I am a professor at Georgetown Law. My work currently focuses on the relationship between the First Amendment and false advertising law. I have advised and represented several fan fiction websites in disputes with copyright and trademark owners. I am a member of the board of the Organization for Transformative Works, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting and promoting fanworks. I am also an expert on the law of engagement rings.
Copyright
Worth a Thousand Words: The Images of Copyright Law, Harvard Law Review (2012)
Copyright starts with the written word as its model, then tries to fit everything else...
Scary Monsters: Hybrids, Mashups, and Other Illegitimate Children, Notre Dame L. Rev. (2011)
Human creativity, like human reproduction, always makes new out of old in ways that copyright...
Sight, Sound and Meaning: Teaching Intellectual Property with Audiovisual Materials, St. Louis U. L.J. (2008)
This article addresses the author's experience using audiovisual materials from the Georgetown Intellectual Property Teaching...
Payment in Credit: Copyright Law and Subcultural Creativity, Law & Contemporary Problems (2007)
Copyright lawyers talk and write a lot about the uncertainties of fair use and the...
Domain and Forum: Public Space, Public Freedom, COLUMBIA J. L. & ARTS (2007)
How should we think about the relationship between copyright and the First Amendment? Many answers...
Trademark
Looking at the Lanham Act: Images in Trademark and Advertising Law, Houston Law Review (2011)
Words are the prototypical regulatory subjects for trademark and advertising law, despite our increasingly audiovisual...
Towards Symmetry in the Law of Branding, Fordham Intell. Prop. Media & Ent. L.J (2011)
Companies sometimes want to abandon an old identity and rebrand with a new one. Trademark...
Gone in Sixty Milliseconds: Trademark Law and Cognitive Science, Tex. L. Rev. (2008)
Trademark dilution is a cause of action for interfering with the uniqueness of a trademark....
Sight, Sound and Meaning: Teaching Intellectual Property with Audiovisual Materials, St. Louis U. L.J. (2008)
This article addresses the author's experience using audiovisual materials from the Georgetown Intellectual Property Teaching...
Truth and Advertising: The Lanham Act and Commercial Speech Doctrine, Trademark Law and Theory: A Handbook of Contemporary Research (2008)
The Lanham Act and its state counterparts in trademark and unfair competition law regulate speech...
Marital Law
Intellectual Property Law
Worth a Thousand Words: The Images of Copyright Law, Harvard Law Review (2012)
Copyright starts with the written word as its model, then tries to fit everything else...
Scary Monsters: Hybrids, Mashups, and Other Illegitimate Children, Notre Dame L. Rev. (2011)
Human creativity, like human reproduction, always makes new out of old in ways that copyright...
Running the Gamut from A to B: Federal Trademark and False Advertising Law, ExpressO (2010)
The Lanham Act bars both trademark infringement and false advertising, in nearly identical and often...
Unfair Competition and Uncommon Sense, Iowa L. Rev. (Bull.) (2010)
This article discusses Mark McKenna’s Testing Modern Trademark Law’s Theory of Harm as an important...
Gone in Sixty Milliseconds: Trademark Law and Cognitive Science, Tex. L. Rev. (2008)
Trademark dilution is a cause of action for interfering with the uniqueness of a trademark....
Consumer Protection Law
Running the Gamut from A to B: Federal Trademark and False Advertising Law, ExpressO (2010)
The Lanham Act bars both trademark infringement and false advertising, in nearly identical and often...
Unfair Competition and Uncommon Sense, Iowa L. Rev. (Bull.) (2010)
This article discusses Mark McKenna’s Testing Modern Trademark Law’s Theory of Harm as an important...
It Depends on What the Meaning of "False" is: Falsity and Misleadingness in Commercial Speech Doctrine, Loy. L.A. L. Rev. (2007)
While scholarship regarding the Supreme Court's noncommercial speech doctrine has often focused on the level...
Why the Customer Isn’t Always Right: Producer-Based Limits on Rights Accretion in Trademark, Yale L.J. (The Pocket Part) (2007)
In this article the author responds to James Gibson’s article Risk Aversion and Rights Accretion...