Intellectual Property Channeling for Digital Works

References (75)

1. Osborn, Limits of Creativity, supra note 38, at 52-56.
2. Professor Weinreb is one who has noted and explored this phenomenon. Weinreb, supra note 33, at 1176-93; see also Reichman, supra note 7, at 802-06. 49 See 17 U.S.C. § 101 (delineating the lack of protection for useful articles).
3. Weinreb, supra note 33, at 1153 ("In their operational form, programs are strictly functional and contain no expression . . . .").
4. J.H. Reichman, Legal Hybrids Between the Patent and Copyright Paradigms, 94 COLUM. L. REV. 2432, 2477 (1994) [hereinafter Reichman, Legal Hybrids] ("Technical [d]rawings, [b]lueprints, and [e]ngineering [p]rojects . . . 'constitute some of the oldest and most instructive marginal cases in the intellectual property universe.'").
5. See Lucas S. Osborn, Of PhDs, Pirates, and the Public: Three-Dimensional Printing Technology and the Arts, 1 TEX. A&M L. REV. 811, 829 (2014) ("Of course, technical drawings can be copyrighted only to the extent they contain some minimal creativity.");
6. Osborn, Limits of Creativity, supra note 38, at 42-52. of very little weight");
7. Cohen, Reverse Engineering, supra note 104, at 1124-25 (arguing that copying a whole work to gain interoperability should not weigh against fair use); cf. Pierre N. Leval, Toward a Fair Use Standard, 103 HARV. L. REV. 1105, 1122-24 (1990);
8. Lloyd L. Weinreb, Commentary, Fair's Fair: A Comment on the Fair Use Doctrine, 103 HARV. L. REV. 1137, 1146 (1990).
9. Connectix, 203 F.3d at 607 ("Sony understandably seeks control over the market for devices that play games Sony produces or licenses. The copyright law, however, does not confer such a monopoly."). 165 Id. at 37.
10. Mark P. McKenna & Lucas S. Osborn, Trademarks and Digital Goods, 92 NOTRE DAME L. REV. 1425, 1430-56 (2017);
11. Lucas S. Osborn, Trademark Boundaries and 3D Printing, 50 AKRON L. REV. 865, 877-80 (2016) [hereinafter Osborn, Trademark Boundaries]; see also Mark P. McKenna, Dastar's Next Stand, 19 J. INTELL. PROP. L. 357, 365-66 (2012).
12. See, e.g., Lewisite, Laboratory Pipette, THINGIVERSE (Oct. 1, 2013), https:// www.thingiverse.com/thing:159052/#files (offering a 3D printable file for a pipette and prominently displaying the creator's name, "lewisite").
13. See McKenna & Osborn, supra note 166, at 1453, 1467-69.
14. 170 Trade secrets are protected largely on a state-by-state basis, and forty-seven states have adopted a version of the Uniform State Trade Secrets Act (UTSA). UNIF. TRADE SECRETS ACT (UNIF. LAW COMM'N 1985). Recently Congress enacted the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016, Pub. L. No. 114-153, 130 Stat. 376, but that law explicitly preserves existing state law. 18 U.S.C. § 1836(f) (2012). 171 UNIF. TRADE SECRETS ACT § 1(4).
15. See, e.g., Lucas S. Osborn, The Leaky Common Law: An "Offer to Sell" as a Policy Tool in Patent Law and Beyond, 53 SANTA CLARA L. REV. 143, 147 (2013).
16. See, e.g., Specht v. Netscape Commc'ns Corp., 306 F.3d 17, 29-30 (2d Cir. 2002) (requiring notice of the terms before the user will be bound).
17. Id. 177 See 18 RICHARD A. LORD, WILLISTON ON CONTRACTS § 52:38 (4th ed. 2017). 178 See id.
18. See, e.g., Robert P. Merges, The End of Friction? Property Rights and Contract in the "Newtonian" World of On-Line Commerce, 12 BERKELEY TECH. L.J. 115, 119-20 (1997);
19. Sharon K. Sandeen, A Contract by Any Other Name Is Still a Contract: Examining the Effectiveness of Trade Secret Clauses to Protect Databases, 45 IDEA: J.L. & TECH. 119, 147 (2005).
20. See Molly Shaffer Van Houweling, The New Servitudes, 96 GEO. L.J. 885, 930-32 (2008).
21. John F. Duffy & Richard Hynes, Statutory Domain and the Commercial Law of Intellectual Property, 102 VA. L. REV. 1 (2016);
22. Orly Lobel, From Status to Contract in Intellectual Property Law, 96 B.U. L. REV. 869 (2016);
23. Guy A. Rub, Copyright Survives: Rethinking the Copyright-Contract Conflict, 103 VA. L. REV. 1141 (2017);
24. Van Houweling, supra note 180.
25. Thomas M.S. Hemnes, Restraints on Alienation, Equitable Servitudes, and the Feudal Nature of Computer Software Licensing, 71 DENV. U. L. REV. 577, 594 (1994).
26. See, e.g., Julie E. Cohen, DRM and Privacy, 18 BERKELEY TECH. L.J. 575, 580-88 (2003) (describing various types of DRM).
27. See, e.g., U.S. Patent No. 8,286,236 (issued Oct. 9, 2012). The patent, titled "Manufacturing Control System," contains claims directed to the concept of associating digital manufacturing files with authorization codes. Id. A machine (e.g., a 3D printer) will not print an object unless it receives the file's authorization code and the code indicates the file is eligible to be printed (e.g., it is lawfully purchased). Id.
28. See Andre, MarkAny Develops DRM and Piracy Protection for 3D Print Files, 3DERS.ORG (Mar. 31, 2016), http://www.3ders.org/articles/20160331-markany-develops-drm-and-piracy- protection-for-3d-print-files.html (describing TPM such as "Feature Extraction, which is capable of extracting information from a particular design and examining it against other similar designs to better prevent piracy; Digital Forensics, a feature which essentially watermarks digital designs and can track ownership information if a leak does occur"). 198
29. Brean, supra note 142, at 848-63.
30. Holbrook & Osborn, supra note 124, at 1353-69.
31. See supra text accompanying notes 141-50.
32. See supra text accompanying note 132.
33. See Viva R. Moffat, The Copyright/Patent Boundary, 48 U. RICH. L. REV. 611, 611-12 (2014). 203 The effort-or sweat of the brow-required to make the file might require some stimulus, but that effort is not geared toward generating creativity and is not protectable in the United States. See Feist Publ'ns, Inc., v. Rural Tel. Serv. Co., 499 U.S. 340, 359-60 (1991). Other countries continue to endorse a sweat of the brow doctrine. See Directive 96/9/EC, of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 1996 on the Legal Protection of Databases, 1996 O.J. (L 77) (protecting databases). U.K. law traditionally endorsed a version of the sweat of the brow doctrine (i.e., originality means a result of author's own skill, labor, judgment, and effort). See, e.g., Indep. Television Publ'ns Ltd. v. Time Out Limited Ltd. & Elliot [1984] Ch 64 (Eng.). But recent European Union decisions have put pressure on that view. See, e.g., Case C-5/08, Infopaq Int'l A/S v. Danske Dagblades Forening, 2009 E.C.R. I-6569; Football Dataco Ltd. v. Yahoo! U.K. Ltd., C-604/10, March 1, 2012 (ECJ);
34. Andreas Rahmatian, Originality in UK Copyright Law: The Old "Skill and Labour" Doctrine Under Pressure, 44 INT'L REV. INTELL. PROP. & COMPETITION L. 4, 6 (2013) (arguing that it is not clear how much E.U. law has changed U.K. law).
35. By misuse I do not necessarily mean unjustifiable as a matter of innovation policy generally, because copyright protection may be the best available option among viable alternatives. Rather, I mean that protecting these utilitarian files does not follow from the purposes of copyright law. See, e.g., David G. Luettgen, Functional Usefulness vs.
36. See, e.g., Jeanne C. Fromer, Expressive Incentives in Intellectual Property, 98 VA. L. REV. 1745, 1760 (2012); Osborn et al., supra note 10, at 1228-29.
37. See, e.g., Daniel K. Fisher & Peter J. Gould, Open-Source Hardware Is a Low-Cost Alternative for Scientific Instrumentation and Research, 1 MOD. INSTRUMENTATION 8, 8-9 (2012);
38. Joshua M. Pearce, Building Research Equipment with Free, Open-Source Hardware, SCI., Sept. 14, 2012, at 1303.
39. See, e.g., Reichman, supra note 7, at 835-37 (arguing for sui generis protection for digital works to create lead time). The works at the center of Professor Reichman's study generally required much more investment to create as compared to simple digital manufacturing files. 217 On the other hand, technology allows wholesale copying of another's content on an essentially real-time basis. See Craigslist Inc. v. 3Taps Inc., 942 F. Supp. 2d 962, 966 (N.D. Cal. 2013) (discussing allegations that defendant republished Craigslist's online advertisements by scraping the listings "in real time, directly from the Craigslist website" so as to "essentially replicate[] the entire Craigslist website"). Such technology may divert some sales instantaneously, but only to those who know of and patronize the copier's marketplace. 218 There is also the possibility of seeding rival sites with corrupt files that appear to be the copycat file, though this might contravene some people's sense of ethics. 219 See supra notes 185-88 and accompanying text (discussing TPMs).
40. See, e.g., David Fry, Circumventing Access Controls Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act: Analyzing the SecuROM Debate, 2009 DUKE L. & TECH. REV. 5. 221 See 35 U.S.C. § 171(a) (2012).
41. See supra note 153 and accompanying text (discussing ornamentality). 223 35 U.S.C. § § 102-03.
42. 224 Because design patent protection will extend to fewer files than if the law protected all 245
43. See, e.g., Patrick Soon & Rebecca Bellow, The Top Four Advantages of Trade Secret Protection, WHGC, https://www.whglawfirm.com/Top-4-Advantages-of-Trade-Secret- Protection.shtml (last visited Mar. 8, 2018).
44. Cf. id. at 152-53 (noting wrongful assertions of trade secrecy are against public policy).
45. For support of this general statement, see, e.g., Carolyn Edwards, Freedom of Contract and Fundamental Fairness for Individual Parties: The Tug of War Continues, 77 UMKC L. REV. 647, 647-53 (2009).
46. See, e.g., RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF CONTRACTS § 17 (AM. LAW INST. 1981) (requiring manifestation of assent);
47. Merges, supra note 179, at 119. The person removing the terms may be breaching the contract.
48. See, e.g., Merges, supra note 179, at 122 (noting the possibility that contractual terms can be stripped out);
49. Rub, supra note 183, at 1213 (noting ways to avoid contractual terms). 251
50. See Van Houweling, supra note 180, at 914-16.
51. GE GLOBAL RESEARCH (Aug. 14, 2017), https://www.geglobalresearch.com/blog/3d- printing-creates-new-parts-aircraft-engines.
52. Mike Keller, These Engineers 3D Printed a Mini Jet Engine, Then Took It to 33,000 RPM, GE REPORTS (Sept. 5, 2016), http://www.gereports.com/post/118394013625/these-engineers-3d- printed-a-mini-jet-engine-then. 276 Design patents, too, can provide protection if the object satisfies the statute's ornamentality requirement.
53. See Osborn, Bits and Atoms, supra note 4, at 595.
54. See, e.g., WERNER Z. HIRSCH, LAW AND ECONOMICS: AN INTRODUCTORY ANALYSIS 150- 51 (2d ed. 1984).
55. Breyer, supra note 211, at 344. As an initial matter, Breyer pointed out that the software industry had flourished without software protection. Id. 280 Id. at 345.
56. Samuelson, Uneasy Case, supra note 1, at 1777 ("[S]eventy percent of the total investment in the development of software in the United States in the early twenty-first century is either custom-developed software or software that firms develop for their internal uses."). 282
57. Breyer, supra note 211, at 345.
58. See Samuelson, Uneasy Case, supra note 1, at 1775 (noting that "software copyright law stabilized" toward the end of the twentieth century).
59. See Comput. Assocs. Int'l, Inc. v. Altai, Inc., 982 F.2d 693, 710 (2d Cir. 1992) ("Once a court has sifted out all elements of the allegedly infringed program which are 'ideas' or are dictated by efficiency or external factors, or taken from the public domain, there may remain a core of protectable expression. In terms of a work's copyright value, this is the golden nugget.").
60. See Pamela Samuelson, Strategies for Discerning the Boundaries of Copyright and Patent Protections, 92 NOTRE DAME L. REV. 1493, 1517-21 (2017) (discussing the "segmentation approach" in which different IP regimes protect different aspects of a work). 299 450 U.S. 175 (1981).
61. See, e.g., Data Gen. Corp. v. Grumman Sys. Support Corp., 825 F. Supp. 340, 359 (D. Mass. 1993);
62. Q-Co Indus. v. Hoffman, 625 F. Supp. 608, 617-18 (S.D.N.Y. 1985).
63. Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int'l, 134 S. Ct. 2347, 2352 (2014) (holding that a method of intermediated settlement was not patent eligible even if computer implemented); see supra notes 134-39 and accompanying text (discussing the decision's effects on software patents).
64. Oracle Am., Inc. v. Google Inc., 750 F.3d 1339, 1356-64 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (finding Oracle's declaring code to constitute copyrightable subject matter unaffected by merger or scenes a 306 See, e.g., id.
65. U.S.C. § 171 (2012) (requiring the design to be "ornamental").
66. See Osborn et al., supra note 10, at 1250 (positing that the Supreme Court targeted software patents in part from a belief that the inventions do not require the patent incentive).
67. See id. at 1225 (noting the harmful effects of patents); see also Robert P. Merges & Richard R. Nelson, On the Complex Economics of Patent Scope, 90 COLUM. L. REV. 839, 870 (1990) ("[B]road patents could discourage much useful research.").
68. See, e.g., Q-Co Indus. v. Hoffman, 625 F. Supp. 608, 617 (S.D.N.Y. 1985) (recognizing trade secret protection for source code and stating, "[t]he source code of the VPS-500 program is not accessible to the public").
69. See, e.g., Trandes Corp. v. Guy F. Atkinson Co., 996 F.2d 655, 663 n.8 (4th Cir. 1993) ("In [normal] cases, the owner of the software cannot claim trade secret protection for the object code because its disclosure to the public destroyed its secrecy.");
70. Q-Co Indus., 625 F. Supp. at 617 ("Only the object code is publically available . . . .");
71. Videotronics, Inc. v. Bend Elecs., 564 F. Supp. 1471, 1476 (D. Nev. 1983) ("[W]here such a computer program is made readily available to the public such as . . . here, its contents may not be deemed a trade secret unless access to it is actually treated as a secret . . . .").
72. See Beacon Wireless Sols., Inc. v. Garmin Int'l, Inc., 894 F. Supp. 2d 727, 733 (W.D. Va. 2012) (holding that because the defendants did not have access to the relevant technical details, "the defendants did not use or otherwise misappropriate these technical details when they utilized the plaintiffs' telematics hardware to test and develop the interface specifications and the software resident on the [devices]");
73. Silvaco Data Sys. v. Intel Corp., 109 Cal. Rptr. 3d 27, 34 325 See Lexmark Int'l, Inc. v. Static Control Components, Inc., 387 F.3d 522, 544 (6th Cir. 2004) ("[A] poem in the abstract could be copyrightable. But that does not mean that the poem receives copyright protection when it is used in the context of a lock-out code."). 326 See supra notes 111-21 (discussing fair use and misuse). Misuse can have an important role in egregious cases because misuse (until purged) can render the copyright unenforceable against the public, providing further certainty ex ante. See Lasercomb Am., Inc. v. Reynolds, 911 F.2d 970 (4th Cir. 1990).
74. Cf. Fromer, supra note 192, at 590-92 (noting the difficulty in ascertaining motives and offering alternative options).
75. A user could go into a STL or GCODE file and add comments if desired, as shown in Part I. 329 See supra notes 111-18 and accompanying text (discussing fair use).