A license is not a "contract not to sue": Disentangling property and contract in the law of copyright licenses

Iowa Law Review

Volumn 98, Issue 3, 2013, Pages 1101-1162

  Newman, Christopher M ^a  

^a GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84878789061     PISSN: 00210552     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (69)

1. McCoy v. Mitsuboshi Cutlery, Inc., 67 F.3d 917, 920 (Fed. Cir. 1995)
2. quoting Power Lift, Inc. v. Weatherford Nipple-Up Sys., 871 F.2d 1082, 1085 (Fed. Cir. 1989)
3. See, e.g., Aronson v. Quick Point Pencil Co., 440 U.S. 257, 262 (1979)
4. Cincom Sys. v. Novelis Corp., 581 F.3d 431, 437 (6th Cir. 2009)
5. citing Everex Sys., Inc. v. Cadtrak Corp. (In re CFLC, Inc.), 89 F.3d 673, 677 (9th Cir. 1996
6. McCoy, 67 F.3d at 920
7. quoting Power Lift, Inc., 871 F.2d at 1085
8. A. Natterman & Cie GmbH v. Bayer Corp., 428 F. Supp. 2d 253, 258 (E.D. Pa. 2006)
9. (quoting State Contracting & Eng'g Corp. v. Florida, 258 F.3d 1329, 1339 (Fed. Cir. 2001)).
10. See, e.g., Harris v. Emus Records Corp., 734 F.2d 1329, 1334 (9th Cir. 1984)
11. citing United States v. Studiengesellschaft Kohle, m.b.H., 670 F.2d 1122, 1127 (D.C. Cir. 1981
12. W. Elec. Co. v. Pacent Reproducter Corp., 42 F.2d 116, 118 (2d Cir. 1930)))
13. STAFF OF S. COMM. ON THE JUDICIARY, 86TH CONG., DIVISIBILITY OF COPYRIGHTS 1 (Comm. Print 1960)
14. 1 RAYMOND T. NIMMER & JEFF C. DODD, MODERN LICENSING LAW § 10:8 (2010- 2011 ed. 2010)
15. MELVILLE B. NIMMER & DAVID NIMMER, NIMMER ON COPYRIGHT § 10.01[C][5] & n.73.1 (Matthew Bender rev. ed. 2010)
16. See RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF CONTRACTS § 17 (1981)
17. See 17 U.S.C. §§ 504-505 (2006).
18. See RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF CONTRACTS § 359
19. RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF CONTRACTS §§ 237-242.
20. See Thomas W. Merrill & Henry E. Smith, The Property/Contract Interface, 101 COLUM. L. REV. 773, 827-28 (2001)
21. Eben Moglen, Enforcing the GNU GPL, GNU OPERATING SYS. (Sept. 10, 2001), http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/enforcing-gpl.html
22. see also ROBERT W. GOMULKIEWICZ ET AL., LICENSING INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY: LAW AND APPLICATION 4 (2d ed. 2011)
23. See Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld, Faulty Analysis in Easement and License Cases, 27 YALE L.J. 66, 92 (1917).
24. Cf. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, THE COMMON LAW 3 (Harvard Univ. Press 2009) (1881).
25. Henry E. Smith, On the Economy of Concepts in Property, 160 U. PA. L. REV. 2097 (2012).
26. See STEPHEN A. SMITH, CONTRACT THEORY 7-13, 24-32 (2004).
27. RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF CONTRACTS § 1 (1981)
28. Christopher M. Newman, Transformation in Property and Copyright, 56 VILL. L. REV. 251, 263-64 (2011).
29. See, e.g., Robert P. Merges, A Transactional View of Property Rights, 20 BERKELEY TECH. L.J. 1477 (2005)
30. Armen A. Alchian, Some Economics of Property Rights, reprinted in ECONOMIC FORCES AT WORK 127, 130 (1977)
31. Larissa Katz, Exclusion and Exclusivity in Property Law, 58 U. TORONTO L.J. 275, 275 (2008)
32. Adam Mossoff, What Is Property? Putting the Pieces Back Together, 45 ARIZ. L. REV. 371, 393 (2003)
33. J.E. Penner, The "Bundle of Rights" Picture of Property, 43 UCLA L. REV. 711, 742 (1996)
34. Eric R. Claeys, Property 101: Is Property a Thing or a Bundle?, 32 SEATTLE U. L. REV. 617, 631 (2009)
35. THOMAS W. MERRILL & HENRY E. SMITH, PROPERTY: PRINCIPLES AND POLICIES (2007)
36. Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld, Some Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning, 23 YALE L.J. 16, 33-44 (1913).
37. Daniel B. Klein & John Robinson, Property: A Bundle of Rights?, 8 ECON J. WATCH 193 (2011), http://econjwatch.org/file-download/498/ KleinRobinsonSept2011.pdf
38. Henry E. Smith, Property as the Law of Things, 125 HARV. L. REV. 1691, 1697 (2012)
39. See Christopher M. Newman, Patent Infringement as Nuisance, 59 CATH. U. L. REV. 61, 106-07 (2009)
40. See Charles E. Clark, Licenses in Real Property Law, 21 COLUM. L. REV. 757, 758-62 (1921).
41. See Albert J. Harno, The Revocability of Licenses as Applied to Property in Land, 7 KY. L.J. 1, 1 (1919)
42. See Adam Mossoff, A Simple Conveyance Rule for Complex Innovation, 44 TULSA L. REV. 707, 714 (2009)
43. Lon L. Fuller, Consideration and Form, 41 COLUM. L. REV. 799, 800-01 (1941).
44. See Jonathan Hill, The Termination of Bare Licences, 60 CAMBRIDGE L.J. 89, 89-91 (2001)
45. See W.W. BUCKLAND, A MANUAL OF ROMAN PRIVATE LAW 135-37 (1939)
46. see also ALFRED WILLIAM BRIAN SIMPSON, A HISTORY OF THE LAND LAW 119- 20 (2d. ed. 1986).
47. Philip Hamburger, The Conveyancing Purposes of the Statute of Frauds, 27 AM. J. LEGAL HIST. 354, 372 (1983).
48. See Molly Shaffer Van Houweling, The New Servitudes, 96 GEO. L.J. 885, 906-14 (2008).
49. See 52A C.J.S. Landlord and Tenant § 729 (2012)
50. See SAMUEL WILLISTON & RICHARD A. LORD, A TREATISE ON THE LAW OF CONTRACTS § 1.2 (4th ed. 2007)
51. Henry E. Smith, Property and Property Rules, 79 N.Y.U. L. REV. 1719 (2004).
52. See Bennett Liebman, The Supreme Court and Exclusions by Racetracks, 17 VILL. SPORTS & ENT. L.J. 421, 471 (2010)
53. John G. Cameron, Jr., Easements and Other Servitudes (ALI-ABA Course of Study, July 28-30, 2011), WL ST005 ALI-ABA 815
54. See S.S. Merrill, Licenses Among Individuals, 39 CENT. L.J. 220, 221 & n.32 (1894)
55. See ARTHUR W. WEIL, AMERICAN COPYRIGHT LAW 546 (1917)
56. Ridsdale Ellis, Validity of Doctrine That a Full Exclusive License Is in Fact an Assignment, 36 J. PAT. OFF. SOC'Y 643, 644 (1954)
57. See ROBERT P. MERGES, JUSTIFYING INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY 31-67 (2011)
58. See generally WILLIAM M. LANDES & RICHARD A. POSNER, THE ECONOMIC STRUCTURE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW (2003).
59. Harry G. Henn, "Magazine Rights"-A Division of Indivisible Copyright, 40 CORNELL L.Q. 411, 417-18 (1955)
60. See Attribution 3.0 Unported, CREATIVE COMMONS, http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode.
61. See The Perl Found., Artistic License 2.0, OPEN SOURCE INITIATIVE, http://opensource.org/licenses/artistic-license-2.0 (last visited Nov. 15, 2012).
62. See generally Julie E. Cohen, Copyright and the Jurisprudence of Self-Help, 13 BERKELEY TECH. L.J. 1089 (1998)
63. Douglas Ivor Brandon et al., Special Project, Self-Help: Extrajudicial Rights, Privileges and Remedies in Contemporary American Society, 37 VAND. L. REV. 845 (1984).
64. Jacobsen, 535 F.3d at 1380.
65. To view the Artistic License, see The Perl Found., Artistic License 1.0, PERL, http://www.perlfoundation.org/artistic-license-1-0 (last visited Nov. 15, 2012).
66. Michael J. Madison, Reconstructing the Software License, 35 LOY. U. CHI. L.J. 275 (2003).
67. See, e.g., the various licenses available at Choose a License, CREATIVE COMMONS, http://creativecommons.org/choose (last visited Nov. 16, 2012).
68. See, e.g., 2 WILLIAM F. PATRY, PATRY ON COPYRIGHT § 5:103 (2012)
69. Alice Haemmerli, Why Doctrine Matters: Patent and Copyright Licensing and the Meaning of Ownership in Federal Context, 30 COLUM. J.L. & ARTS 1, 2 (2006)