LAW - 667A IP in Cyberspace

(3 hrs.)

This course investigates the legal regulation of conduct through the Internet, with particular attention to issues arising under copyright and trademark law. The focus of the course is to study how the fundamental principles of intellectual property law apply to the facts of the Internet. How and when does the law rely on analogy to established precedent and when does the law create Internet-specific regulation by statute or judicial interpretation? The trademark unit focuses on Internet-specific issues, such as use of marks in domain names and by search engines. This includes study of ICANN as a sui generis global regulatory body. The copyright unit considers issues such as secondary liability and the regulation of Internet service providers, whether technology can or should substitute for law through digital rights management, and the role of “user generated content” and open or public licensing of copyrighted works on the Internet. Comparative materials are used to illustrate similarities and differences in legal responses, primarily between the U.S. and EU.