Vermont is now on the path to becoming "the Delaware of the Net." Professor David Johnson and a team of NYLS students have helped to draft the nation’s first legislation that will make it easier to form and operate companies online, creating new opportunities for distributed work and innovation via the Internet. The Governor of Vermont recently signed Digital Corporate Transactions H.0458 into law. Johnson’s work with the State of Vermont is part of a larger project to foster a new type of economic production by allowing flexible collaboration among self-selecting, transient online groups.

On June 10, 2008, Associate Professor James Grimmelmann was a guest on “Charlotte Talks,” a morning radio show on WFAE 90.7FM in Charlotte, NC. Host Mike Collins and officers of RushmoreDrive.com (a search engine designed to meet the interests of the African-American community) discussed how search engines work and whether they're biased; Professor Grimmelmann joined in to explain some of the legal issues that search engines raise. A copy of the audio is available at the WFAE web site.

Prior art and commentary submitted by members of public under the nine-month old Peer-to-Patent examination project have already weeded out five patent applications that might otherwise have been mistakenly allowed, according to an April 25 statement by New York Law School, which initiated the project in cooperation with the Patent and Trademark Office.

On the Internet, "no one knows you are a dog" ... and every sociopath is your next door neighbor. This course explores the dark side of the Internet by examining how hackers, crackers, spammers, botnet herders, pornographers, con artists, child exploiters, organized crime, international terrorists, rogue corporations, hostile governments, and other assorted bad guys exploit and take advantage of the networked world. We examine how these developments impact law, policy and social response mechanisms. This course is not a criminal procedures class and should be of interest to anyone interested in cyber or information law generally.

Jacob Loshin, Law Clerk for the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and author of Secrets Revealed: How Magicians Protect Intellectual Property without Law, will discuss the challenges magicians face in protecting their intellectual property and the creative ways in which the magic community has adapted to those challenges.

On Friday, February 22, Major League Baseball Advanced Media, L.P. ("MLBAM") and the Major League Baseball Players Association ("MLBPA") filed a petition for a writ of certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court (No. 07-1099), seeking to overturn the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling that the first amendment protects free use of baseball players' names and statistics in fantasy sports games. MLBAM and the MLBPA both contend that the Eighth Circuit's ruling fails to properly balance important concerns about state-law publicity rights against first amendment interests. This lecture will analyze the need to find a balance between property rights and first amendment rights in the context of sports, as well as discuss some of the issues that the Supreme Court will likely consider if it grants cert.

Intellectual Property will become one of the key geopolitical issues of the 21st century. Corporate perspectives in patent law practice have already begun to shift from protecting IP to maximizing intellectual capital. What is the impact of an imbalanced patent...

Seth Krauss, the General Counsel of Take-Two Interactive, (publisher of Grand Theft Auto, Manhunt and Bully) will be the guest lecturer the evening of April 15 in Professor Boyd's Video Game Law class.

The Institute for Information Law & Policy at New York Law School and CompuMark are pleased to offer a one-hour clinic on the first steps of a proper trademark clearance, a requisite part of the due diligence an attorney should undertake before advising their client as to using a mark in the global economy.

On March 10, James H. Schnare II, General Counsel for Nicklaus Companies, LLC, discussed with guests the relevance of intellectual property to the golf industry, from celebrity lifestyle and marketing to protection of golf courses.