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In eDekka LLC v. 3Balls.com Inc., Eastern District of Texas Judge Rodney Gilstrap ruled against plaintiff eDekka’s patent infringement claims and invalidated the patent in question. This jurisdiction has been considered friendly toward so-called patent trolls, and Judge Rodney’s opinion may indicate tougher scrutiny going forward for overly broad patents. ...

IS COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT A STRICT LIABILITY TORT? By: Patrick R. Goold ABSTRACT Scholars and lawmakers routinely refer to copyright infringement as a strict liability tort. The strictness of copyright liability has long been criticized as immoral, inefficient, and inconsistent with usual tort doctrine. However, this Article questions whether copyright infringement ...

SOVEREIGNTY UNDER SIEGE: CORPORATE CHALLENGES TO DOMESTIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY DECISIONS By: Cynthia M. Ho ABSTRACT Countries face a new threat that strikes at their ability to balance protection of intellectual property rights against other priorities, such as public health. They may have to pay substantial compensation to companies that dislike ...

SOFTWARE COPYRIGHT’S ORACLE FROM THE CLOUD By: Lothar Determann & David Nimmer ABSTRACT Clouds are on the horizon for software copyrights. The open source movement is actively trying to turn copyright into “copyleft.” Courts around the world are reshaping the first sale doctrine, notably the European Court of Justice in ...

UNDERSTANDING THE FEDERAL CIRCUIT: AN EXPERT COMMUNITY APPROACH By: Laura G. Pedraza-Fariña ABSTRACT The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“CAFC”)—the appeals court in charge of virtually all patent cases—has been fraught with controversy since its creation in 1982. To its critics, the Federal Circuit engages in puzzling behaviors, ...

DISAGREEABLE PRIVACY POLICIES: MISMATCHES BETWEEN MEANING AND USERS’ UNDERSTANDING By: Joel R. Reidenberg, Travis Breaux, Lorrie Faith Cranor, Brian French, Amanda Grannis, James T. Graves, Fei Liu, Aleecia McDonald, Thomas B. Norton, Rohan Ramanath, N. Cameron Russell, Norman Sadeh and Florian Schaub ABSTRACT Privacy policies are verbose, difficult to understand, ...

COMPELLING PASSWORDS FROM THIRD PARTIES: WHY THE FOURTH AND FIFTH AMENDMENTS DO NOT ADEQUATELY PROTECT INDIVIDUALS WHEN THIRD PARTIES ARE FORCED TO HAND OVER PASSWORDS By: Sarah Wilson ABSTRACT In 2012, the FBI served a search warrant on Google when a suspect––a user of Google’s phone services––refused to answer any ...

Addressing intellectual property and technology issues including protection for passwords, privacy policies, judicial behavior of the Federal Circuit, software copyright, transnational intellectual property protection, and strict liability for copyright infringement.

BTLJ is proud to announce the winners of the 2015 Student Writing Competition.

Introduction When you file a trademark application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), the website openly warns you that “The trademark registration process is a legal proceeding that may be complex . . . Therefore, you should consider hiring an attorney before starting the process.” So it ...