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Berkeley law professor Pamela Samuelson’s recent article examines proposed reforms of the DMCA’s safe harbor rules that limit the liability of ISPs hosting user-generated content. Professor Samuelson urges Congress to “take a balanced approach” and “consider the interests of a wide range of stakeholders”.

Professor Pamela Samuelson, University of California, Berkeley, explains why Google’s win in the Oracle v. Google case is valuable for all software developers as well as the general public.

Last month, the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology gathered together scholars, policymakers, and interested stakeholders to consider what changes would make the next copyright act truly great. Consensus has been building that the Copyright Act of 1976 needs an overhaul to better resolve the challenges posed by emergent technologies. A recap of “The Next Great Copyright Act” symposium is provided by Patrick Goold.

To commemorate the twenty-first anniversary of the landmark decision on copyright protection for software, Computer Associates v Altai, the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology hosted a day long roundtable discussion. “Altai @ 21: Software Copyrights Revisited” gathered leading academics and practitioners to discuss the decision’s legacy and the upcoming appellate decision in Oracle v Google.

Do patents in the software and Internet industries encourage or impede innovation? Early this month Silicon Flatirons brought together leaders in government, industry, practice, and academia to discuss how law and policy for software patents should evolve to best promote innovation. Their conference, “Software Patents and Their Challenges,” is summarized in this post.

Do patents in the software and Internet industries encourage or impede innovation? To further understand the arguments of this debate, Silicon Flatirons hosted a conference early this month on Software Patents and Their Challenges. Excerpts from the first panel on the effect of software patents on innovation are presented in this post. TAP scholars Pamela Samuelson and Phil Weiser participated in the discussion.

In her recent papers, Professor Samuelson explores copyright law from three different perspectives: an author’s exclusive rights to derivative works; whether application program interfaces (APIs) of computer programs are copyrightable; and, she examines proposals for copyright reform.

In an op-ed piece for The Los Angeles Times, Professor Pamela Samuelson weighs the value of creating a digital collection of all the world’s books against the challenges of overcoming copyright law expenses and barriers.

Given that today is World Intellectual Property Day, TAP highlights a few scholars with expertise in intellectual property, patents, copyright, and trademarks.

In light of the signing of the America Invents Act, TAP takes a moment to highlight some of the articles TAP scholars have written that explore patent issues: proposed changes to patent law; the impact on innovation; and the nuances of software patents.