Intellectual Property

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Comment
Volume 92.5
On FRAND-ly Terms: Examining the Role of Juries in Standard-Essential Patent Disputes
Marta Krason
B.S., Massachusetts Institute of Technology; M.S., Stanford University; J.D. Candidate 2026, The University of Chicago Law School.

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.

Contract Law Contracts Intellectual Property Technology
Online
Essay
Sedlik v. Drachenberg: Is a Body Merely a Canvas?
David Doktorman
David Doktorman is a J.D. Candidate at the University of Chicago Law School, Class of 2024.

He thanks Matthew Makowski, Renic Sloan, Annie Kors, and the University of Chicago Law Review Online team.

Tattooing is on the rise. No longer the taboo it once was, more and more Americans are opting to ink themselves as a mode of self-expression.

Intellectual Property
Online
Essay
Ninth Circuit Renames Copyright Estoppel the Asserted Truths Doctrine
Yiwei Jiang
Yiwei Jiang is a staff member of The University of Chicago Law Review and a J.D. Candidate in the University of Chicago Law School Class of 2022. She received her B.S. in chemical engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 2018.

A copyright ruling on the Broadway hit “Jersey Boys” paves the way for creators to make projects that are based on a true story.

Intellectual Property
2
Article
76.2
Claiming Intellectual Property
Jeanne C. Fromer
Associate Professor, Fordham Law School

For insightful discussions and comments, I claim appreciation to Arnaud Ajdler, Ian Ayres, Michael Birnhack, Miriam Bitton, Robert Brauneis, Dan Burk, Kevin Collins, Christopher Cotropia, Kevin Davis, Rochelle Dreyfuss, John Duffy, Brett Frischmann, John Golden, Wendy Gordon, Hugh Hansen, Scott Hemphill, Timothy Holbrook, Bert Huang, Sonia Katyal, Amir Khoury, Roberta Kwall, Jeffrey Lefstin, Mark Lemley, Douglas Lichtman, Clarisa Long, Michael Madison, Peter Menell, Joseph Scott Miller, Mark Patterson, Anthony Reese, Pamela Samuelson, Susan Scafidi, Katherine Strandburg, Polk Wagner, Tim Wu, Shlomit Yaniski-Ravid, Benjamin Zipursky, and participants at the Seventh Annual Intellectual Property Scholars Conference, 2009 Stanford/Yale Junior Faculty Forum, and in workshops at Bar-Ilan, Brooklyn, Columbia, Fordham, and George Washington law schools.

Copyright Intellectual Property Patent
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Article
78.1
Contracting around Copyright: The Uneasy Case for Unbundling of Rights in Creative Works
Guy A. Rub
Associate, Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP; SJD Candidate 2011, University of Michigan Law School

For helpful comments, I thank Omri Ben-Shahar, Rebecca S. Eisenberg, Margaret J. Radin, and the participants in the Law and Economics workshop at the University of Michigan Law School and the Licensing of Intellectual Property Symposium at The University of Chicago Law School. The views expressed in this work, as well as all remaining errors, are, of course, my own.

Copyright Intellectual Property Licensing
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Article
78.1
The Razors-and-Blades Myth(s)
Randal C. Picker
Paul and Theo Leffmann Professor of Commercial Law, The University of Chicago Law School; Senior Fellow, The Computation Institute of The University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory

I thank the John M. Olin Foundation and the Paul H. Leffmann Fund for their generous research support. I also thank Lorraine Saxton for able research assistance and Connie Fleischer, Sheri Lewis, and Margaret Schilt in the D’Angelo Law Library for helping to track down missing sources.

Intellectual Property Legal History Licensing

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