Intellectual Property Contract

							Intellectual Property

   Boston College Law School
         April 19, 2007
  State Law – Misappropriation
 State Intellectual Property Laws
• Different areas
  –   Trade Secret
  –   Misappropriation
  –   Contract
  –   Publicity
  –   Moral Rights
  –   Trespass
• Preemption
                   Feist Hypo
• Facts of Feist
  – Rural publishes white pages
  – Assume substantial cost to collect and assemble
  – Feist uses data to create competing directory
• Misappropriation under INS?
              NBA v. Motorola
• “Hot news” misappropriation claim
  –   (i) Plaintiff collects information at cost/expense
  –   (ii) Value of info highly time-sensitive
  –   (iii) Defendant’s use free rides on effort to collect
  –   (iv) Defendant’s use is in direct competition
  –   (v) Free-riding so reduces incentives to collect
      that existence or quality of information
      substantially affected
    Misappropriation Examples
• Data Scraping
  – Auction data
  – Travel data
  – Real estate listings
• Sports tracking internet sites
• Fantasy sports league sites
        Database Legislation
• European Union Directive
  – Requires protection of certain databases
  – Those requiring substantial investment
  – Right to prevent use of large portions
• U.S. Database Bills
  – Similar structure
  – Based on a misappropriation tort
         Database Legislation
• Arguments in support
  – Public goods problem for certain databases
  – Limited right against misappropriation
• Arguments against
  – No public goods problem
     • Other forms of legal protection
     • Availability of self-help, business models
  – Potential costs of tying up data
            Administrative
• Next Assignment
  – Read VII.B – Contract