Part of the Pierce Law IP Mall

Old Texts and Articles

If anyone knows of others, please let us know.

Three rent seekers are suing Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, claiming he stole the idea from them. Here is the story .

From the article by Jason Pontin:

But in the absence of any formal contract, the twins are, in effect, arguing that they have rights to Mr. Zuckerberg's imagination and experiences. In my book, that would be a constraint on the free marketplace of ideas.

Bingo! And as John Perry Barlow pointed out, ideas (or imaginations) are experiences. They can no more be owned than someone's labor (an activity) can be. If they can't be owned, how can they be ripped off? (The labor angle is important in refuting so-called Lockean claims for IP.)

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Harvard Law School, is sponsoring an online discussion group focusing on the history of what it calls intellectual property in the U.S.

Anyone at least age 13 can participate.

When I registered this was part of the page: ---

Here is Lewis Hyde's invitation to the reading group:

My own interest in this history began with the surprising lack of debate some years ago when copyright term extension was pending. There seemed to be almost no public sense of why it might matter to preserve a lively public domain. One was led to wonder if there weren't historical roots to the public domain's lack of presence in our political and economic discourse. If that is the case, might not an understanding of this history be a useful tool for those of us trying to shape current policy?

For a reading group I propose an initial meeting in February where we talk about the scope of our interests, and make a list of what we might read. I suggest one short first reading (Carla Hesse's "The Rise of Intellectual Property, 700 B.C.--A.D. 2000" (Daedalus, Spring 2002)). As for other readings, we will decide these together but at the moment my own list would include works such as Mark Rose's "Authors and Owners," Siva Vaidhyanathan's "Copyrights and Copywrongs," and Edward Walterscheid's recent book on "The Nature of the Intellectual Property Clause." Navigation Project Home Syllabus Readings / Resources Rotisserie Discussions Message Boards

You can click on a link here to register:

GrepLaw.org, History of Intellectual Property .

Here is where I found it:

The Invent Blog .

I wonder if a certain forthcoming book might be discussed at this site?

Just when you thought airline delays and dirty planes couldn't get any worse comes an article in today's Wall Street Journal that gives airline passengers hope: "Case of the Vanishing Airport Lines" .

Alaska Air created a check-in process eliminating lots of airline counters (see the graphic) that reduces waiting time. But sad to say it, they patented this 4-step business process.

Step 1: Bypass ticket counter and go to a self-service kiosk.

Step 2: Check in at the kiosk, get boarding pass printed at kiosk.

Step 3: Leave luggage at bag drop station where bags are tagged.

Step 4: Go to security screening.

What's novel and non-obvious about any of this?

Self-service kiosks? Nope.

Checking in at kiosk, getting a pass? Nada.

Leaving luggage with an attendant, who bags it? Nein.

Going to screening? Non.

Can you say "bogus patent"?

It turns out that the firm took out the patent not to keep competitors at bay, but to reward those employees who worked on this, supposedly.

Supposedly, since Delta Airlines has done something similar in Atlanta, after viewing AA's setup in Anchorage. Will AA sue? If not, what's the point of getting a patent to reward its employees? Where are the rents if other airlines aren't prevented from building similar systems? Are they saying they just want to waste their shareholders' money paying patent lawyers? Or maybe they are reluctant to sue because they think their patent would be challenged, causing further litigation and more hard-earned shareholders' money to wash down the drain. Especially since the legal climate seems to be shifting away from patent holders, at least a little bit.

The Tinseltown Identity: sixty per cent of movies (even with multiple platform distribution) and ninety per cent of TV series lose money.

So what's a studio to do?

Convert it to the Tinseltown Ultimatum:

Ditch the residual payment system .

Movie script writers are entitled only to their initial fee under copyright rules, which of course no one in Hollywood is proposing to touch.

Everything you need to know right here .

Fopp and Tower Records have closed within the last year.

The four major record labels are undertaking cost cutting measures to save their businesses. Are they just shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic?

This six-volume encyclopedia on pharma technology and regulation looks like it might be the last word on the subject, at least if having everything in one convenient place is the criterion. I haven't seen it and don't know if it covers the patent issue, but it looks worthwhile as a general reference. And at only $3,000 a set, you'll probably want two.

There are at least a dozen new unauthorized Harry Potter books in China. They are spurring interest in reading among kids, and providing lots of jobs in the printing industry, not to mention booksellers, according to the New York Times .

But not to worry, J.K. Rowling's lawyers are on the case. After all, she's only a billionaire and might have a problem upgrading her lifestyle if this problem continues.

If they can't do it, she might call out Solitary, Poor, Nasty, Brutish, and Short. I hear they are really mean.

Fortunately, the Chinese government is more libertarian in regard to the monopoly formerly known as intellectual property than are the governments of the U.K. and the U.S.

Microsoft struggled for years in China under the baggage of its IP-infused business model. This alienated its customer base and the government, and enabled Linux to expand its toehold. But in 1999 Gates & Co. decided to help China develop its software industry. Despite Gates' public pronouncements in the West that piracy was bad, and a 2001 McKinsey study advocating that China enforce its (so-called) rights, Microsoft decided to tolerate piracy. Gates now says this was the right decision.

"It's easier for our software to compete with Linux when there's piracy than when there's not," he states in "How Microsoft Conquered China" .

Unfortunately, Beijing started to think more like Microsoft does here. It now requires its pc makers to install legal software.

And there are other issues, such as Microsoft's position on China's record on individual rights.

As explained by Lee Gomes in "Web Radio Battles Efforts to Expand Royalties for Music" in the Wall Street Journal.

There are two separate copyrights for every piece of recorded music. Who knew? One for the musical composition (covering composers and songwriters), and one for the recording of a song (for record labels and musicians).

Usually the labels and musicians negotiate royalties, but the songwriters and composers have to make do with fixed payments, via a system mandated by Congress.

In the U.S. the labels and performers don't receive royalties for radio play, but songwriters do. This exemption has saved radio stations billions. "Every congressional district has a radio station, but only three of them have record labels," according to Chris Castle, a music lawyer.