By: Pravalika Surakanti

From Volume 15 (2025-2026)

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Abstract:

The paper focuses on the concept of trademark dilution in relation to luxury fashion brands in international markets. Focusing on the United States and the European Union, it will look at the different approaches these regions take and how certain holdups in dilution law affect fashion companies’ global brand protection strategies. The paper looks at the application of the Federal Trademark Dilution Act, the EU Trademark Directive, and other essential laws to their respective jurisdictions’ cases to determine the trends of trademark dilution claims. It is found that both regions provide luxury fashion houses with substantial protection; however, the European Union provides a stronger, more unified protection across markets. The paper then analyzes how the application of these laws likely led to decreased dilution claims in the United States but maintained claims in the European Union. Further investigation finds that it is likely that these claim trends in the U.S. and EU will continue. Using this information, the paper suggests actions and strategies for fashion companies to take into account while attempting to protect the meanings and associations connected to their marks.

By: Amanda Reid

From Volume 15 (2025-2026)

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Abstract:

The recent wave of state-level social media regulation represents an unprecedented experiment in territorial control of digital platforms. While constitutional questions around state authority remain central to these debates, this article examines a distinct but complementary concern: the mathematical reality of how overlapping technical requirements multiply compliance burdens. These laws aim to protect youth online through technical mandates, yet they create a regulatory patchwork that generates multiplicative rather than additive costs. Following combination theory [N(N-1)/2], each new state regulation creates conflict points with existing requirements.

This article analyzes how this regulatory multiplication affects platform architecture, user experience, and safety outcomes. By examining technical requirements from recently enacted state laws, three key findings emerge. First, state-specific technical mandates force fundamental changes to platform architecture, with each new jurisdiction multiplying system complexity that reduce reliability and divert resources from actual safety improvements. Second, contradictory state requirements create compounding operational burdens, particularly disadvantaging smaller platforms and new entrants—potentially leading to strategic market exit from heavily regulated states and increasing market concentration. Third, the regulatory patchwork paradoxically undermines its own safety goals by incentivizing technical workarounds, fragmenting user experience, and constraining safety innovation—effects that compound as platforms attempt to reconcile growing numbers of conflicting state requirements. These findings suggest the need to rethink assumptions about territorial regulation of global platforms and highlight how mathematical principles can help explain the systemic challenges of fragmented digital governance. This research contributes to both practical policy debates about platform regulation and theoretical understanding of scale challenges in digital governance.

By: Ida Samardar

From Volume 15 (2025-2026)

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William Patry, Speaker – Jackson Wahlbom and Ben Gillard, Interviewers

From Volume 14 (2024-2025)

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Volume 15, Episode 1: The Kids Aren’t Alright: COPPA in Online Gaming

Volume 15, Episode 2: An Interview with Chris Reed: EVP and General Counsel of Fox TV

Volume 15, Episode 3: To Sample or Not to Sample?

Volume 15, Episode 4: Mark My [Offensive] Words

Volume 15, Episode 5: Optis Takes a Bite out of Apple

Volume 15, Episode 6: An Interview with David Joyal: VP of Patents at Coty, Inc.

Volume 15, Episode 7: Oh Boy! Mickey Mouse Enters the Public Domain

Volume 15, Episode 8: The Environmental Impact of Generative AI

Volume 15, Episode 9: Made by Man? Patent Law and the Return of the Dinosaurs

Volume 15, Episode 10: The Surveillance State at Your Door

Volume 15, Episode 11: Give the Monkey His Copyright and Other Curious Cases of Authorship

By: Taysir Awad

From Volume 14 (2024-2025)

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Abstract:

At the dawn of this decade, generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) models were at the apogee of modern science and technology. Their emergence introduced the world to a new paradigm of creativity and innovation, where machines can synthesize art, literature, and design with unprecedented sophistication, blurring the boundaries between human ingenuity and algorithmic computation. These models have the capacity to regenerate Oscar Wilde with the depiction of Ansel Adams, rewrite Harry Potter with William Shakespear’s proverbial tongue, and redesign St. Peter’s Basilica with Gothic arches, Seljuk carved stones, and an Antoni Gaudi roof architecture, relocated in the heart of New York City with the facile of a prompt. Despite this novelty, the copyright industry was perturbed by what they considered a twofold threat to their livelihood. On the one hand, authors feared their works were being exploited, likely reproduced, without adequate remuneration. On the other hand, they feared these models were ominously generating new works, possibly derivative works, that directly compete with the very works that were used in the model’s formation. The matter is currently being adjudicated in courts across the globe.

This article examines whether fair use can protect AI companies from copyright liability for both the training process, which allegedly relies on the process of feeding AI datasets (foundation models) predominantly with copyrighted material scraped off the internet for purposes of machine learning; and the outputs that directly compete with the sampled material exploited during the training process. Although several scholars have begun to articulate their own thesis vis-à-vis its legality domestically, this article compares and anticipates how the judiciary in the United States will address these issues as opposed to courts in fair dealing jurisdictions across the globe. The article will expose how the dichotomy between the fair use doctrine and the fair dealing clause imperatively affects the progression of these types of technologies, concluding that fair use is more conductive to development than its foreign counterparts.

By: Hunter Schmittou

From Volume 14 (2024-2025)

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Abstract:

28 U.S.C. § 1498 allows the federal government and its contractors to use patented technologies without prior authorization, with the government assuming liability for infringement. While originally intended to facilitate procurement, its modern application has weakened patent protections, allowing contractors to incorporate patented innovations with minimal legal or financial consequences. This system disincentivizes private-sector investment in military technology, distorts competition, and increases procurement inefficiencies, ultimately placing the burden of infringement on taxpayers. The resulting imbalance not only stifles innovation but also entrenches reliance on a small group of dominant defense contractors, reducing technological diversity and slowing progress. Addressing these shortcomings requires structural reforms, including stronger licensing requirements, reallocation of infringement liability, and mechanisms to ensure good-faith licensing negotiations. Without intervention, Section 1498 will continue to undermine both technological advancement and the long-term efficiency of U.S. defense procurement.

By: Eden Sarid

From Volume 14 (2024-2025)

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Abstract:

Intellectual Property and queer theory share a fundamental concern with the interplay between private and public, tangible and intangible, and language and form. Queer theory emphasizes how language impacts the construction of identity and belonging, highlighting that discourse plays a pivotal role in structuring gender, sexuality, and normativity. Intellectual Property is often portrayed as strictly neutral, laser-focused on spurring creativity and innovation. However, is this portrayal reflective of reality? And does this purported neutrality hold up in IP’s rhetoric? By examining two principal IP terminologies through a queer lens – the term “protection” to describe IP legal privilege, and the metaphor of “paternity” to describe the link between authors and works – this article argues that IP rhetoric exhibits biased, gendered, and heteronormative characteristics. These terminologies reverberate in IP doctrine, case law, and literature, channelling certain individuals and groups into categories of proper and improper, socially desirable and undesirable, worthy and unworthy. This not only reinforces hegemonic power structures in innovation and culture but also significantly influences individuals’ well-being, participation, and the fabric of public life. Yet, it also exposes a powerful tenet of queer theory – the potential to reclaim terminologies and suggest different readings of conventional wisdoms. 

By: Karlie Hinton

From Volume 14 (2024-2025)

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