| Federal Unfair Competition Law |
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| The law of unfair competition is primarily comprised of torts that cause an economic injury to a business through a deceptive or wrongful business practice. Unfair competition consists of two broad categories. First, the term "unfair competition" is sometimes used to refer only to those torts that are meant to confuse consumers as to the source of the product. The other category, "unfair trade practices," comprises all other forms of unfair competition. In this context, unfair competition does not refer to the economic harms involving monopolies and antitrust legislation. More... |
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| Copyright and the United States Customs Service |
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| When goods subject to copyright protection are manufactured outside of the United States and sought to be imported or reimported, the aggrieved copyright owner may at times turn to a government agency for redress. The Copyright Act forbids importation of copies or phonorecords the making of which, had it taken place in the United States, would have constituted an infringement under American law. Specifically, the Copyright Act empowers the Secretary of the Treasury and the United States Postal Service, separately or jointly, to make regulations to enforce the importation prohibition. Pursuant to that authority, the United States Customs Service, an arm of the Treasury Department, has implemented supporting regulations.. More... |
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| Patent Law |
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| Strong patent protection for pharmaceuticals drives medical progress by providing economic incentives for innovation. Patents provide the patent owner with the legal means to prevent others from making, using, or selling the new invention for a limited period of time, subject to a number of exceptions. Patents only gives an inventor the right to prevent others from using the patented invention. A patent says nothing about whether the product is safe for consumers and whether it can be supplied. Patented pharmaceuticals still have to go through rigorous testing and approval before they can be put on the market.
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| The Small Webcaster Settlement Act of 2002 |
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| The Small Webcaster Settlement Act of 2002 (SWSA) allows the recording industry and small webcasters to negotiate lower webcasting royalty fees. The SWSA empowers SoundExchange, which is the recording industry's royalty collection clearinghouse, to enter into royalty rate agreements with small commercial and all noncommercial webcasters. More... |
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| Digital Performance Rights |
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| The owner of copyright has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize another, in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission. This provision was added to the Copyright Act by the Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act of 1995 (DPRA). The DPRA also added provisions limiting the new performance right. The DPRA specifically addressed subscription-based, interactive transmissions, while omitting non-interactive, digital subscription transmissions. These rights addressed the concerns of distributors of copyrighted works who believed that on-demand digital transmissions could decrease sales of recorded music. DPRA granted distributors the right to collect royalties on certain transmissions to allay the concerns of copyright holders More... |
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