Court protected a crude rap spoof from copyright liability in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., courts have grown to understand the great value of parodic expression in trademark cases as well. Today, plausible claims of parody almost always prevail over...

According to conventional wisdom, data privacy regulators in the European Union are unreasonably demanding, while their American counterparts are laughably lax. Many observers further assume that any privacy enforcement without monetary fines or other punishment is an ineffective “slap on the...

This Essay, prepared for the annual symposium of the Fordham Intellectual Property, Media amp; Entertainment Law Journal, sets out goals for preserving free speech within trademark law. In recent years, courts have begun to reach speech-protective results quite consistently in cases that raise...

"Social marketing" is among the newest advertising trends now emerging on the internet. Using online social networks such as Facebook or MySpace, marketers can send personalized promotional messages featuring an ordinary customer to that customer's friends. Because they reveal a customer's...