November 4th, 2020

Supreme Court Clarifies Edicts Doctrine in Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org

In Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, Inc., the Supreme Court voted by five-to-four to expand the government edicts doctrine for the first time since 1888. 140 S. Ct. 1498 (2020). The State of Georgia had claimed copyright in the annotations contained in its only official collection of law, the Official Code of Georgia Annotated (OCGA). Id. at […]

October 30th, 2020

Allen v. Cooper: State Sovereign Immunity in Copyright Infringement

In 1718, the infamous pirate Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, lost his flagship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge, after running it aground in what is now Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina. In 1996, Intersal, Inc., a marine salvage company, discovered the remains of the Queen Anne’s Revenge. North Carolina, the wreck’s legal owners, contracted with Intersal […]

September 28th, 2015

Pushback Against Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International

Recently, courts have invalidated patents for claiming “abstract” ideas or business methods under Section 101 of the patent laws as applied in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International, 134 S. Ct. 2347 (2014). The Court reasoned that taking a method that is “abstract” — practiced in the prior art “manually,” without a computer – and just performing […]

January 25th, 2013

John Marshall Distinguished Professor Presentation: Hugh Hansen

Professor Hansen spoke on the topic “The Supreme Court and Intellectual Property Law- It’s Not What You Think” on January 25, 2013 at John Marshall Law School in Chicago, IL. IP Hansen_Jan25_2013

Fordham IP Institute