In the United States and around the world, the fashion industry’s social and economic significance is undeniable. The international fashion apparel industry sells approximately $784 billion worth of apparel each year. In 2010, U.S. apparel sales reached $192 billion. While economically impressive, these large-scale numbers also reflect the social significance society attaches to fashion. Over the years, fashion has increasingly permeated many commercial aspects of American culture. Television shows and movies embrace the fashion industry as an audience-generating subject. Even our most fundamental information resources, such as newspapers and magazines, incorporate fashion industry coverage into what is considered national news. Fueling this increased attention toward the industry is consumer demand for both access to the seemingly glamorous world of creative design production, as well as the desire for knowledge of the current trends to implement into their everyday lives. Accordingly, fashion has become a defining aspect of modern society.

Under the Copyright Act, a copyright owner is only entitled to control the first sale of their copyrighted goods. Once a first sale occurs, the copyright owner's right to control distribution is exhausted. Subject to certain exceptions, copyright owners are, however, entitled to control the means by which their copies are imported into the United States. This Note seeks to reconcile the unresolved tension between these two rules of copyright law. Is there a right to control the importation of copies already once sold, and should it matter if those copies were manufactued outside the United States?

We are now accepting applications to join the Editorial Board of Volume 17 of the USF IPLB. Download the PDF of the application here. Applications can be completed electronically and must be submitted to us by 5:00pm March 10, 2012. Applications can either be submitted to our mailbox in Faculty Services (Kendrick 300) or through email to iplb@usfca.edu. If you choose to submit the file electronically, please put your name and class level in the name of the file.

Fifteen days before Apple's official unveiling of its iPad tablet computer, the Silicon Valley gossip blog Valleywag announced its "Apple Tablet Scavenger Hunt," offering cash prizes for information about the greatly anticipated device. Given Apple's litigious reputation, what happened next was no surprise. Apple's attorneys immediately issued a cease-and-desist letter demanding that Valleywag discontinue its "illegal" scavenger hunt. The letter stated that anyone who had access to the information Valleywag was willing to pay for-pictures, video, and access to the device-would be bound under strict confidentiality obligations and therefore Valleywag was inducing the misappropriation of trade secrets in violation of California law.

Defendant-counterclaimant Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. (“Blizzard”) is the creator of World of Warcraft (“WoW”) a popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game in which players interact in a virtual world while advancing through the game’s 70 levels. In 2004, WoW had ten million subscribers, of which two and a half million were in North America. Plaintiff, MDY Industries, LLC (“MDY”) developed and sold Glider, a software “bot” program that automatically plays the early levels of WoW for players.

Plaintiffs Tokai Corp., Scripto-Tokai, Inc., and Calico Brands, Inc., (collectively "Tokai") own three patents related to extended-rod safety utility lighters with automatic child-safety locking features. Tokai asserted that it sold more than one hundred million safety lighters in the U.S. under one or more of these patents. Defendants-counterclaimants Easton Enterprises, Inc., and Fun Line Industries, Inc., (collectively "Easton") also manufacture safety utility lighters, and according to Tokai, Easton has sold more than nine million lighters covered by Tokai's patents.

Universal Music Group Recordings, Inc. ("UMG") is one of the world's largest music companies. Its primary business is the creation, manufacture, and sale of recorded music. UMG ships promotional compact discs ("CDs") to a large but select group of recipients, such as music critics and radio programmers, without any prior agreement or request by the recipients to receive the CDs. Most of the promotional CDs include either a detailed promotional statement or a more succinct "Promotional Use Only - Not for Sale" statement.

Brooks Brothers, Inc. and its parent company Retail Brand Alliance, Inc. (collectively, "Brooks Brothers") manufacture and sell men's bowties. Several bowties sold by Brooks Brothers contain a mechanism manufactured by a third party, J.M.C. Bow Company, Inc. ("JMC"), called "Adjustolox," which is marked with patent numbers that expired in the years 1954 and 1955. Appellant Raymond Stauffer ("Stauffer") purchased several of the bowties. Stauffer brought a qui tam action against Brooks Brothers under 35 U.S.C. § 292, alleging that Brooks Brothers had falsely marked its bowties.

Despite some historically stark differences in database protection standards between jurisdictions that require skill, labor, and investment, and those that require a "higher" threshold of originality-such as requiring a work to exhibit creativity or the personality of its author-recent trends have put international standards of originality for database purposes on a convergent course. Notably, jurisdictions within the European Union provide distinct sui generis protection for databases in addition to potential copyright protection, while other jurisdictions, such as the United States, Canada, and Australia, protect databases only through copyright, subject to national standards of originality.

Defendant-counterclaimant Daniel Morel is a professional photographer who has worked in Haiti for over twenty-five years. While in Port-au-Prince on January 12, 2010, Morel survived the 7.0 magnitude earthquake and photographed the immediate aftermath of the disaster. Later that day, he uploaded his photographs onto the social networking site Twitter with the attributions "Morel" and "by photomorel."

Levi Strauss and Abercrombie & Fitch ("Abercrombie") are both manufacturers of denim jeans. Both manufacturers also mark their jeans with a decorative double arch stitched design. Levi Strauss has been selling jeans with its federally registered trademark "Arcuate" design since 1873. The Arcuate design is made up of two connecting arches that meet in the center of the pocket. In the past thirty years, Levi Strauss's jeans with the Arcuate design have accounted for nearly ninety-five percent of the company's revenue, totaling approximately fifty billion dollars.