For those wondering what on earth the drafters of the Induce Act were thinking (me, for example, those at Public Knowledge, and many others), here it is: Professor Lee Hollaar's paper on the history of "inducement" in intellectual property, which draws on the now-released records of the Supreme Court's internal debate to explain that the Justices in Sony had not intended to extinguish a prior line of cases imposing liability for copyright inducement. He also describes the doctrine of inducement in patent law.

This is fascinating. The idea of "inducement" liability may seem less like overkill if grounded in an earlier line of precedents (though the paper doesn't describe the earlier cases in detail). But the statute untied from those reads to me like something that could get way out of hand. Furthermore I'm not sure that its application in patent law will prove helpful. With patents, even infringers are likely to be pretty sophisticated, and "inducement" liability can be kept in check by the very obscurity of the whole process. Copyright violations are far more likely to entangle the common man.

posted by Solveig Singleton @ 9:10 AM | Internet: P2P, Search Engines..., Legislation and Legislators, Patents

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