55 research outputs found
The Philosophical Foundations of Investment-Driven IP: On Reason, Faith, and Pluralism
Get PDFIt seems, once again, that intellectual property law is shifting beneath our feet. As Robert Merges put it a decade ago, if IP were a city, then the old city centre is today ‘surrounded by new buildings and new neighbourhoods, knots of urban growth, budding in every direction, far off into the distance’.1 That old city centre was built during the nineteenth-century age of possessive individualism.2 Ideologies of the romantic author and sole inventor helped erect the city’s foundational principle that one deserves ownership in the products of mental labour.3 Yet, in the early twentieth century, US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis could still write that ‘the general rule of law is, that the noblest of human production – knowledge, truths ascertained, conceptions, and ideas – become, after voluntary communication to others, free as the air to common use’.4 A century later, that general rule rings less true.5 Investment-driven rights, and investment-driven extensions to old rights, have helped expand the city’s boundaries. What started out as a small cadre of related rights, sui generis rights, and quasi-IP rights now contribute to an urban sprawl of new neighbourhoods spreading as far as the eye can see. New denizens – the trivially creative and insignificantly innovative goods explored in this volume – now are protected inside the city’s walls. What was the city of Intellectual Property has become the city of Investment Property
Corrective Justice and Copyright Infringement
Get PDFThis article demonstrates that one crucially important function of copyright infringement cases is corrective justice. However, because scholars and lawmakers often conceive of copyright in solely economic terms, this goal is often overlooked and demonstrable unfairness occurs as a result.
The article uses tort law theory to make three points. Firstly, the economic theory of copyright is incomplete. This theory states that copyright is a tool for providing authors with incentives to create new works. However, this goal does not explain the legal relationship between the author and the infringer. If all we want to do is give authors incentives, then all we need to do is reward creation. Government subsidies and prizes are examples of methods for incentivizing creation without requiring the author to sue the infringer.
Secondly, corrective justice is a function of copyright infringement cases. This explains the author-infringer relationship. Corrective justice maintains equality between people. People are equally entitled to their rights. When someone does not respect the rights of others they cause an inequality. The wrongdoer gains something and the victim loses something. By making the wrongdoer compensate the victim, the law removes the gain and loss and restores the antecedent equality. This is one basic function of copyright infringement cases. Copyright is provided for a mix of reasons (some economic, some based on natural rights). Thereafter, when someone infringes copyright, they cause an inequality to arise: the infringer gains the ability to copy without paying a license fee, while the author loses the work’s market value. Making the infringer compensate the author removes the gains and losses and restores the equality between the parties.
Finally, this important goal it is often overlooked. The article will demonstrate three cases where the law does not adequately restore the equality between author and infringer, and which are accordingly unfair. The examples are: statutory damages for wilful infringement, litigation fees, and mass copyright infringement suits
Single-Cell Optogenetic Excitation Drives Homeostatic Synaptic Depression
No full textSummaryHomeostatic processes have been proposed to explain the discrepancy between the dynamics of synaptic plasticity and the stability of brain function. Forms of synaptic plasticity such as long-term potentiation alter synaptic activity in a synapse- and cell-specific fashion. Although network-wide excitation triggers compensatory homeostatic changes, it is unknown whether neurons initiate homeostatic synaptic changes in response to cell-autonomous increases in excitation. Here we employ optogenetic tools to cell-autonomously excite CA1 pyramidal neurons and find that a compensatory postsynaptic depression of both AMPAR and NMDAR function results. Elevated calcium influx through L-type calcium channels leads to activation of a pathway involving CaM kinase kinase and CaM kinase 4 that induces synaptic depression of AMPAR and NMDAR responses. The synaptic depression of AMPARs but not of NMDARs requires protein synthesis and the GluA2 AMPAR subunit, indicating that downstream of CaM kinase activation divergent pathways regulate homeostatic AMPAR and NMDAR depression
The BMP Ligand Gbb Gates the Expression of Synaptic Homeostasis Independent of Synaptic Growth Control
No full textSummaryInhibition of postsynaptic glutamate receptors at the Drosophila NMJ initiates a compensatory increase in presynaptic release termed synaptic homeostasis. BMP signaling is necessary for normal synaptic growth and stability. It remains unknown whether BMPs have a specific role during synaptic homeostasis and, if so, whether BMP signaling functions as an instructive retrograde signal that directly modulates presynaptic transmitter release. Here, we demonstrate that the BMP receptor (Wit) and ligand (Gbb) are necessary for the rapid induction of synaptic homeostasis. We also provide evidence that both Wit and Gbb have functions during synaptic homeostasis that are separable from NMJ growth. However, further genetic experiments demonstrate that Gbb does not function as an instructive retrograde signal during synaptic homeostasis. Rather, our data indicate that Wit and Gbb function via the downstream transcription factor Mad and that Mad-mediated signaling is continuously required during development to confer competence of motoneurons to express synaptic homeostasis
The Curious Case of Computer-Generated Works under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
Get PDFUnder section 9(3) of the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988, works that are ‘computer-generated’ (and which have no human author) will be protected by copyright. Ownership of the copyright vests in the person who has made the necessary ‘arrangements’ for the work’s creation. This article introduces two questions in relation to section 9(3). Firstly, how does the section fit with copyright’s originality requirement? Secondly, what is the justification for the provision? In exploring these questions the article develops a novel criticism of section 9(3): the section is either unnecessary or unjustifiably extends legal protection to a class of works which belong in the public domain. While previous literature has praised section 9(3) and suggested that it ought to be adopted more widely, this article concludes that other jurisdictions ought to think carefully before adopting this provision
Intellectual Property's Faith-Based Empiricism
Get PDFIn recent decades, researchers have produced numerous studies failing to find a positive correlation between IP rights and improved measures of social utility. Based on these findings, a number of scholars argue that society ought to grant fewer and narrower IP rights in the future. One scholar, Professor Mark Lemley (‘Faith-Based Intellectual Property’ (2016) 62 UCLA L Rev 1328) claims that supporting the status quo with natural rights arguments is irrational and displays a quasi-religious ‘faith’ in IP law. This essay considers the epistemological foundations of Lemley’s ‘faith-based’ critique of natural rights arguments in IP law. Assuming that natural rights arguments are based on faith, are empirical-utilitarian arguments any more rational? This essay claims that empirical-utilitarian arguments also rest on irrational faith. Lawyers who base policy decisions on empirical IP studies are, like the present author, ‘faith-based empiricists’ when it comes to IP and utility
Why the U.K. Adaptation Right Is Superior to the U.S. Derivative Work Right
Get PDFThe author’s exclusive right to prepare derivative works is one of the most maligned doctrines in modern U.S. copyright. Lying at the root of this dissatisfaction is the Copyright Act’s expansive conception of derivative works. The statute defines this term as “a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgement, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted.” Courts apply the final clause of this definition (i.e. the “in any other form” language) very broadly, thus allowing the author control over an ever-expanding range of new adaptations. Given the controversy caused by the derivative works right, it is time to consider how other nations deal with this issue. This Article suggests that when reforming the derivative works right, the U.S. should adopt a rule-based approach, like the U.K. In 1976, the U.S. adopted a standard-based derivative work right, hoping this would enable the law to flexibly extend over new, unforeseeable derivative works that may arise in the future. In contrast, the U.K. worried that a general adaptation right may lead to excessively broad law. Therefore, the U.K. narrowly tailored their adaptation right and tried to find flexibility to deal with novel adaptations elsewhere in the copyright system. Using economic literature on the comparative efficiency of rules and standards, this Article demonstrates how the U.K.’s approach was ultimately more efficient. Since enacting the Copyright Act 1976, U.S. law has become excessively broad. The lack of limits on the derivative work concept allowed authors to exclude many new welfare-enhancing works from the market. At the same time, the vagueness inherent in the standard-based approach makes application of the law much more complicated, time consuming, and costly. The U.K. avoided these problems by adopting a precise, rule-based approach to derivative works. As a result, the perturbations surrounding the U.S. derivative works right do not exist in the U.K. Part I of this Article explains why the U.K. and U.S. adopted different approaches to the derivative works right. Part II shows how this decision to adopt different approaches eventually led to different case outcomes. Part III compares the two approaches using economic literature on legal rules and standards. Doing so demonstrates how the U.S. standard-based approach is substantively too broad and procedurally too costly. Part IV considers some potential solutions to remedy the inefficiencies in U.S. law. This Article contends that the U.S. should make a statutory amendment to the Copyright Act and adopt a rule-based approach, much like that found in the U.K. Part V concludes
2001. Regions in rat and human parathyroid hormone (PTH) 2 receptors controlling receptor interaction with PTH and with antagonist ligands. J Pharmacol Exp Ther
No full textABSTRACT The parathyroid hormone (PTH) 2 receptor is potently activated by tuberoinfundibular peptide (TIP39). Rat and human PTH2 receptors differ considerably in their PTH responsiveness. PTH weakly stimulates cAMP accumulation via the rat receptor, and here we show it did not detectably increase intracellular calcium ([Ca 2ϩ ] i ) and bound with low affinity (450 nM). For the human PTH2 receptor PTH was a full agonist for increasing cAMP, a partial agonist for increasing [Ca 2ϩ ] i , and bound with high affinity (18 nM). In addition, the antagonists PTH(7-34) and TIP(7-39) bound with 10-to 49-fold lower affinity to the rat receptor. We investigated the molecular basis of differential PTH and antagonist interaction with human and rat PTH2 receptors by using chimeric human/rat PTH2 receptors. PTH cAMP-signaling efficacy (E max ) was determined by extracellular loop (EL) 1 and a region including EL2 and EL3. The N-terminal domain determined PTH binding selectivity at the inactive receptor state. Multiple regions throughout the receptor are required for the PTH-PTH2 receptor complex to adopt a highaffinity active state: inserting the rat receptor's N-terminal domain, EL1 or EL2/3, into the human receptor increased PTH's EC 50 and reciprocal exchanges did not reduce EC 50 . This suggests the global receptor conformation prevents the rat receptor from adopting a high-affinity state when in complex with PTH. N-terminal ligand truncation, producing the antagonists PTH(7-34) and TIP(7-39), altered ligand interaction with the membrane-embedded domain of the receptor, eliminating EL2/3 as a specificity determinant and lowering binding affinity. These insights should contribute to the development of a highaffinity PTH2 receptor antagonist, for investigating the receptor's physiological role. The parathyroid hormone (PTH) 2 receptor from various species (human, rat, and zebrafish) is potently activated by a recently identified neuropeptide, tuberoinfundibular peptide of 39 residues (TIP39) The PTH2 receptor and TIP39 form part of an extended family of related receptors and related ligands that also includes the PTH1 receptor, PTH, and PTH-related protein (PTHrP) . The ligands and receptors have presumably evolved to selectively mediate different physiological functions. In this regard, the PTH2 receptor is potently activated by TIP39 but not by PTHrP ) and the PTH1 receptor is activated by PTH and PTHrP but not by TIP3
Mind the Gap: Analysing the Disconnect Between IP Research and IP Policy
Get PDFIn the past two decades, researchers have subjected the intellectual property ( IP) system to an unprecedented level of investigation. Approximately 827 empirical IP studies have been produced since the year 2000. An important strand of the research concludes that IP rights have a negative impact on society’s economic and social welfare. Despite these findings, lawmakers have enacted new IP rights and expanded the scope of old ones. This leads one academic author to claim that law and policy makers simply "ignore the evidence". The Mind the Gap project investigated the claim that a "gap" exists between research and policy in IP law. Adopting an innovative approach to the issue, the project brought together senior IP researchers with senior IP law and policy makers to discuss the role of research in IP law and policy. Together the project members investigated whether a gap exists and whether any actions ought to be adopted to address the gap
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