Rent Check
A new blog post examines the recent copyright disputes involving Katy Perry and Led Zeppelin. If successful, these suits threaten to tie up the entire industry in expensive court battles by allowing very basic musical elements to be copyrighted.
News and Commentary
Last week the USPTO solicited stakeholder feedback on whether artificial intelligence programs should be able to hold patents and some related AI theme questions. This question is not merely academic since the Artificial Inventor Project is now filing for AI-owned patents around the world. You can find the perspective of some IP lawyers here.
North Carolina is claiming that sovereign immunity should protect them from copyright suits. North Carolina is accused of pirating photos of Blackbeard’s ship, in a rare instance of double piracy.
Josh Landau of Patent Progress lays out the case against the STRONGER Patents Act and how the legislation has been updated since its 2017 incarnation.
Chinese state-run press just promised an update to the country’s intellectual property system. However, their statement mostly concerns trademark abuse. The Washington Post still reports that China’s poor IP laws are preventing the insights of traditional medicine from being transformed into scientifically tested drugs.
A scam artist claimed to be the creator of Minecraft in order to extort licensing fees from Youtubers who posted videos of themselves playing the computer game. (Such videos are fair use anyway.)
The Supreme Court released a pair of unanimous rulings on IP law. They decided that 1) copyright protection only begins at a work’s registration rather application and 2) gave a narrow interpretation to what costs could be awarded after the litigation of a copyright dispute.
New Research
Here are a pair of interesting law review articles concerning patents. First, given the growth of patent trolls, we should reevaluate the unlimited right of inventors to sell their patents to anyone. Second, right now Federal Circuit court reviews both the legal and factual determinations of PTAB decisions but that factual review may be unwise given the expertise of these administrative judges.
Loading...