Books

Buchaca, John, and Henri J. Charmasson. Patents, Copyrights and Trademarks. New york: For Dummies, 2008.

Who doesn't love the For Dummies franchise of books. Patents, Copyrights and Trademarks For Dummies makes the field of intellectual property law seem like the easiest concept to grasp. Of course, this is not the case but it does do a great job of dumbing down the material to make anyone understand this field. Each area of intellectual property is described from top to bottom and leaves the reader feeling as if they could practice as an IP lawyer (or atleast fill out a patent registration form). A journalist could open this book and close it feeling confident that they could cover IP law. I could go on about the positives of this book, but I think I have reached my word limit!


Elias, Stephen. Patent, Copyright & Trademark. Ed. Lisa Goldoftas. Berkeley: NOLO, 2007.

Another great source that offers an abundance of background information for intellectual property law. I read a great review of this book on Amazon. They said that "The laws covering intellectual property--those products of the imagination with commercial value, such as fictional writing, software designs, product names, and mechanical inventions--have long boggled the minds of the uninitiated. With the advent of online commerce and publishing, the issues have only gotten more confusing. The new edition of Patent, Copyright & Trademark: A Desk Reference to Intellectual Property Law, by attorney Stephen Elias, offers plain-English explanations and practical advice on this increasingly complex topic. Elias covers everything from the laws themselves to their specific applications in different media". This book makes you appreciate the complexities of the field of intellectual property.

Landes, William M., and Richard A. Posner. The Economic Structure of Intellectual Property Law. New York: Belknap P, 2003.

This is another source that shows the complexities of intellectual property law. This goes into great detail about the economic side of the field. There is so much money available in the field and this book makes the common person aware of that. According to Amazon "this book takes a fresh look at the most dynamic area of American law today, comprising the fields of copyright, patent, trademark, trade secrecy, publicity rights, and misappropriation. Topics range from copyright in private letters to defensive patenting of business methods, from moral rights in the visual arts to the banking of trademarks, from the impact of the court of patent appeals to the management of Mickey Mouse. The history and political science of intellectual property law, the challenge of digitization, the many statutes and judge-made doctrines, and the interplay with antitrust principles are all examined".