Center News
Faculty Co-Director James Boyle discusses 'cultural agoraphobia' at FICOD09 in Madrid
Professor Boyle was a featured speaker at Spain's annual International Forum on Web Content. Watch the video (English). Professor Boyle also spoke with Madrid daily ABC about the future of journalism in an Internet world - read the interview (in Spanish).
The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind
Faculty Co-Director Prof. James Boyle's book was recently named one of the American Society for Information Science and Technology Books of the Year for 2009.
Faculty Co-Director Arti Rai joins USPTO
Professor Rai is the new administrator for external affairs with the Patent and Trademark Office, where, among other duties, she will serve as a policy adviser to USPTO director David Kappos and work with Congress on domestic patent reform legislation. » more | » USPTO's website | Prof. Rai's first public appearance after assuming her position was an address to the Collegiate Inventors Competition. » read her remarks.
Open Access Week
Professor James Boyle, Faculty Co-Director, and Senior Associate Dean Richard Danner discuss the important role Open Access plays at Duke Law School and how it can benefit society. » more
Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom, recognized for her work in governing the commons, was persuaded by the Duke Conference on the Public Domain to write an article for the Center's Collected Papers, applying her ideas to intellectual property and the intangible commons.
The Crime of the (20th) Century: How we threw away our cultural heritage for no good reason (and whether Google Books will bring it back)
Professor James Boyle, Faculty Co-Director, discusses the public domain, its erosion by copyright, and the Google Books project. »View his talk at the University of North Carolina.
Designing a semicommons for materials in microbiology
Professor Jerome Reichman, Faculty Co-Director, presented an important framework for biological research sharing at "Designing the Microbial Research Commons: An International Symposium," a major conference sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences. »more
Center's comic book demystifies copyright law
To understand the complexities of the Disney-Marvel deal, reading Bound By Law? is suggested. » U.S. News & World Report
A Qualified Plan to Free Some 20th-Century Culture
Professor James Boyle, Faculty Co-Director, discusses copyright's stranglehold on 20th-century culture and the proposed Google Book settlement in a Financial Times op-ed piece.
Sagas do domínio público: Prisioneira da lei?
The Center's graphic novel, Tales of the Public Domain: Bound By Law?, is now available in a Portuguese translation by Duke Law School SJD candidate Ana Santos. Read the Portuguese translation [Online or PDF] / Leia a tradução portuguesa [Online ou PDF].
The benefits and challenges of data sharing and data archiving
"[A]t least one [person] has a smarter idea about what to do with your content than you do," says Prof. James Boyle, Faculty Co-Director. Read more about it in this recent article from Nature.
Structuring U.S. Innovation Policy: Creating a White House Office of Innovation Policy
In a recent report for the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, Professor Arti Rai, Faculty Co-Director, and Professor Stuart Benjamin propose regulatory protection for innovation. » ITIF
Misunderstanding Open Science
Professor James Boyle, Faculty Co-Director, speaks out about the dangers posed by a recently introduced bill that would restrict public access to taxpayer-funded research information. Read his Financial Times column or listen to his comments on American Public Media's Marketplace.
Intellectual property protection of databases, and alternative regimes to reconcile public science with the commercialization of research results
Professor Jerome H. Reichman, Faculty Co-Director, and Tracy Lewis are principal investigators on Duke University's Center for Public Genomics project that explores alternatives to the current intellectual property regime in genomics including a possible microbial commons. Find out more.
Economic Perspectives on Abstract Subject Matter Patents
Professor Arti Rai, Faculty Co-Director, chairs the panel discussion of a joint Brookings Institution, CCIA, and Duke Law School conference on "The Limits of Abstract Patents in an Intangible Economy." Read the transcript.
Professor James Boyle encourages rethinking intellectual property rights
Bad intellectual property policy unnecessarily locks up our cultural heritage, Boyle says. » FLYP
The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind
Faculty Co-Director James Boyle's new book explores the importance of the public domain to music, culture, science, and economic welfare and explains what we must do to protect it. Prof. Boyle discusses the book on BBC's In Business, NPR, North Carolina Public Radio, Connecticut Public Radio, and BBC's Thinking Allowed. Visit the book's web site to read the book online, check the reviews, and more.
The Public Domain wins 2008 McGannon Award; named American Society for Information Science and Technology Book of the Year for 2009. [ buy the book ]
COMMUNIA The European Thematic Network on the Digital Public Domain
The Center for the Study of the Public Domain is a member of the COMMUNIA Thematic Network, devoted to developing analysis and policy recommendations surrounding public domain issues in Europe and beyond. Learn more about COMMUNIA, its goals and its projects.
Owning Knowledge: Science, Health and Law in an Integrated World
Arti Rai, Faculty Co-Director, joins Sherry Glied, Joseph Stiglitz, Sir John Sulston, and Harold Varmus in a panel discussion presented by Columbia University's Committee on Global Thought. Watch the discussion.
Multilingual Educational Resources about Intellectual Property and the Public Domain
Find Chinese, French, Portuguese and Spanish translations of educational resources created for the Center to promote greater awareness and understanding about IP and the public domain. Visit the site.
Is Bayh-Dole Good for Developing Countries? Lessons from the US Experience
Faculty Co-Directors Arti Rai and Jerome Reichman and Senior Fellow Anthony So offer insights for developing countries considering laws modeled on the US Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 (with Bhaven N Sampat, Robert Cook-Deegan, Robert Weissman, and Amy Kapczynski). (read the article)
Intellectual Property: Specialized Courts: Lessons from the Federal Circuit
Faculty Co-Director Arti Rai speaks on a panel discussing the effectiveness of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit as part of the Federalist Society's 2008 National Lawyers Convention. [ view the video | more information ]
The Case for Public Funding and Public Oversight of Clinical Trials
Faculty Co-Director Jerome Reichman and Senior Fellow Dr. Anthony So argue in The Economists' Voice that clinical drug trials are public goods and should be publicly funded to avoid undersupply, suppression of adverse results, and other problems (with Tracy Lewis) (read)
IP and Synthetic Biology
Read Faculty Co-Director Arti Rai's seminal articles about intellectual property and "synthetic biology" - the attempt to construct new biological functions and systems, starting at the genetic level: Synthetic Biology: The Intellectual Property Puzzle (with Sapna Kumar) and Synthetic Biology: Caught Between Property Rights, the Public Domain, and the Commons (with James Boyle). Here Professor Rai's recent lecture on The Paradigm Shift of Synthetic Biology: Tensions Between Innovation and Security given at the University of Minnesota [ more information ].
Financial Times New Economy Policy Forum
Faculty Co-Director James Boyle is one of four regular columnists for the Financial Times online-edition's New Technology Policy Forum, where the columnists debate regulatory and legal issues generated by - and also shaping - high-tech industries. Recent columns:
7 Ways To Ruin A Technological Revolution
If you wanted to undermine the technological revolution of the last 30 years, using the law, how would you do it? Faculty Co-Director James Boyle provides answers at a Google Tech Talk. View the webcast
Kip and Meredith Frey Lecture in Intellectual Property
Professor James Boyle, "A Song's Tale: Mashups, Borrowing and the Law"
Professor Michael Carroll: "Musicians in Copyright's Federated Domain"
Professor James Boyle offers a sneak peek at the Center's new comic book
To Clear or not to Clear
Disappearing History?
Great Composers Steal
