Intellectual Property Books

This book claims to be an introduction to online intellectual property research. However, there is so little on patents that the topic should have been left out altogether and the title revised accordingly. The key types of patent searches, invalidation and freedom-to-operate, don't appear in the book.

If you are doing a Phd dissertation on the topic of licensing intellectual property, this could be the right book for you. If you are looking for a practical, day-to-day overview of these concepts and how to leverage IP assets for your business, I would not recommend this book. I'm still looking!

If one wishes a confusing and confused book, at an exorbitant cost [$57.95 + S&H for 137 pp + 67 pp of appendices and indices = 42.3 cents per page of text!] concerning an intellectually stimulating melieu, then and only then, is Galler's monograph a must purchase. In short, one cannot recommend that any university or public library acquire it for its collection. However, it is possible that ignorant judges rendering ignorant decisions might cite this monograph as "expert" opinion. The foreward states that: "the power of clear statement is the ultimate gift of the great teacher." Galler falls far short of meeeting that criterion. In reviewing this work, one must start with the premise that Intellectual Property [IP], like artifical intelligence, is an oxymoron. In legal and economic terms, property is a tangible that can be possessed by only one person at one moment in time. In other words, Property represents a zero-sum game: If I possess it, then you don't. IP on the other hand can be possessed by the many without diminuation to any other would-be possessor. A user of WINDOWS 2000, the illegitimate descendent of DOS 4.0 and TOPVIEW, does not interfere with any other user of WIN. Thus IP is a collection of legal aplets which are used to create scarcity and exclusivity for their putative owners. The protection concept subsumed by IP does not "protect" the customer from anything. The protection furnished by IP to the putative owners is evanescent, e.g. IP, at best, is a hunting license for future lawsuits by a deep pocket litigant. One is tempted to tell Galler how he should have written the book, since the overall format is promising if competantly developed. The notion of comparing copyright, patent, and trade secret objects within a small universe of 32 court decisions merits instant approval. The individual chapter headings on substantial similarities, reverse engineering, the merger defense, "look and feel", and the doctrine of "equivilancies" under patent law, all merit thoughtful and insightful treatment by someone who is at home with legal constructs and technological palaver. A book that defines technological terms for the legal persona and legal constructs for the technological would be valuable. Galler himself is confused by his own constructs of "textual", "behavioral", "static", and "dynamic" structures and this reviewer remains confused by Galler's exegesis on technological metaphors and legal metaphors. There is no discussion in this book of the Economic issues of IP. One looks in vain for any mention of antitrust, venture financing, royalties, license fees, blanket licensing agreements, and other profit & loss issues. Galler does not deal with the legal/economic tensions inherent in using multiple IP constructs: adhesion contracts + hardware patents + copyright + trade secret, which erect a razor wire fence around IP technology. One also notes that it is rare in our present technology for the human creator of IP to be the legal owner thereof. Galler's chapters seem to hint at an historical imperative that is quite Hegelian in its implications: if a company wins an IP lawsuit, then that company's IP products and services will not survive. If Apple had lost its lawsuit to remove the garbage can from GEM's TOPVIEW, then the Apple OS might be the industry standard instead of the DOS 7.0 /WIN 95 /"BOB" OS. Microsoft lost its IP lawsuit with IBM over OS2, and WIN95 is a de facto standard. IBM lost its IP battle with Phoenix over BIOS, and Phoenix is now the de facto standard. IBM won its battle with Antitrust, and is now a nonentity on the desktop with overpriced mediocre hardware that relies on WIN98 rather than OS/2 3.0 [aka WIN NT and/or WINDOWS 2000]. Microsoft's victory over the Justice Dept. on the bundling of OS for OEMs appears Pyrrhic in nature, even though BOB didn't make it from a wedding present to a viable interface.

The table of contents posted and the fact that this book is being offered on Amazon.com led me to believe that this book would help me as a businessperson understand various aspects of copyright. I have found it a colossal waste of money, and I am returning it today. Be warned: this book is for lawyers only. It is nothing but an incomprehensible (to non-lawyers) bunch of actual case findings. No english here. If you aren't a lawyer, don't buy this!

When I received this book, I found there were a lot of eraser shavings inside whole of the book. The original owner or the seller just erased the notes on this book, or the seller did not check this used book before their selling, and they also did not clean the eraser shavings. I had to use this book during the class and had no time to wait to exchange or return it. But it's really terrible when I read this book, because I had to clean it before I was ready to read the contents. Never buy the other items from this seller.

First, I ordered the hardback edition. What I got was volume 2 of the ring bound edition. The book description includes chapters that I didn't get, like Muiltimedia licensing and Artist's right of publicity. In my opinion, this is not as advertised and buyers should be aware that they won't get what they think. It is very difficult to talk to anyone at Amazon or even to email them a problem like what I am describing. So save your time and money. I don't even know why Amazon wants a review of a book for which they only ship an incomplete copy.

This book is awful. There are a number of typos throughout and, more importantly, some of the information is incorrect. It looks like no one bothered to proofread it before it was published.

I find it quite ironic that this author needs COPYRIGHT PROTECTION for a book stating that other creative people (inventors) need no protection of their own intellectual property. IP rights for me, but not for thee!!

I'm a patent lawyer. I stumbled on this title looking for something else. I don't own it and haven't read it, but my impression is that this collection of articles is way overpriced. I don't think the audience for this book is practicing patent lawyers. There are far better sources for professionals. So the audience must be the non-professional layperson. If I were a layperson looking for general information on current developments in patent law, I'd check the websites of firms with big patent law practices. They usually provide case summaries and articles on important new cases. This book looks like a collection of such articles. You can also find a lot current cases and legislation for patent lawyers on a number of patent law blogs. If you need specific advice, you're going to need to contact a patent lawyer. From my perspective, this book looks like a waste of money.

I perchased this book to learn how to search patents. But am
disaponted of it's contents. Near half of the book is appendix which can be easily got through USPTO. Only 32 pages are dedicated for patent search out of total 229 pages. You can learn more at USPTO.