Professors LaFrance and Trimble Present at the 3rd Annual U.S.-China IP Conference

(From left) Professors Mary LaFrance and Marketa Trimble

On November 7, 2014, Professor Mary LaFrance and Associate Professor Marketa Trimble joined other IP law scholars at the 3rd Annual U.S.-China IP Conference at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles. The event was organized by Berkeley Law School’s Center for Law & Technology, Loyola Law School, and Renmin University of China. This year’s conference focused on the following five topics: (1) revisions to the copyright laws of the United States and China; (2) IP issues related to the entertainment industry; (3) the role of specialized IP courts; (4) patent and trade secrets legislation and protection; and (5) challenges and strategies in cross-border IP enforcement.

The Conference brought together senior policymakers, academics, and international practitioners from both the United States and China. Among the many prominent speakers were the following IP law experts:

• Stacey Byrnes, Senior Vice President of NBC Universal/Universal Studios
• Colleen V. Chien of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
• Liu Chuntian, Dean of Renmin University IP Academy
• Mark Cohen of the USPTO
• Professor Terry Fischer of Harvard Law School
• Professor Robert Merges of Berkeley Law School
• Professor David Nimmer of UCLA School of Law
• Liu Ping of the Music Copyright Society of China
• Professor Zhang Ping of Peking University Law School
• Professor Seagull Song of Loyola Law School, Los Angeles
• Maria Strong of the U.S. Copyright Office
• Peter Yu of Drake Law School

Professor La France was invited to present “The Future of Performers’ Rights.” In her presentation she gave an overview of the current state of performers’ rights from the international law and comparative law perspectives. She then detailed the situation in the United States and explained how current U.S. law protects the moral and economic rights of performers. She concluded with the main features of the 1996 WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty and the 2012 WIPO Beijing Treaty on Audiovisual Performances, and by identifying how U.S. law might need to be amended to reflect U.S. obligations in the international treaties.

Professor Trimble was invited to participate in the panel discussion “Challenges and Strategies in Cross-Border IP Enforcement.” Her co-panelists were three practitioners from large international law firms, two Chinese academics, and a USPTO official. In the discussion Professor Trimble commented on the practical limitations of customs measures designed to stop infringing goods at country borders; she pointed out the high volume of goods coming through centralized points of entry such as the Port of Hamburg, and the limited resources of customs offices. Countries’ court proceedings should provide legal certainty and due process, and Professor Trimble emphasized the need for finality in cross-border IP enforcement, as shown in recent complex cross-border IP cases such as Microsoft Corp. v. Motorola, Inc. Professor Trimble also reported briefly on the activities of the International Law Association’s Committee on Intellectual Property and Private International Law, on which she serves.

Professor Trimble Reviews Cotter's Comparative Patent Remedies: A Legal and Economic Analysis

The Boyd School of Law is very pleased to announce that Professor Marketa Trimble recently reviewed Thomas F. Cotter's book Comparative Patent Remedies: A Legal and Economic Analysis (Oxford University Press 2013). 

Published on the Antitrust & Competition Policy Blog on April 30, 2013, Professor Trimble's review states that Comparative Patent Remedies "is an extremely timely and most welcome contribution to the comparative literature on intellectual property law and the law of remedies. . . .  In looking beyond U.S. borders, Cotter relies on his deep expertise in U.S. patent remedies from his previous publications. His knowledge enables him to detail a theoretical framework for remedies from a law and economics perspective (pp. 39-75), and it is within this framework that he presents his description and analysis of the law and practice of remedies in the United States (which covers slightly more than a fifth of the book – pp. 76-162), and several foreign countries, including the major patent litigation countries – the United Kingdom, Germany, and China. The coverage of countries is impressive because publications spanning this number of countries rarely appear in single-author monographs – they usually result from an international collaboration of several authors."  To read more of Professor Trimble's review, click here. 

Professors LaFrance and Trimble Author Chapters in Intellectual Property in Common Law and Civil Law

 

The Boyd School of Law is very pleased to announce that book chapters authored by Professor Mary LaFrance (left) and Professor Marketa Trimble (right) were recently published in Intellectual Property in Common Law and Civil Law (Toshiko Takenaka ed., 2013). 

Professor LaFrance's book chapter, "Passing Off and Unfair Competition Regimes Compared," analyzes the differences between trademark regimes in common law and civil law systems, concluding that common law countries emphasize consumer protection while civil countries focus more on protecting the merchants' investments in their trademarks.  This results in disparate approaches to disputes involving comparative advertising, copycat products, merchandising rights, and keyword advertising.

Professor Trimble's book chapter, "Extraterritorial Enforcement," analyzes three forms of extraterritorial enforcement of intellectual property rights, including the extraterritorial application of intellectual property laws to acts committed outside protecting countries, the extraterritorial litigation of rights under the laws of foreign countries, and cross-border enforcement of judgments rendered in intellectual property cases.

Congratulations, Mary and Marketa! 

Professor Trimble Publishes New Book Review in The IP Law Book Review

The Boyd School of Law is very pleased to announce the publication of Professor Marketa Trimble's review of Alexander Peukert's new book, Die Gemeinfreiheit: Begriff, Funktion, Dogmatik (The Public Domain: Concept, Function, Dogmatics), Mohr Siebeck 2012.

The review was published in volume 3, issue 2, of Golden Gate University School of Law's The IP Law Book Review in April 2013.  Professor Trimble writes:  "Alexander Peukert, a professor of civil and commercial law who specializes in international intellectual property law at Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, has responded to the general interest in the public domain and devoted his latest book to the goal of defining its limits."  To read more of Professor Trimble's review, click here.

Professor Trimble joined Boyd's full-time faculty in 2010, bringing expertise in Conflict of Laws, Patent Law, Cyberlaw, International Intellectual Property Law, Private International Law, Intellectual Property, Copyright Law, European Union Law, and Comparative Law. She is a graduate of Stanford Law School (J.S.D., 2010; J.S.M., 2006) and the Law School of Charles University in Prague (Ph.D., 2002; JUDr., 2001; and Mgr., 1997).

Recent Publications by Professor Trimble

The Boyd School of Law is pleased to announce that Professor Marketa Trimble has several recent publications in the areas of intellectual property, international law, and gaming law.

First, Professor Trimble completed a book chapter titled "Proposal for an International Convention on Online Gambling."  This chapter, which will be published in Regulating Internet Gaming: Challenges and Opportunities (Ngai Pindell & Anthony Cabot eds., UNLV Gaming Press 2013), presents the outline of an international convention that will facilitate cooperation among countries in enforcement of their online gambling regulations while allowing the countries to maintain their individual legal approaches to online gambling.  A copy of Professor Trimble's chapter may be downloaded from SSRN here. 

Second, Professor Trimble completed an article titled "Injunctive Relief, Equity, and Misuse of Rights in U.S. Patent Law."  This article, published in 2012 by GRUR International, a law journal of the German Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property, discusses recent adjustments that U.S. courts have made to the doctrine of patent misuse and the availability of injunctive relief in patent infringement cases.  An abstract for the article is available from Scholarly Commons here.

Third, Professor Trimble updated and edited a book chapter titled "Extraterritorial Enforcement."  This chapter analyzes three forms of extraterritorial enforcement of intellectual property rights, including the extraterritorial application of intellectual property laws to acts committed outside protecting countries, the extraterritorial litigation of rights under the laws of foreign countries, and cross-border enforcement of judgments rendered in intellectual property cases.  This chapter will appear in Intellectual Property in Common Law and Civil Law (Toshiko Takenaka ed., 2013) later this spring.

Professor Trimble joined Boyd's full-time faculty in 2010, bringing expertise in Conflict of Laws, Patent Law, Cyberlaw, International Intellectual Property Law, Private International Law, Intellectual Property, Copyright Law, European Union Law, and Comparative Law. She is a graduate of Stanford Law School (J.S.D., 2010; J.S.M., 2006) and the Law School of Charles University in Prague (Ph.D., 2002; JUDr., 2001; and Mgr., 1997).

Congratulations to Boyd Law students Morgan Petrelli and Marisa Rodriguez-Shapoval!

Their presentation, Building Luxury Amongst Squalor: A Case Study of Migrant Construction Workers in India, won first place in UNLV's Graduate & Professional Student Research Forum on Saturday.  Thanks to Professor Fatma Marouf's International Human Rights & Comparative Law Practicum in India, Morgan and Marisa were able to convey the lessons that they learned from the course--and convey them well enough to beat students from several other programs at UNLV.

Cambridge University Press Publishes Professor Rowley's Commercial Contract Law: Transatlantic Perspectives

The Boyd School of Law is very pleased to announce that Cambridge University Press recently published Commercial Contract Law: Transatlantic Perspectives, edited by Professor Keith Rowley (with Larry A. DiMatteo, Qi Zhou, and Severine Saintier).

Commercial Contract Law focuses on the law of commercial contracts as constructed by the U.S. and UK legal systems and includes original scholarship that highlights current debates and trends from the two dominant common law systems. The chapters approach the subject areas from a variety of perspectives – doctrinal analysis, law and economic analysis, and social-legal studies, as well as other theoretical perspectives.

Commercial Contract Law covers the major themes that underlie the key debates relating to commercial contract law: role of consent; normative theories of contract law; contract design and good faith; implied terms and interpretation; policing contract behavior; misrepresentation, breach, and remedies; and the regional and international harmonization of contract law. Contributors provide insights on the many commonalities, but more interestingly, on the key divergences of the United States and United Kingdom's approaches to numerous areas of contract law. Such a comparative analysis provides a basis for future developments and improvements of commercial contract law in both countries, as well as other countries that are members of the common law systems.

Congratulations, Keith!

Professor Trimble Addresses 'International Orphan Works' on Goldman's Technology & Marketing Law Blog

The Boyd School of Law is very pleased to announce that Professor Marketa Trimble recently guest blogged ("The Problem of 'International Orphan Works'") on Eric Goldman's Technology & Marketing Law Blog.

As background, the U.S. Copyright Office recently extended the deadline by which the public may submit comments on issues related to orphan works until February 4, 2013. In her post, Professor Trimble explains that the Office is gathering suggestions for shaping future U.S. legislation and taking other actions to address the issues of works whose copyright has not expired, yet the owner of the copyright cannot be identified or located. Professor Trimble also notes, however, that legislating on orphan works at the national level cannot solve an important problem: the problem of establishing the status of an orphan work internationally. To read more about the problem of (and possible solutions for) 'international orphan works,' click here.

Professor Trimble joined Boyd's full-time faculty in 2010, bringing expertise in Conflict of Laws, Patent Law, Cyberlaw, International Intellectual Property Law, Private International Law, Intellectual Property, Copyright Law, European Union Law, and Comparative Law. She is a graduate of Stanford Law School (J.S.D., 2010; J.S.M., 2006) and the Law School of Charles University in Prague (Ph.D., 2002; JUDr., 2001; and Mgr., 1997).

Professor Trimble Places Her Latest Article in the Emory International Law Review

The Boyd School of Law is very pleased to announce that Professor Marketa Trimble placed her latest law review article ("GAT, Solvay, and the Centralization of Patent Litigation in Europe") in volume 26 of the Emory International Law Review. The article discusses the recent judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union in Solvay v. Honeywell and its potential impact on the possibility of concentrating the litigation of multiple countries’ patents in a single national court.

As background, concentrating patent litigation that involves parallel patents in a single national court would improve the enforcement of patent rights by lowering litigation costs and enhancing the consistency of judgments concerning patents covering the same invention in multiple countries. However, any concentration of patent litigation is difficult because of the rule mandating that only courts in the country where a patent was granted may adjudicate the validity of the patent. In the European Union, the 2006 judgment in GAT v. LuK appeared to solidify this notion by holding that the exclusive jurisdiction rule, now in Article 22.4 of the Brussels I Regulation, applies to any decision on patent validity. However, the recent decision in Solvay opens the interesting possibility that preliminary assessments of patent validity could be made even by courts outside the country of the patent grant. Professor Trimble's article thus discusses whether Solvay could be extended to cover the assessments of validity that German courts conduct in infringement proceedings. If Solvay were to apply to these assessments, German courts could become the natural centers of litigation of infringements of multiple countries’ patents in Europe.

The full text of Professor Trimble's article may be downloaded from SSRN.

Professor Trimble joined Boyd's full-time faculty in 2010, bringing expertise in Conflict of Laws, Patent Law, Cyberlaw, International Intellectual Property Law, Private International Law, Intellectual Property, Copyright Law, European Union Law, and Comparative Law. She is a graduate of Stanford Law School (J.S.D., 2010; J.S.M., 2006) and the Law School of Charles University in Prague (Ph.D., 2002; JUDr., 2001; and Mgr., 1997).

Professor Trimble Guest Blogs at Patently-O

The Boyd School of Law is very pleased to announce that Professor Marketa Trimble recently guest blogged at Patently-O, the nation's leading patent law blog. Her blog post is entitled, "Solvay v. Honeywell and an Alternative Route to a Central Patent Court in Europe."

As background, the Court of Justice of the European Communities ("ECJ") left some crucial questions unanswered when, in 2006, it clarified the rules of jurisdiction in the European Union ("EU") as they pertained to patent litigation. In her blog post, Professor Trimble explains that the recent judgment of the ECJ in Solvay v. Honeywell (C-616/10, July 12, 2012) provides some additional answers and, most importantly, suggests that there could be a new route open for a central patent court in Europe. According to Trimble, "A possibility that such a court could informally emerge deserves attention, particularly because of the protracted and complicated negotiations surrounding the creation of a centralized patent court system in Europe, which have generated significant skepticism about the viability of the project as presented by the EU institutions."

Professor Trimble Guest Blogs at Goldman's Technology & Marketing Law Blog

The Boyd School of Law is pleased to announce that Professor Marketa Trimble is guest blogging at Eric Goldman's Technology & Marketing Law Blog.

Professor Trimble's recent post, The Newest Olympic Sport: Evasion of Geolocation, characterizes the evasion of geolocation as primarily an expatriate sport; that is, a sport for those who long for their home television programming and other content on the internet that can be accessed only from inside their home country. By misleading the geolocation tools that website operators have installed, expatriates travel virtually to an internet IP address int heir home country to access their home television programs. In her post, Professor Trimble explains that those damaged by the new Olympic sport of geolocation evasion will be copyright holders who have licensed their content in a territorially limited manner. Professor Trimble concludes that although the evasion of gelocation may not immediately damage International Olympic Committee ("IOC") revenues, it may in the long run necessitate a rethinking of IOC licensing strategies.

Professor Trimble joined Boyd's full-time faculty in 2010, bringing expertise in Conflict of Laws, Patent Law, Cyberlaw, International Intellectual Property Law, Private International Law, Intellectual Property, Copyright Law, European Union Law, and Comparative Law. She is a graduate of Stanford Law School (J.S.D., 2010; J.S.M., 2006) and the Law School of Charles University in Prague (Ph.D., 2002; JUDr., 2001; and Mgr., 1997).

Boyd School of Law to Host Internet Gaming Regulation Symposium

The Boyd School of Law is pleased to host the Internet Gaming Regulation Symposium on Friday, May 18, 2012, in UNLV's Thomas & Mack Moot Court Room.

The Symposium, which will address best practices for the regulation of internet gaming, will feature world-renowned speakers and authors who are highly knowledgeable in their respective fields. Each speaker will tackle a category of regulation critical to a well-regulated internet gaming environment, including age and identity verification, location verification, fraud and cheating detection and prevention including anti-collusion, international dispute resolution, technical requirements for systems licensing requirements for operators, service providers and manufacturers, responsible gaming, accounting, audit, reporting and recordkeeping, and more. Boyd's own Professor Marketa Trimble will address the topic of location verification. The paper that forms the basis of Professor Trimble's talk, along with papers written by other Symposium speakers, will be published in book form in fall 2012.

The complete schedule for the Symposium, which has been approved for six CLE credits, is available here. For additional information, including registration, go to http://www.law.unlv.edu/GamingRegulation2012.

Professor Trimble's Article Published in the Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

Congratulations to Professor Marketa Trimble on the recent publication of her article (The Future of Cybertravel: Legal Implications of the Evasion of Geolocation) in the Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal. The abstract for The Future of Cybertravel provides: 

"Although the Internet is valued by many of its supporters particularly because it both defies and defeats physical borders, these important attributes are now being exposed to attempts by both governments and private entities to impose territorial limits through blocking or permitting access to content by Internet users based on their geographical location—a territorial partitioning of the Internet. One of these attempts, for example, is the recent Stop Online Piracy Act (“SOPA”) proposal in the United States. This article, as opposed to earlier literature on the topic discussing the possible virtues and methods of erecting borders in cyberspace, focuses on an Internet activity that is designed to bypass the territorial partitioning of cyberspace and render any partitioning attempts ineffective. The activity—cybertravel, or the evasion of geolocation—permits users to access content on the Internet that is normally not available when they connect to the Internet from their geographical location. By utilizing an Internet protocol address that does not correspond to their physical location, but to a location from which access to the content is permitted, users can view or use content that is otherwise unavailable to them. Although cybertravel is not novel (some cybertravel tools have been available for a number of years), recently the tools allowing it have proliferated and become sufficiently user-friendly to allow even average Internet users to utilize them. Indeed, there is an increasing interest in cybertravel among the general Internet public as more and more website operators employ geolocation tools to limit access to content on their websites from certain countries or regions.

"This article analyzes the current legal status of cybertravel and explores how the law may treat cybertravel in the future. The analysis of the current legal framework covers copyright as well as other legal doctrines and the laws of multiple countries, with a special emphasis on U.S. law. The future of the legal status of cybertravel will be strongly affected by the desire of countries and many Internet actors to erect borders on the Internet to facilitate compliance with territorially-defined regulation and enjoy the advantages of a territorially-partitioned cyberspace. This article makes an attempt to identify arguments for making or keeping certain types of cybertravel legal, and suggests legal, technical, and business solutions for any cybertravel that may be permitted."

The Future of Cybertravel: Legal Implications of the Evasion of Geolocation is available for download from UNLV's Scholarly Commons and SSRN.  Congratulations, Marketa! 

Professor Trimble Publishes Global Patents: Limits of Transnational Enforcement

In today’s globalized economy, many inventors, investors and businesses want their inventions to be protected in many, if not most, countries. However, there currently exists no single patent that will protect an invention globally, and despite the attempts in international treaties to simplify patenting, the process remains complicated, lengthy, and expensive. Furthermore, the necessity of enforcing patents in multiple countries exists without any possibility of concentrating in one location any parallel proceedings that concern the same invention and the same parties, thus making the maintenance of parallel patents infeasible.

Professor Marketa Trimble’s recent book, Global Patents: Limits of Transnational Enforcement, explains why the absence of a "global patent" persists, and discusses the events in the 140-year history of patent law internationalization that have shaped the solutions. Professor Trimble analyzes the ways in which patent holders attempt to mitigate the problems that arise from the lack of global patent protection. One way is to concentrate enforcement in one court of patents granted in multiple countries, which makes the enforcement of the patents less costly and more consistent. Another way is to attempt to use the litigation of a single country patent to reach acts that occur outside the country, which can mitigate the lack of patent protection outside the country. However, both the concentration of proceedings and extraterritorial enforcement suffer from significant limitations. Global Patents explains these limitations and presents the solutions that have been proposed to address them. Professor Trimble’s book includes a thorough comparative analysis of the extraterritorial features of U.S. and German patent laws, and original statistics on U.S. patent litigation. Based on a comprehensive treatment of the various facets of transnational enforcement challenges, Professor Trimble proposes the next stage of patent law internationalization.

Full Citation: Marketa Trimble, Global Patents: Limits of Transnational Enforcement (Oxford University Press 2012). ISBN13: 9780199840687.