BARTON BEEBE John M. Desmarais Professor of Intellectual Property Law

Current Projects:

Intellectual Property Law and the Problem of Aesthetic Progress, an article discussing how intellectual property law struggles to conceptualize and promote aesthetic progress.

The Suppressed Origins of Trademark Dilution Law, an article showing how U.S. trademark antidilution law originated in German antidilution law in the early-twentieth century. The article reveals how the U.S. trademark lawyer and scholar Frank Schechter deliberately misquoted German case law to suppress the misappropriation basis of antidilution law. Schechter’s conduct helps to explain fundamental differences to this day between European and U.S. trademark antidilution law.

Trademark Empirical Data Workshop, a two-day workshop co-sponsored by the Engelberg Center and the USPTO to occur at the USPTO in September 2013 on the empirical study of trademark registration data and other trademark-related data.

Empirical Study of Substantial Similarity in Courts, an empirical study of all district and appellate court decisions on substantial similarity in copyright law to assess the effect of various doctrinal choices on case outcomes and understand the implications of the Second and Ninth Circuits’ different frameworks for analyzing copyright infringement. This project is in collaboration with Jeanne Fromer (NYU School of Law), Neil Netanel (UCLA School of Law) and Matthew Sag (Loyola University School of Law).