Last July, the Eastern District of Virginia upheld the cancellation of various trademarks of the Washington Redskins on the grounds that the marks were disparaging to Native Americans. I am neither a fan of football, nor of offensive names for sports teams–what I am is a fan of free speech. Although the Redskins may be well advised to change their team name, interfering with both the team’s right to free speech as well as its property right in the registered mark is the wrong way–both legally and in principle–to achieve socially desirable ends.

Various theories have been advanced, but the really interesting part of the dispute–a topic upon which I published a paper this year–is the likelihood that the Lanham Act’s prohibition of immoral, scandalous, or disparaging marks runs afoul of the First Amendment. I was cheered to see this week that the First Amendment Lawyers Association filed an amicus brief largely along the lines of my paper. However, there were a couple of points that I still feel deserve more attention when thinking about the § 2(a) (the Lanham Act’s so-called “morality clauses”).

Trademarks Are Not License Plates

The district court tried to sidestep the First Amendment issue by declaring that the trademarks themselves are not at issue, but merely the right to register the trademarks. To reach its result, the court relied on the recent Walker case wherein the Supreme Court declared that Texas was at liberty to prevent Confederate flags from appearing on its license plates, since license plates could be considered the speech of the government.

However, there is an important distinction between license plates and trademarks. License plates are a good totally of government manufacture. One cannot drive a car on a public road without applying to the government for permission and affixing a government registration tag on the vehicle. The plate is not a blank slate upon which one may express one’s self, but is a state-issued information placard used for law enforcement purposes.

Trademarks, arising as they do from actual use, preexist federal recognition. The Lanham Act merely provides a mechanism for registering trademarks that happen to be used in interstate commerce. The federal government then chooses to recognize that trademark when contested or offered for registration.

This is a major distinction: the social field of trademarks already exists – the federal government has chosen to regulate and provide an enforcement mechanism for these property rights and speech acts when used in interstate commerce. Thus it is the market for trademarks that constitutes the forum, and not the physically recorded government register. Given that the government has interfered in a preexisting market in a way in which it protects some state-created trademark property rights, but not others, is it proper to regulate speech by virtue of its content? I think not.

Further, license plates are obviously government property to anyone who looks at them. Plates bear the very name of the state directly on their face. The system of trademark registration is a largely invisible process that only becomes relevant during legal proceedings. When the public looks at a given trademark I would argue that the state’s imprimatur is certainly one of the last things of which they would think.

Thus, a restriction on “immoral” or “disparaging” trademarks constitutes viewpoint discrimination. Eugene Volokh echoed this sentiment when he wrote on the refusal to register “Stop the Islamisation of America”:

Trademark registration … is a government benefit program open to a wide array of speakers with little quality judgment. Like other such programs … it should be seen as a form of “limited public forum,” in which the government may impose content-based limits but not viewpoint-based ones. An exclusion of marks that disparage groups while allowing marks that praise those groups strikes me as viewpoint discrimination.

The Lanham Act endows registrants with government-guaranteed legal rights in connection with the words and symbols by which they are recognized in society. Particularly in a globalized, interconnected society, the brand of an entity is a significant component of how it speaks to society. Discriminating against marks as “immoral” or “disparaging” can be nothing short of viewpoint discrimination.

Commercial Speech Is Protected Speech

As everyone is well aware, the First Amendment provides broad protection for a wide spectrum of speech. The definition of speech itself is likewise broad, including not only words, but also non-verbal gestures and symbols. Any governmental curtailing of such speech will be “presumptively invalid,” with the burden of rebutting that presumption on the government.

When speech is undertaken as part of commerce it does not magically lose any political, social or religious dimension it had when in a noncommercial context. Cartoons issued bearing the image of the Prophet as part of a commercial magazine are surely a political statement deserving of protection. The situation is the same if an organization adopts a logo that is derisive to a particular political or religious ideology – that publication is making a protected, expressive statement through its branding.

At first glance, one might think that defenders of § 2(a) would attempt to qualify scandalous and immoral trademarks as “obscene” and thereby render them subject to censorship. But, in McGinley the Federal Circuit explicitly refused to apply the obscenity standards from the Supreme Court to §2(a) on the grounds that the Lanham Act does not itself use the word “obscenity.” Instead, the Federal Circuit, following the TTAB, was of the opinion that “[w]hat is denied are the benefits provided by the Lanham Act which enhance the value of a mark” and that the appellant still had legal recourse under state common law. Therefore, so the court in McGinley reasoned, since the right to use the mark is not actually abridged, no expression is abridged. And this is the primary basis upon which the district court in Pro-Football built its argument that no First Amendment concerns were implicated in canceling the Redskins trademark.

This of course willfully ignores once again the notion that in intervening in the field of trademarks, and in favoring certain speakers over others, courts effectively allows the Lanham Act to amplify preferred speech and burden disfavored speech. This is true whether or not we classify the trademark right as a bundle of procedural rights (which in turn make speech competitively possible) or as pure speech directly.

That said, it’s much more in keeping with the tradition of the First Amendment to understand trademarks as a protected category of commercial speech. The Supreme Court has noted that otherwise commercial information may at times be more urgent than even political dialog, and that information relating to a financial incentive was not necessarily commercial for First Amendment purposes. “[S]ignificant societal interests are served by such speech.” This is so because even entirely commercial speech “may often carry information of import to significant issues of the day.”

Even were commercial speech not fully protected–as I believe it to be–the Supreme Court has also recognized that commercial speech may be so intertwined with noncommercial speech so as to make them inseparable for First Amendment purposes. In particular, commercial messages do more than merely provide information about the characteristics of goods and services:

[S]olicitation is characteristically intertwined with informative and perhaps persuasive speech seeking support for particular causes or for particular views on economic, political, or social issues, and for the reality that without solicitation the flow of such information and advocacy would likely cease.

The analogy to trademarks is rather clear in this context. Although trademarks may refer to a particular product or service, that product or service is not of necessity a purely commercial object. Further, even if the product or service is a commercial object, the trademark itself can be, or can become, a symbolic referent and not a mere sales pitch. Consider, for instance, Mickey Mouse. The iconic mouse ears certainly represent a vast commercial empire generally, and specifically operate as a functional trademark for Mickey Mouse cartoons and merchandise. However, is there not much more of cultural significance to the mark than mere commercial value? The mouse ears represent something culturally – about childhood, about America, and about art – that is much more than merely a piece of pricing or quality information.

The Unconstitutional Conditions Doctrine Prevents Trading Rights for Privileges

The district court (and Federal Circuit, for that matter) have missed a very important dimension in summarily dismissing First Amendment concerns of trademark holders. These courts dismiss owners of “immoral” or “disparaging” trademarks on the belief that no actual harm is done – the mark holders still own the mark, and, as far as the court is concerned, no speech has been suppressed. However, trademark registration, in addition to providing a forum in which to speak, also provides real procedural benefits for the mark holder. For instance, businesses and individuals enjoy a nationwide recognition of their presence and can vindicate their interests in federal courts. Without the federal registration that is presumptively supplied to marks that are not “immoral” or “scandalous,” an individual can find himself attempting to protect his interests in a mark in the courts of every state in which he does business.

However, under the unconstitutional conditions doctrine even though the benefits of trademark registration are not constitutionally guaranteed rights, those benefits cannot be offered in exchange for a trademark owner’s loss of actually guaranteed rights. Thus, the tight link between trademark registration and First Amendment protections that the courts just keep ignoring.

Its also worth noting that this doctrine did not emerge in constitutional jurisprudence until after the period in which the Lanham Act was drafted. Instead, the Lanham Act era was characterized by the rights-privileges distinction–made famous by then Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Oliver Wendell Holmes. In McAuliffe, a police officer sued for reinstatement after he was dismissed for his participation in a political organization. In dismissing the case, Chief Justice Holmes held that “[t]he petitioner may have a constitutional right to talk politics, but he has no constitutional right to be a policeman.” This quote from Holmes captures precisely the sense in which the Federal Circuit dismisses the First Amendment concerns of mark holders. 

In contrast to this rather antiquated view, the Supreme Court has recently reaffirmed the proposition that “the government may not deny a benefit to a person because he exercises a constitutional right.” Although this principle contains exceptions, it has been applied to a wide variety of situations including refusal to renew teaching contracts over First Amendment-protected speech acts, and infringement of the right to travel by refusing to adequately extend healthcare benefits to sick persons who had not been residents of a county for at least a year.

Basically, the best defense one can offer for § 2(a) is rooted in an outmoded view of the First Amendment that is, to put it mildly, unconstitutional. We don’t shut down speakers who offend us (at least for the time being), and we should stop attacking trademarks that we find to be immoral.

Filed under: First amendment, intellectual property, Trademark Tagged: First Amendment, Intellectual property, trademark

Abstract

This Article examines a relatively new business strategy in the pharmaceutical market — “product hopping” or “product replacement” — in which brand pharmaceutical companies shift their marketing efforts from a drug nearing the end of its patent period to a new, substitute drug with a longer patent life. In July 2015, the Second Circuit issued an opinion in the first appellate case addressing pharmaceutical product replacement, NY v. Actavis. This Article explains that product replacement is the predictable business response to the incentives created by patent law and state substitution laws, and withdrawing an obsolete product from market when there is a new and improved version is clearly within the patent rights of a patent holder. However, in NY v. Actavis, the Second Circuit ruled that such product replacement activities are exclusionary and produce anticompetitive effects. The Court’s decision creates a duty for brand drug companies to continue selling obsolete drugs after patent expiry in order to allow generic competitors to take advantage of automatic substitution laws. Although the court intended this new duty to benefit consumers, the actual effects of the ruling are likely to be the opposite. Requiring pharmaceutical companies to continue marketing obsolete drugs will reduce incentives for innovation and will likely increase health care spending in the long run.

The Ninth Circuit made waves recently with its decision in Lenz v. Universal Music Corp., in which it decided that a plaintiff in a copyright infringement case must first take potential fair use considerations into account before filing a takedown notice under the DMCA. Lenz, represented by the EFF, claimed that Universal had not formed a good faith belief that an infringement had occurred as required by § 512(c)(3)(A)(v). Consequently, Lenz sought damages under § 512(f), alleging that Universal made material misrepresentations in issuing a takedown notice without first considering a fair use defense.

In reaching its holding, the Ninth Circuit decided that fair use should not be considered an affirmative defense–which is to say that it is not properly considered after an allegation, but must be considered when determining whether a prima facie claim exists. It starts from the text of the Copyright Act itself. According to 17 U.S.C. § 107

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work … is not an infringement of copyright.

In support of its contention, the Ninth Circuit goes on to cite a case in the Eleventh Circuit as well as legislative material suggesting that Congress intended that fair use no longer be considered as an affirmative defense. Thus, in the Ninth Circuit’s view, such fair use at best qualifies as a sort of quasi-defense, and most likely constitutes an element of an infringement claim. After all, if fair use is literally non-infringing, then establishing infringement requires ruling out fair use, as well.

Or so says the Ninth Circuit. But it takes little more than a Google search — let alone the legal research one should expect of federal judges and their clerks — to realize that the court is woefully, and utterly, incorrect.

Is Fair Use an Affirmative Defense ?

The Supreme Court has been perfectly clear that fair use is in fact an affirmative defense. In Campbell v. Acuff-Rose, the Supreme Court had occasion to consider the nature of fair use under § 107 in the context of determining whether 2 Live Crew’s parody of Roy Orbison’s “Pretty Woman” was a permissible use. In considering the fourth fair use factor, “the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work,” the Court held that “[s]ince fair use is an affirmative defense, its proponent would have difficulty carrying the burden of demonstrating fair use without favorable evidence about relevant markets.”

Further, in reaching this opinion the Court relied on its earlier precedent in Harper & Row, where, in discussing the “purpose of the use” prong of § 107, the Court said that “[t]he drafters [of § 107] resisted pressures from special interest groups to create presumptive categories of fair use, but structured the provision as an affirmative defense requiring a case-by-case analysis.”  Not surprisingly, other courts are inclined to follow the the Supreme Court. Thus the Eleventh Circuit, the Southern District of New York, and the Central District of California (here and here), to name but a few, all explicitly refer to fair use as an affirmative defense. Oh, and the Ninth Circuit did too, at least until Lenz.

The Ninth Circuit Dissembles

As part of its appeal, Universal relied on the settled notion that fair use is an affirmative defense in building its case. Perhaps because this understanding of fair use is so well established, Universal failed to cite extensively why this was so. And so (apparently unable to perform its own legal research), the Ninth Circuit dismissed § 107 as an affirmative defense out of hand, claiming that

Universal’s sole textual argument is that fair use is not “authorized by the law” because it is an affirmative defense that excuses otherwise infringing conduct … Supreme Court precedent squarely supports the conclusion that fair use does not fall into the latter camp: “[A]nyone who . . . makes a fair use of the work is not an infringer of the copyright with respect to such use.” Sony Corp. of Am. v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417, 433 (1984).”

It bears noting that the Court in Sony Corp. did not discuss whether or not fair use is an affirmative defense, whereas Acuff Rose (decided 10 years after Sony Corp.) and Harper & Row decisions do.

To shore up its argument, the Ninth Circuit then goes on to cite the Eleventh Circuit for the notion that the 1976 Act fundamentally changed the nature of fair use, moving it away from its affirmative defense roots. Quoting Bateman v. Mnemonics, Inc., the court claims that

Although the traditional approach is to view “fair use” as an affirmative defense, . . . it is better viewed as a right granted by the Copyright Act of 1976. Originally, as a judicial doctrine without any statutory basis, fair use was an infringement that was excused—this is presumably why it was treated as a defense. As a statutory doctrine, however, fair use is not an infringement. Thus, since the passage of the 1976 Act, fair use should no longer be considered an infringement to be excused; instead, it is logical to view fair use as a right. Regardless of how fair use is viewed, it is clear that the burden of proving fair use is always on the putative infringer.

But wait — didn’t I list the Eleventh Circuit as one of the (many) courts that have held fair use to be an affirmative defense? Why yes I did. It turns out that, as Devlin Hartline pointed out last week, the Ninth Circuit actually ripped the Eleventh Circuit text completely out of context. The full Bateman quote (from a footnote, it should be noted) is as follows:

Fair use traditionally has been treated as an affirmative defense to a charge of copyright infringement …. In viewing fair use as an excused infringement, the court must, in addressing this mixed question of law and fact, determine whether the use made of the original components of a copyrighted work is “fair” under 17 U.S.C. § 107 … Although the traditional approach is to view “fair use” as an affirmative defense, this writer, speaking only for himself, is of the opinion that it is better viewed as a right granted by the Copyright Act of 1976. Originally, as a judicial doctrine without any statutory basis, fair use was an infringement that was excused—this is presumably why it was treated as a defense. As a statutory doctrine, however, fair use is not an infringement. Thus, since the passage of the 1976 Act, fair use should no longer be considered an infringement to be excused; instead, it is logical to view fair use as a right. Regardless of how fair use is viewed, it is clear that the burden of proving fair use is always on the putative infringer.” (internal citations omitted, but emphasis added)

Better yet, in a subsequent opinion the Eleventh Circuit further clarified the position that the view of fair use as an affirmative defense is binding Supreme Court precedent, notwithstanding any judge’s personal preferences to the contrary.

But that’s not the worst of it. Not only did the court shamelessly misquote the Eleventh Circuit in stretching to find a justification for its prefered position, the court actually ignored its own precedent to the contrary. In Dr. Seuss Enterprises, L.P. v. Penguin Books USA, Inc., the Ninth Circuit held that

Since fair use is an affirmative defense, [the Defendant-Appellants] must bring forward favorable evidence about relevant markets. Given their failure to submit evidence on this point … we conclude that “it is impossible to deal with [fair use] except by recognizing that a silent record on an important factor bearing on fair use disentitle[s] the proponent of the defense[.]

Further, even if the Lenz court is correct that § 107 “unambiguously contemplates fair use as a use authorized by the law” — despite Supreme Court precedent — the authority the Ninth Circuit attempts to rely upon would still require defendants to raise a fair use defense after a prima facie claim was made, as “the burden of proving fair use is always on the putative infringer.”  

It Also Violates a Common Sense Reading of the DMCA

As with all other affirmative defenses, a plaintiff must first make out a prima facie case before the defense can be raised. So how do we make sense of the language in § 107 that determines fair use to not be infringement? In essence, it appears to be a case of inartful drafting.  Particularly in light of the stated aims of the DMCA — a law that was enacted after the Supreme Court established that fair use was an affirmative defense — the nature of fair use as an affirmative defense that can only be properly raised by an accused infringer is as close to black letter law as it gets.

The DMCA was enacted to strike a balance between the interests of rightsholders in protecting their property, and the interests of society in having an efficient mechanism for distributing content. Currently, rightsholders send out tens of millions of takedown notices every year to deal with the flood of piracy and other infringing uses. If rightsholders were required to consider fair use in advance of each of these, the system would be utterly unworkable — for instance, in Google’s search engine alone, over 54 million removal requests were made in just the month of August 2015 owing to potential copyright violations. While the evisceration of the DMCA is, of course, exactly what the plaintiffs (or more accurately, EFF, which represented the plaintiffs) in Lenz wanted, it’s not remotely what the hard-wrought compromise of the statute contemplates.

And the reason it would be unworkable is not just because of the volume of the complaints, but because fair use is such an amorphous concept that ultimately requires adjudication.

Not only are there four factors to consider in a fair use analysis, but there are no bright line rules to guide the application of the factors. The open ended nature of the defense essentially leaves it up to a defendant to explain just why his situation should not constitute infringement. Until a judge or a jury says otherwise, how is one to know whether a particular course of conduct qualifies for a fair use defense?

The Lenz court even acknowledges as much when it says

If, however, a copyright holder forms a subjective good faith belief the allegedly infringing material does not constitute fair use, we are in no position to dispute the copyright holder’s belief even if we would have reached the opposite conclusion. (emphasis added)

Thus, it is the slightest of fig leaves that is necessary to satisfy the Lenz court’s new requirement that fair use be considered before issuing a takedown notice.

What’s more, this statement from the court also demonstrates the near worthlessness of reading a prima facie fair use requirement into the takedown requirements. Short of a litigant explicitly disclaiming any efforts to consider fair use, the standard could be met with a bare assertion. It does, of course, remain an open question whether the computer algorithms the rightsholders employ in scanning for infringing content are actually capable of making fair use determinations — but perhaps throwing a monkey wrench — any monkey wrench — into the rightsholders’ automated notice-and-takedown systems was all the court was really after. I think we can at least be sure that that was EFF’s aim, anyway, as they apparently think that § 512 tends to be a tool of censorship in the hands of rightsholders.

The structure of the takedown and put-back provisions of the DMCA also cut against the Lenz court’s view. The put-back requirements of Section 512(g) suggest that affirmative defenses and other justifications for accused infringement would be brought up after a takedown notice was submitted. What would be the purpose of put-back response, if not to offer the accused infringers justifications and defenses to an allegation of infringement? Along with excuses such as having a license, or a work’s copyright being expired, an alleged infringer can bring up the fair use grounds under which he believed he was entitled to use the work in question.

In short, to require a rightsholder to analyze fair use in advance of a takedown request effectively requires her to read the mind of an infringer and figure out what excuse that party plans to raise as part of her defense. This surely can’t have been what Congress intended with the takedown provisions of the DMCA — enacted as they were years after the Supreme Court had created the widely recognized rule that fair use is an affirmative defense.

Well, widely recognized, that is, except in the Ninth Circuit. This month, anyway.

Update: I received some feedback on this piece which pointed out an assumption I was making with respect to the Ninth Circuit’s opinion, and which deserves a clarifying note. Essentially, the Lenz court splits the concept of affirmative defenses into two categories: (1) an affirmative defense that is merely a label owing to the procedural posture of a case and (2) an affirmative defense, as it is traditionally understood and that always puts the burden of production on a defendant.  By characterizing affirmative defenses in this way, the Lenz court gets to have its cake and eat it too:  when an actual proceeding is filed, a defendant will procedurally have the burden of production on the issue, but since fair use is at most a quasi-affirmative defense, the court felt it was fair to shift that same burden onto rightsholders when issuing a takedown letter.  So technically the court says that fair use is an affirmative defense (as a labeling matter), but it does not practically treat is as such for the purposes of takedown notices.

Filed under: copyright, intellectual property Tagged: copyright, Intellectual property

Recently, the en banc Federal Circuit decided in Suprema, Inc. v. ITC that the International Trade Commission could properly prevent the importation of articles that infringe under an indirect liability theory. The core of the dispute in Suprema was whether § 337 of the Tariff Act’s prohibition against “importing articles that . . . infringe a valid and enforceable United States patent” could be used to prevent the importation of articles that at the moment of importation were not (yet) directly infringing. In essence, is the ITC limited to acting only when there is a direct infringement, or can it also prohibit articles involved in an indirect infringement scheme — in this case under an inducement theory?

TOTM’s own Alden Abbott posted his view of the decision, and there are a couple of points we’d like to respond to, both embodied in this quote:

[The ITC’s Suprema decision] would likely be viewed unfavorably by the Supreme Court, which recently has shown reluctance about routinely invoking Chevron deference … Furthermore, the en banc majority’s willingness to find inducement liability at a time when direct patent infringement has not yet occurred (the point of importation) is very hard to square with the teachings of [Limelight v.] Akamai.

In truth, we are of two minds (four minds?) regarding this view. We’re deeply sympathetic with arguments that the Supreme Court has become — and should become — increasingly skeptical of blind Chevron deference. Recently, we filed a brief on the 2015 Open Internet Order that, in large part, argued that the FCC does not deserve Chevron deference under King v. Burwell, UARG v. EPA and Michigan v. EPA (among other important cases) along a very similar line of reasoning. However, much as we’d like to generally scale back Chevron deference, in this case we happen to think that the Federal Circuit got it right.

Put simply, “infringe” as used in § 337 plainly includes indirect infringement. Section 271 of the Patent Act makes it clear that indirect infringers are guilty of “infringement.” The legislative history of the section, as well as Supreme Court case law, makes it very clear that § 271 was a codification of both direct and indirect liability.

In taxonomic terms, § 271 codifies “infringement” as a top-level category, with “direct infringement” and “indirect infringement” as two distinct subcategories of infringement. The law further subdivides “indirect infringement” into sub-subcategories, “inducement” and “contributory infringement.” But all of these are “infringement.”

For instance, § 271(b) says that “[w]hoever actively induces infringement of a patent shall be liable as an infringer” (emphasis added). Thus, in terms of § 271, to induce infringement is to commit infringement within the meaning of the patent laws. And in § 337, assuming it follows § 271 (which seems appropriate given Congress’ stated purpose to “make it a more effective remedy for the protection of United States intellectual property rights” (emphasis added)), it must follow that when one imports “articles… that infringe” she can be liable for either (or both) § 271(a) direct infringement or § 271(b) inducement.

Frankly, we think this should end the analysis: There is no Chevron question here because the Tariff Act isn’t ambiguous.

But although it seems clear on the face of § 337 that “infringe” must include indirect infringement, at the very least § 337 is ambiguous and cannot clearly mean only “direct infringement.” Moreover, the history of patent law as well as the structure of the ITC’s powers both cut in favor of the ITC enforcing the Tariff Act against indirect infringers. The ITC’s interpretation of any ambiguity in the term “articles… that infringe” is surely reasonable.

The Ambiguity and History of § 337 Allows for Inducement Liability

Assuming for argument’s sake that § 337’s lack of specificity leaves room for debate as to what “infringe” means, there is nothing that militates definitively against indirect liability being included in § 337. The majority handles any ambiguity of this sort well:

[T]he shorthand phrase “articles that infringe” does not unambiguously exclude inducement of post-importation infringement… By using the word “infringe,” § 337 refers to 35 U.S.C. § 271, the statutory provision defining patent infringement. The word “infringe” does not narrow § 337’s scope to any particular subsections of § 271. As reflected in § 271 and the case law from before and after 1952, “infringement” is a term that encompasses both direct and indirect infringement, including infringement by importation that induces direct infringement of a method claim… Section 337 refers not just to infringement, but to “articles that infringe.” That phrase does not narrow the provision to exclude inducement of post-importation infringement. Rather, the phrase introduces textual uncertainty.

Further, the court notes that it has consistently held that inducement is a valid theory of liability on which to base § 337 cases.

And lest you think that this interpretation would give some new, expansive powers to the ITC (perhaps meriting something like a Brown & Williamson exception to Chevron deference), the ITC is still bound by all the defenses and limitations on indirect liability under § 271. Saying it has authority to police indirect infringement doesn’t give it carte blanche, nor any more power than US district courts currently have in adjudicating indirect infringement. In this case, the court went nowhere near the limits of Chevron in giving deference to the ITC’s decision that “articles… that infringe” emcompasses the well-established (and statutorily defined) law of indirect infringement.

Inducement Liability Isn’t Precluded by Limelight

Nor does the Supreme Court’s Limelight v. Akamai decision present any problem. Limelight is often quoted for the proposition that there can be no inducement liability without direct infringement. And it does stand for that, as do many other cases; that point is not really in any doubt. But what Alden and others (including the dissenters in Suprema) have cited it for is the proposition that inducement liability cannot attach unless all of the elements of inducement have already been practiced at the time of importation. Limelight does not support that contention, however.

Inducement liability contemplates direct infringement, but the direct infringement need not have been practiced by the same entity liable for inducement, nor at the same time as inducement (see, e.g., Standard Oil. v. Nippon). Instead, the direct infringement may come at a later time — and there is no dispute in Suprema regarding whether there was direct infringement (there was, as Suprema notes: “the Commission found that record evidence demonstrated that Mentalix had already directly infringed claim 19 within the United States prior to the initiation of the investigation.”).

Limelight, on the other hand, is about what constitutes the direct infringement element in an inducement case. The sole issue in Limelight was whether this “direct infringement element” required that all of the steps of a method patent be carried out by a single entity or entities acting in concert. In Limelight’s network there was a division of labor, so to speak, between the company and its customers, such that each carried out some of the steps of the method patent at issue. In effect, plaintiffs argued that Limelight should be liable for inducement because it practised some of the steps of the patented method, with the requisite intent that others would carry out the rest of the steps necessary for direct infringement. But neither Limelight nor its customers separately carried out all of the steps necessary for direct infringement.

The Court held (actually, it simply reiterated established law) that the method patent could never be violated unless a single party (or parties acting in concert) carried out all of the steps of the method necessary for direct infringement. Thus it also held that Limelight could not be liable for inducement because, on the facts of that case, none of its customers could ever be liable for the necessary, underlying direct infringement. Again — what was really at issue in Limelight were the requirements to establish the direct infringement necessary to prove inducement.

On remand, the Federal Circuit reinforced the point that Limelight was really about direct infringement and, by extension, who must be involved in the direct infringement element of an inducement claim. According to the court:

We conclude that the facts Akamai presented at trial constitute substantial evidence from which a jury could find that Limelight directed or controlled its customers’ performance of each remaining method step. As such, substantial evidence supports the jury’s verdict that all steps of the claimed methods were performed by or attributable to Limelight. Therefore, Limelight is liable for direct infringement.

The holding of Limelight is simply inapposite to the facts of Suprema. The crux of Suprema is whether the appropriate mens rea existed to support a claim of inducement — not whether the requisite direct infringement occurred or not.

The Structure of § 337 Supports The ITC’s Ability to Block Inducement

Further, as the majority in Suprema notes, the very idea of inducement liability necessarily contemplates that there will be a temporal separation between the event that gives rise to indirect liability and the future direct infringement (required to prove inducement). As the Suprema court briefly noted “Section 337(a)(1)(B)’s ‘sale . . . after importation’ language confirms that the Commission is permitted to focus on post-importation activity to identify the completion of infringement.”

In particular, each of the enforcement powers in § 337(a) contains a clause that, in addition to a prohibition against, e.g., infringing articles at the time of importation, also prohibits “the sale within the United States after importation by the owner, importer, or consignee, of articles[.]” Thus, Congress explicitly contemplated that the ITC would have the power to act upon articles at various points in time, not limiting it to a power effective only at the moment of importation.

Although the particular power to reach into the domestic market has to do with preventing the importer or its agent from making sales, this doesn’t undermine the larger point here: the ITC’s power to prevent infringing articles extends over a range of time. Given that “articles that … infringe” is at the very least ambiguous, and, as per the Federal Circuit (and our own position), this ambiguity allows for indirect infringement, it isn’t a stretch to infer that that Congress intended the ITC to have authority under § 337 to ban the import of articles that induce infringement that occurs only after the time of importation..

To interpret § 337 otherwise would be to render it absurd and to create a giant loophole that would enable infringers to easily circumvent the ITC’s enforcement powers.

A Dissent from the Dissent

The dissent also takes a curious approach to § 271 by mixing inducement and contributory infringement, and generally making a confusing mess of the two. For instance, Judge Dyk says

At the time of importation, the scanners neither directly infringe nor induce infringement… Instead, these staple articles may or may not ultimately be used to infringe… depending upon whether and how they are combined with domestically developed software after importation into the United States (emphasis added).

Whether or not the goods were “staples articles” (and thus potentially capable of substantial noninfringing uses) has nothing to do with whether or not there was inducement. Section 271 makes a very clear delineation between inducement in § 271(b) and contributory infringement in § 271(c). While a staple article of commerce capable of substantial noninfringing uses will not serve as the basis for a contributory infringement claim, it is irrelevant whether or not goods are such “staples” for purposes of establishing inducement.

The boundaries of inducement liability, by contrast, are focused on the intent of the actors: If there is an intent to induce, whether or not there is a substantial noninfringing use, there can be a violation of § 271. Contributory infringement and inducement receive treatment in separate paragraphs of § 271 and are separate doctrines comprising separate elements. This separation is so evident on the face of the law as well as in its history that the Supreme Court read the doctrine into copyright in Grokster — where, despite a potentially large number of non-infringing uses, the intent to induce infringement was sufficient to find liability.

Parting Thoughts on Chevron

We have some final thoughts on the Chevron question, because this is rightly a sore point in administrative law. In this case we think that the analysis should have ended at step one. Although the Federal Circuit began with an assumption of ambiguity, it was being generous to the appellants. Did Congress speak with clear intent? We think so. Section 271 very clearly includes direct infringement as well as indirect infringement within its definition of what constitutes infringement of a patent. When § 337 references “articles … that infringe” it seems fairly obvious that Congress intended the ITC to be able to enforce the prohibitions in § 271 in the context of imported goods.

But even if we advance to step two of the Chevron analysis, the ITC’s construction of § 337 is plainly permissible — and far from expansive. By asserting its authority here the ITC is simply policing the importation of infringing goods (which it clearly has the power to do), and doing so in the case of goods that indirectly infringe (a concept that has been part of US law for a very long time). If “infringe” as used in the Tariff Act is ambiguous, the ITC’s interpretation of it to include both indirect as well as direct infringement seems self-evidently reasonable.

Under the dissent’s (and Alden’s) interpretation of § 337, all that would be required to evade the ITC would be to import only the basic components of an article such that at the moment of importation there was no infringement. Once reassembled within the United States, the ITC’s power to prevent the sale of infringing goods would be nullified. Section 337 would thus be read to simply write out the entire “indirect infringement” subdivision of § 271 — an inference that seems like a much bigger stretch than that “infringement” under § 337 means all infringement under § 271. Congress was more than capable of referring only to “direct infringement” in § 337 if that’s what it intended.

Much as we would like to see Chevron limited, not every agency case is the place to fight this battle. If we are to have agencies, and we are to have a Chevron doctrine, there will be instances of valid deference to agency interpretations — regardless of how broadly or narrowly Chevron is interpreted. The ITC wasn’t making a power grab in Suprema, nor was its reading of the statute unexpected, inconsistent with its past practice, or expansive.

In short, Suprema doesn’t break any new statutory interpretation ground, nor present a novel question of “deep economic or political significance” akin to the question at issue in King v. Burwell. Like it or not, there will be no roots of an anti-Chevron-deference revolution growing out of Suprema.

Filed under: administrative law, intellectual property, international trade, International Trade Commission, patent, regulation, Supreme Court Tagged: Chevron, inducement, Intellectual property, international trade commission, ITC, Limelight, Patent infringement, regulation, Suprema

Much ink will be spilled at this site lauding Commissioner Joshua (Josh) Wright’s many contributions to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and justly so. I will focus narrowly on Josh Wright as a law and economics “provocateur,” who used his writings and speeches to “stir the pot” and subject the FTC’s actions to a law and economics spotlight. In particular, Josh highlighted the importance of decision theory, which teaches that bureaucratic agencies (such as the FTC) are inherently subject to error and high administrative costs, and should adopt procedures and rules of decision accordingly. Thus, to maximize welfare, an agency should adopt “optimal” rules, directed at minimizing the sum of false positives, false negatives, and administrative costs. In that regard, the FTC should pay particular attention to empirical evidence of actual harm, and not bring cases based on mere theoretical models of possible harm – models that are inherently likely to generate substantial false positives (predictions of consumer harm) and thereby run counter to a well-run decision-theoretical regime.

Josh became a Commissioner almost three years ago, so there are many of his writings to comment upon. Nevertheless, he is so prolific that a very good understanding of his law and economics approach may be gleaned merely by a perusal of his 2015 contributions. I will selectively focus upon a few representative examples of wisdom drawn from Josh Wright’s (hereinafter JW) 2015 writings, going in reverse chronological order. (A fuller and more detailed exposition of his approach over the years would warrant a long law review article.)

Earlier this month, in commenting on the importance of granting FTC economists (housed in the FTC’s Bureau of Economics (BE)) a greater public role in the framing of FTC decisions, JW honed in on the misuse of consent decrees to impose constraints on private sector behavior without hard evidence of consumer harm:

One [unfortunate] phenomenon is the so?called “compromise recommendation,” that is, a BE staff economist might recommend the FTC accept a consent decree rather than litigate or challenge a proposed merger when the underlying economic analysis reveals very little actual economic support for liability. In my experience, it is not uncommon for a BE staff analysis to convincingly demonstrate that competitive harm is possible but unlikely, but for BE staff to recommend against litigation on those grounds, but in favor of a consent order. The problem with this compromise approach is, of course, that a recommendation to enter into a consent order must also require economic evidence sufficient to give the Commission reason to believe that competitive harm is likely. . . . [What, then, is the solution?] Requiring BE to make public its economic rationale for supporting or rejecting a consent decree voted out by the Commission could offer a number of benefits at little cost. First, it offers BE a public avenue to communicate its findings to the public. Second, it reinforces the independent nature of the recommendation that BE offers. Third, it breaks the agency monopoly the FTC lawyers currently enjoy in terms of framing a particular matter to the public. The internal leverage BE gains by the ability to publish such a document may increase conflict between bureaus on the margin in close cases, but it will also provide BE a greater role in the consent process and a mechanism to discipline consents that are not supported by sound economics. I believe this would go a long ways towards minimizing the “compromise” recommendation that is most problematic in matters involving consent decrees.

In various writings, JW has cautioned that the FTC should apply an “evidence-based” approach to adjudication, and not lightly presume that particular conduct is anticompetitive – including in the area of patents. JW’s most recent pronouncement regarding an evidence-based approach is found in his July 2015 statement with fellow Commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen filed with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), recommending that the ITC apply an “evidence-based” approach in deciding (on public interest grounds) whether to exclude imports that infringe “standard essential patents” (SEPs):

There is no empirical evidence to support the theory that patent holdup is a common problem in real world markets. The theory that patent holdup is prevalent predicts that the threat of injunction leads to higher prices, reduced output, and lower rates of innovation. These are all testable implications. Contrary to these predictions, the empirical evidence is not consistent with the theory that patent holdup has resulted in a reduction of competition. . . .  An evidence-based approach to the public interest inquiry, i.e., one that requires proof that holdup actually occurred in a particular case, protects incentives to participate in standard setting by allowing SEP holders to seek and obtain exclusion orders when permitted by the SSO agreement at issue and in the absence of a showing of any improper use. In contrast, any proposal that would require the ITC to presume the existence of holdup and shift the burden of proof to SEP holders to show unwillingness threatens to deter participation in standard setting, particularly if an accused infringer can prove willingness simply by agreeing to be bound by terms determined by neutral adjudication.

In such matters as Cephalon (May 2015) and Cardinal Health (April 2015), JW teamed up with Commissioner Ohlhausen to caution that disgorgement of profits as an FTC remedy in competition cases should not be lightly pursued, and indeed should be subject to a policy statement that limits FTC discretion, in order to reduce costly business uncertainty and enforcement error.

JW also brought to bear decision-theoretic insights on consumer protection matters. For example, in his April 2015 dissent in Nomi Technologies, he castigated the FTC for entering into a consent decree when the evidence of consumer harm was exceedingly weak (suggesting a high probability of a false positive, in decision-theoretic terms):

The Commission’s decision to issue a complaint and accept a consent order for public comment in this matter is problematic for both legal and policy reasons. Section 5(b) of the FTC Act requires us, before issuing any complaint, to establish “reason to believe that [a violation has occurred]” and that an enforcement action would “be to the interest of the public.” While the Act does not set forth a separate standard for accepting a consent decree, I believe that threshold should be at least as high as for bringing the initial complaint. The Commission has not met the relatively low “reason to believe” bar because its complaint does not meet the basic requirements of the Commission’s 1983 Deception Policy Statement. Further, the complaint and proposed settlement risk significant harm to consumers by deterring industry participants from adopting business practices that benefit consumers.

Consistent with public choice insights, JW stated in an April 2015 speech that greater emphasis should be placed on public advocacy efforts aimed at opposing government-imposed restraints of trade, which have a greater potential for harm than purely private restraints. Thus, welfare would be enhanced by a reallocation of agency resources toward greater advocacy and less private enforcement:

[P]ublic restraints are especially pernicious for consumers and an especially worthy target for antitrust agencies. I am quite confident that a significant shift of agency resources away from enforcement efforts aimed at taming private restraints of trade and instead toward fighting public restraints would improve consumer welfare.

In March 2015 congressional testimony, JW explained his opposition to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) net neutrality regulation, honing in on the low likelihood of harm from private conduct (and thus implicitly the high risk of costly error and unwarranted regulatory costs) in this area:

Today I will discuss my belief that the FCC’s newest regulation does not make sense from an economic perspective. By this I mean that the FCC’s decision to regulate broadband providers as common carriers under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934 will make consumers of broadband internet service worse off, rather than better off. Central to my conclusion that the FCC’s attempts to regulate so-called “net neutrality” in the broadband industry will ultimately do more harm than good for consumers is that the FCC and commentators have failed to identify a problem worthy of regulation, much less cumbersome public-utility-style regulation under Title II.

At the same time, JW’s testimony also explained that in the face of hard evidence of actual consumer harm, the FTC could take – and indeed has taken on several instances – case-specific enforcement action.

Also in March 2015, in his dissent in Par Petroleum, JW further developed the theme that the FTC should not enter into a consent decree unless it has hard evidence of competitive harm – a mere theory does not suffice:

Prior to entering into a consent agreement with the merging parties, the Commission must first find reason to believe that a merger likely will substantially lessen competition under Section 7 of the Clayton Act. The fact that the Commission believes the proposed consent order is costless is not relevant to this determination. A plausible theory may be sufficient to establish the mere possibility of competitive harm, but that theory must be supported by record evidence to establish reason to believe its likelihood. Modern economic analysis supplies a variety of tools to assess rigorously the likelihood of competitive harm. These tools are particularly important where, as here, the conduct underlying the theory of harm – that is, vertical integration – is empirically established to be procompetitive more often than not. Here, to the extent those tools were used, they uncovered evidence that, consistent with the record as a whole, is insufficient to support a reason to believe the proposed transaction is likely to harm competition. Thus, I respectfully dissent and believe the Commission should close the investigation and allow the parties to complete the merger without imposing a remedy.

In a February 2015 speech on the need for greater clarity with respect to “unfair methods of competition” under Section 5 of the FTC Act, JW emphasized the problem of uncertainty generated by the FTC’s failure to adequately define unfair methods of competition:

The lack of institutional commitment to a stable definition of what constitutes an “unfair method of competition” leads to two sources of problematic variation in the agency’s interpretation of Section 5. One is that the agency’s interpretation of the statute in different cases need not be consistent even when the individual Commissioners remain constant. Another is that as the members of the Commission change over time, so does the agency’s Section 5 enforcement policy, leading to wide variations in how the Commission prosecutes “unfair methods of competition” over time. In short, the scope of the Commission’s Section 5 authority today is as broad or as narrow as a majority of commissioners believes it is.

Focusing on the empirical record, JW offered a sharp critique of FTC administrative adjudication (and the value of the FTC’s non-adjudicative research function) in another February 2015 speech:

The data show three things with significant implications for those  important questions. The first is that, despite modest but important achievements in administrative adjudication, it can offer in its defense only a mediocre substantive record and a dubious one when it comes to process. The second is that the FTC can and does influence antitrust law and competition policy through its unique research-and-reporting function. The third is, as measured by appeal and reversal rates, generalist courts get a fairly bad wrap relative to the performance of expert agencies like the FTC.

In the same speech, JW endorsed proposed congressional reforms to the FTC’s exercise of jurisdiction over mergers, embodied in the draft “Standard Merger and Acquisition Reviews Through Equal Rules (SMARTER) Act.” Those reforms include harmonizing the FTC and Justice Department’s preliminary injunction standards, and divesting the FTC of its authority to initiate and pursue administrative challenges to unconsummated mergers, thus requiring the agency to challenge those deals in federal court.

Finally, JW dissented from the FTC’s publication of an FTC staff report (based on an FTC workshop) on the “Internet of Things,” in light of the report’s failure to impose a cost-benefit framework on the recommendations it set forth:

[T]he Commission and our staff must actually engage in a rigorous cost-benefit analysis prior to disseminating best practices or legislative recommendations, given the real world consequences for the consumers we are obligated to protect. Acknowledging in passing, as the Workshop Report does, that various courses of actions related to the Internet of Things may well have some potential costs and benefits does not come close to passing muster as cost-benefit analysis. The Workshop Report does not perform any actual analysis whatsoever to ensure that, or even to give a rough sense of the likelihood that the benefits of the staff’s various proposals exceed their attendant costs.  Instead, the Workshop Report merely relies upon its own assertions and various surveys that are not necessarily representative and, in any event, do not shed much light on actual consumer preferences as revealed by conduct in the marketplace. This is simply not good enough; there is too much at stake for consumers as the Digital Revolution begins to transform their homes, vehicles, and other aspects of daily life. Paying lip service to the obvious fact that the various best practices and proposals discussed in the Workshop Report might have both costs and benefits, without in fact performing such an analysis, does nothing to inform the recommendations made in the Workshop Report.

To conclude, FTC Commissioner Josh Wright went beyond merely emphasizing the application of economic theory to individual FTC cases, by explaining the need to focus economic thinking on FTC policy formulation – in other words, viewing FTC administrative processes and decision-making from an economics-based, decision-theoretical perspective, with hard facts (not mere theory) a key consideration. If the FTC is to be true to its goal of advancing consumer welfare, it should fully adopt such a perspective on a going-forward basis. One may only hope that current and future FTC Commissioners will heed this teaching.

Excerpt

Despite much gnashing of teeth about a recent case that turns on a single word in the seemingly arcane 1930 Tariff Act, it’s just not true that The End of The Internet is upon us.

In reality, both the majority and dissenting opinions in the 2014 decision by the International Trade Commission are more like deep anesthetic before an intensive gum cleaning. They both turn on the nitty gritty details of last century’s machinations over the the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act — which you surely thought was safe to purge from your memory after your final high school US history exam.

The key issue in the case, now on appeal at the Federal Circuit, is the ITC’s decision to use its traditional authority over imports in a case involving electronically transmitted “digital articles.” And what began as a simple patent dispute between two manufacturers that make orthodontic appliances has turned into a cause celebre for a vocal cadre of critics who insist the ITC’s ruling will shut down the Internet.

Rest easy; it won’t. The ruling has only a few teeth, and they bite only cheaters.

Continue reading on Forbes

 

If you haven’t been following the ongoing developments emerging from the demise of Grooveshark, the story has only gotten more interesting. As the RIAA and major record labels have struggled to shut down infringing content on Grooveshark’s site (and now its copycats), groups like EFF would have us believe that the entire Internet was at stake — even in the face of a fairly marginal victory by the recording industry. In the most recent episode, the issuance of a TRO against CloudFlare — a CDN service provider for the copycat versions of Grooveshark — has sparked much controversy. Ironically for CloudFlare, however, its efforts to evade compliance with the TRO may well have opened it up to far more significant infringement liability.

Read the full piece here.

Remember when net neutrality wasn’t going to involve rate regulation and it was crazy to say that it would? Or that it wouldn’t lead to regulation of edge providers? Or that it was only about the last mile and not interconnection? Well, if the early petitions and complaints are a preview of more to come, the Open Internet Order may end up having the FCC regulating rates for interconnection and extending the reach of its privacy rules to edge providers.

On Monday, Consumer Watchdog petitioned the FCC to not only apply Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI) rules originally meant for telephone companies to ISPs, but to also start a rulemaking to require edge providers to honor Do Not Track requests in order to “promote broadband deployment” under Section 706. Of course, we warned of this possibility in our joint ICLE-TechFreedom legal comments:

For instance, it is not clear why the FCC could not, through Section 706, mandate “network level” copyright enforcement schemes or the DNS blocking that was at the heart of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). . . Thus, it would appear that Section 706, as re-interpreted by the FCC, would, under the D.C. Circuit’s Verizon decision, allow the FCC sweeping power to regulate the Internet up to and including (but not beyond) the process of “communications” on end-user devices. This could include not only copyright regulation but everything from cybersecurity to privacy to technical standards. (emphasis added).

While the merits of Do Not Track are debatable, it is worth noting that privacy regulation can go too far and actually drastically change the Internet ecosystem. In fact, it is actually a plausible scenario that overregulating data collection online could lead to the greater use of paywalls to access content.  This may actually be a greater threat to Internet Openness than anything ISPs have done.

And then yesterday, the first complaint under the new Open Internet rule was brought against Time Warner Cable by a small streaming video company called Commercial Network Services. According to several news stories, CNS “plans to file a peering complaint against Time Warner Cable under the Federal Communications Commission’s new network-neutrality rules unless the company strikes a free peering deal ASAP.” In other words, CNS is asking for rate regulation for interconnection. Under the Open Internet Order, the FCC can rule on such complaints, but it can only rule on a case-by-case basis. Either TWC assents to free peering, or the FCC intervenes and sets the rate for them, or the FCC dismisses the complaint altogether and pushes such decisions down the road.

This was another predictable development that many critics of the Open Internet Order warned about: there was no way to really avoid rate regulation once the FCC reclassified ISPs. While the FCC could reject this complaint, it is clear that they have the ability to impose de facto rate regulation through case-by-case adjudication. Whether it is rate regulation according to Title II (which the FCC ostensibly didn’t do through forbearance) is beside the point. This will have the same practical economic effects and will be functionally indistinguishable if/when it occurs.

In sum, while neither of these actions were contemplated by the FCC (they claim), such abstract rules are going to lead to random complaints like these, and companies are going to have to use the “ask FCC permission” process to try to figure out beforehand whether they should be investing or whether they’re going to be slammed. As Geoff Manne said in Wired:

That’s right—this new regime, which credits itself with preserving “permissionless innovation,” just put a bullet in its head. It puts innovators on notice, and ensures that the FCC has the authority (if it holds up in court) to enforce its vague rule against whatever it finds objectionable.

I mean, I don’t wanna brag or nothin, but it seems to me that we critics have been right so far. The reclassification of broadband Internet service as Title II has had the (supposedly) unintended consequence of sweeping in far more (both in scope of application and rules) than was supposedly bargained for. Hopefully the FCC rejects the petition and the complaint and reverses this course before it breaks the Internet.

Filed under: administrative, federal communications commission, international center for law & economics, internet, net neutrality, political economy, politics, regulation, technology, telecommunications Tagged: FCC, Federal Communications Commission, internet, net neutrality, Open Internet Order, politics, Time Warner Cable

Earlier this week Senators Orrin Hatch and Ron Wyden and Representative Paul Ryan introduced bipartisan, bicameral legislation, the Bipartisan Congressional Trade Priorities and Accountability Act of 2015 (otherwise known as Trade Promotion Authority or “fast track” negotiating authority). The bill would enable the Administration to negotiate free trade agreements subject to appropriate Congressional review.

Nothing bridges partisan divides like free trade.

Top presidential economic advisors from both parties support TPA. And the legislation was greeted with enthusiastic support from the business community. Indeed, a letter supporting the bill was signed by 269 of the country’s largest and most significant companies, including Apple, General Electric, Intel, and Microsoft.

Among other things, the legislation includes language calling on trading partners to respect and protect intellectual property. That language in particular was (not surprisingly) widely cheered in a letter to Congress signed by a coalition of sixteen technology, content, manufacturing and pharmaceutical trade associations, representing industries accounting for (according to the letter) “approximately 35 percent of U.S. GDP, more than one quarter of U.S. jobs, and 60 percent of U.S. exports.”

Strong IP protections also enjoy bipartisan support in much of the broader policy community. Indeed, ICLE recently joined sixty-seven think tanks, scholars, advocacy groups and stakeholders on a letter to Congress expressing support for strong IP protections, including in free trade agreements.

Despite this overwhelming support for the bill, the Internet Association (a trade association representing 34 Internet companies including giants like Google and Amazon, but mostly smaller companies like coinbase and okcupid) expressed concern with the intellectual property language in TPA legislation, asserting that “[i]t fails to adopt a balanced approach, including the recognition that limitations and exceptions in copyright law are necessary to promote the success of Internet platforms both at home and abroad.”

But the proposed TPA bill does recognize “limitations and exceptions in copyright law,” as the Internet Association is presumably well aware. Among other things, the bill supports “ensuring accelerated and full implementation of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights,” which specifically mentions exceptions and limitations on copyright, and it advocates “ensuring that the provisions of any trade agreement governing intellectual property rights that is entered into by the United States reflect a standard of protection similar to that found in United States law,” which also recognizes copyright exceptions and limitations.

What the bill doesn’t do — and wisely so — is advocate for the inclusion of mandatory fair use language in U.S. free trade agreements.

Fair use is an exception under U.S. copyright law to the normal rule that one must obtain permission from the copyright owner before exercising any of the exclusive rights in Section 106 of the Copyright Act.

Including such language in TPA would require U.S. negotiators to demand that trading partners enact U.S.-style fair use language. But as ICLE discussed in a recent White Paper, if broad, U.S.-style fair use exceptions are infused into trade agreements they could actually increase piracy and discourage artistic creation and innovation — particularly in nations without a strong legal tradition implementing such provisions.

All trade agreements entered into by the U.S. since 1994 include a mechanism for trading partners to enact copyright exceptions and limitations, including fair use, should they so choose. These copyright exceptions and limitations must conform to a global standard — the so-called “three-step test,” — established under the auspices of the 1994 Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement, and with roots going back to the 1967 amendments to the 1886 Berne Convention.

According to that standard,

Members shall confine limitations or exceptions to exclusive rights to

1. certain special cases, which
2. do not conflict with a normal exploitation of the work and
3. do not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the right holder.

This three-step test provides a workable standard for balancing copyright protections with other public interests. Most important, it sets flexible (but by no means unlimited) boundaries, so, rather than squeezing every jurisdiction into the same box, it accommodates a wide range of exceptions and limitations to copyright protection, ranging from the U.S.’ fair use approach to the fair dealing exception in other common law countries to the various statutory exceptions adopted in civil law jurisdictions.

Fair use is an inherently common law concept, developed by case-by-case analysis and a system of binding precedent. In the U.S. it has been codified by statute, but only after two centuries of common law development. Even as codified, fair use takes the form of guidance to judicial decision-makers assessing whether any particular use of a copyrighted work merits the exception; it is not a prescriptive statement, and judicial interpretation continues to define and evolve the doctrine.

Most countries in the world, on the other hand, have civil law systems that spell out specific exceptions to copyright protection, that don’t rely on judicial precedent, and that are thus incompatible with the common law, fair use approach. The importance of this legal flexibility can’t be understated: Only four countries out of the 166 signatories to the Berne Convention have adopted fair use since 1967.

Additionally, from an economic perspective the rationale for fair use would seem to be receding, not expanding, further eroding the justification for its mandatory adoption via free trade agreements.

As digital distribution, the Internet and a host of other technological advances have reduced transaction costs, it’s easier and cheaper for users to license copyrighted content. As a result, the need to rely on fair use to facilitate some socially valuable uses of content that otherwise wouldn’t occur because of prohibitive costs of contracting is diminished. Indeed, it’s even possible that the existence of fair use exceptions may inhibit the development of these sorts of mechanisms for simple, low-cost agreements between owners and users of content – with consequences beyond the material that is subject to the exceptions. While, indeed, some socially valuable uses, like parody, may merit exceptions because of rights holders’ unwillingness, rather than inability, to license, U.S.-style fair use is in no way necessary to facilitate such exceptions. In short, the boundaries of copyright exceptions should be contracting, not expanding.

It’s also worth noting that simple marketplace observations seem to undermine assertions by Internet companies that they can’t thrive without fair use. Google Search, for example, has grown big enough to attract the (misguided) attention of EU antitrust regulators, despite no European country having enacted a U.S-style fair use law. Indeed, European regulators claim that the company has a 90% share of the market — without fair use.

Meanwhile, companies like Netflix contend that their ability to cache temporary copies of video content in order to improve streaming quality would be imperiled without fair use. But it’s impossible to see how Netflix is able to negotiate extensive, complex contracts with copyright holders to actually show their content, but yet is somehow unable to negotiate an additional clause or two in those contracts to ensure the quality of those performances without fair use.

Properly bounded exceptions and limitations are an important aspect of any copyright regime. But given the mix of legal regimes among current prospective trading partners, as well as other countries with whom the U.S. might at some stage develop new FTAs, it’s highly likely that the introduction of U.S.-style fair use rules would be misinterpreted and misapplied in certain jurisdictions and could result in excessively lax copyright protection, undermining incentives to create and innovate. Of course for the self-described consumer advocates pushing for fair use, this is surely the goal. Further, mandating the inclusion of fair use in trade agreements through TPA legislation would, in essence, force the U.S. to ignore the legal regimes of its trading partners and weaken the protection of copyright in trade agreements, again undermining the incentive to create and innovate.

There is no principled reason, in short, for TPA to mandate adoption of U.S-style fair use in free trade agreements. Congress should pass TPA legislation as introduced, and resist any rent-seeking attempts to include fair use language.

Filed under: contracts, copyright, intellectual property, international center for law & economics, international politics, international trade, technology Tagged: copyright, copyright law, fair use, fast track, free trade agreements, Intellectual property, Intellectual Property Rights, TPA, trade agreement, trade agreements