James Boyle
William Neal Reynolds Professor of Law Duke Law School
Jennifer
Jenkins Director, Center for the Study of the Public Domain & Senior
Lecturing Fellow Duke Law School
This book is a
collection of the primary sources of Federal #intellectual_property law, the set
of private legal rights that allows individuals and corporations to control
intangible creations and marks—from drugs, to books, to logos—and the
exceptions and limitations that define those rights. It contains the full text
of the #Lanham_Act, which lays out the rules of Federal #trademark_law, the #Copyright_Act and the #Patent_Act.
The Patent Act has been significantly
modified by the America Invents Act of 2011, part of which did not come into
effect until March 16, 2013. This leaves two bodies of patent law, one applying
to patents granted under the old system and another under the new.
We have used
a version of the Patent Act, prepared by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
(PTO), which shows both versions and indicates which would be applicable. In
addition, the book includes several international treaties: the Berne
Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, the World
Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty, the Paris Convention for
the Protection of Industrial Property and the “TRIPs Agreement” or
Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement brokered as
part of the World Trade Organization process.
For these international treaties,
the useful editorial table of contents and notes provided by the WIPO editors
have been retained and are gratefully acknowledged. We have also included, on
the page following this introduction, a simple chart taken from our casebook
that compares the trademark, copyright and patent regimes—the constitutional
basis and subject matter of the rights, the length of the term, the exceptions
and limitations and so on. We hope you find it of use.
No comments:
Post a Comment