Defending Disclosure in Software Licensing
The authors thank George Hay, Stewart Schwab, and the faculties of Boston University School of Law and Cornell Law School for their comments. Daniel Forester provided excellent research assistance.
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This Article surveys prominent kinds of disclosures in contract law—of facts, contract terms, and performance intentions. We show why the disclosure tool, although subject to substantial criticism, promotes important social values and goals, including efficiency, autonomy, corrective justice, fairness, and the legitimacy of the contract process. Further, proposals to replace disclosure with other alternatives are unrealistic because they are too expensive or complex. Our working example is the American Law Institute’s Principles of the Law of Software Contracts.
I would like to thank Professor Jonathan Masur and the editors and staff of The University of Chicago Law Review, including Andy Wang, Zoë Ewing, Jonah Klausner, Karan Lala, Eric Haupt, Eugene DeCosse, and Helen Chamberlin, for their thoughtful advice and insights.
Holders of patents covering technology standards, known as standard-essential patents (SEP), control the rights to an invention with no commercially-viable alternative or that cannot be designed around while still complying with a standard. This gives SEP holders significant leverage in licensing negotiations. Standards development organizations (SDOs) play an important role in curbing opportunistic behavior by patent holders. SDOs require SEP holders to license their patents on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms. However, courts have mischaracterized FRAND commitments, concluding that these disputes carry a Seventh Amendment guarantee to a jury trial. This mischaracterization undermines the fair resolution of FRAND disputes, and a different approach is necessary. In this Comment, Marta Krason proposes an alternative analytical framework that more accurately characterizes FRAND disputes by drawing on principles from contract and property law, concluding that the constitutionally proper adjudicator is a judge, not a jury.
I would like to thank Professor Jonathan Masur and the editors and staff of The University of Chicago Law Review, including Andy Wang, Zoë Ewing, Jonah Klausner, Karan Lala, Eric Haupt, Eugene DeCosse, and Helen Chamberlin, for their thoughtful advice and insights.
Holders of patents covering technology standards, known as standard-essential patents (SEP), control the rights to an invention with no commercially-viable alternative or that cannot be designed around while still complying with a standard. This gives SEP holders significant leverage in licensing negotiations. Standards development organizations (SDOs) play an important role in curbing opportunistic behavior by patent holders. SDOs require SEP holders to license their patents on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms. However, courts have mischaracterized FRAND commitments, concluding that these disputes carry a Seventh Amendment guarantee to a jury trial. This mischaracterization undermines the fair resolution of FRAND disputes, and a different approach is necessary. In this Comment, Marta Krason proposes an alternative analytical framework that more accurately characterizes FRAND disputes by drawing on principles from contract and property law, concluding that the constitutionally proper adjudicator is a judge, not a jury.
I would like to thank Professor Sarah Konsky and the editors and staff of The University of Chicago Law Review for their invaluable input.
The internet plays a crucial role in modern life; however, equal access to it is not guaranteed. Drawing on existing tribal spectrum sovereignty arguments, Morgan Schaack writes that the control exercised by the FCC’s licensing of the electromagnetic spectrum and language common in many tribal treaties create a tribal access right to spectrum under the trust responsibility. Framing this access to spectrum as a trust-protected resource, the Comment situates allowing tiered internet service in the absence of net neutrality as a violation of the government's obligations under the trust responsibility.