Digital library
Textbooks, references and open learning resources.
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Introduction to Intellectual Property Law
Jason Rantanen · University of Iowa · 2023
Unlike traditionally published casebooks, which typically include short case excerpts providing key rules or doctrine, Introduction to Intellectual Property Law features one or two judicial opinions per chapter, in their entirety, along with descriptive notes to fill in the details. The resulting collection can be read on any device, free of charge. Because reading full opinions is not easy, especially at the beginning of a legal career, another important component of this casebook are sets of questions to focus on while reading the cases. Lawyers generally approach texts this way, reading with purpose rather than to glean abstract knowledge. As you read the opinions, do it with a mind toward answering the questions posed.
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Intellectual Property: Law & the Information Society—Cases and Materials
James Boyle; Jennifer Jenkins · James Boyle, Jennifer Jenkins · 2016
This book is an introduction to intellectual property law, the set of private legal rights that allows individuals and corporations to control intangible creations and marks—from logos to novels to drug formulae—and the exceptions and limitations that define those rights. It focuses on the three graphmain forms of US federal intellectual property—trademark, copyright and patent—but many of the ideas discussed here apply far beyond those legal areas and far beyond the law of the United States. The book is intended to be a textbook for the basic Intellectual Property class, but because it is an open coursebook, which can be freely edited and customized, it is also suitable for an undergraduate class, or for a business, library studies, communications or other graduate school class. Each chapter contains cases and secondary readings and a set of problems or role-playing exercises involving the material. The problems range from a video of the Napster oral argument to counseling clients about search engines and trademarks, applying the First Amendment to digital rights management and copyright or commenting on the Supreme Court's rulings on gene patents.
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Introduction to the Law of Property, Estate Planning and Insurance
Don Mayer; Daniel Warner; George Siedel; Jethro Lieberman · Saylor Foundation · 2012
Introduction to the Law of Property, Estate Planning and Insurance is an up-to-date textbook that covers legal issues that students must understand relating to real estate (an especially important business asset), as well as estate planning and insurance. The text is organized to permit instructors to tailor the materials to their particular approach. The authors take special care to engage students by relating law to everyday events with their clear, concise and readable style. After introductory chapters covering the legal environment of business, Introduction to the Law of Property, Estate Planning and Insurance provides students with context and essential legal concepts relating to property rights and duties, estate planning, insurance, secured transactions, mortgages, and related topics. The text provides the vocabulary and legal savvy they will need when working with these concepts, which are critical to business planning and success.
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Trademark Law
Michael Grynberg · Michael Grynberg · 2022
Welcome to trademark law. This introductory chapter has three purposes. First, it outlines some basics of trademark law at a very high level of generality. Second, it outlines some traditional arguments for the protection of trademark rights. Finally, it introduces some issues that complicate the development and application of trademark law.
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Open-Source Property: A Free Casebook
Stephen Clowney; James Grimmelmann; Michael Grynberg · Open Source Property · 2015
Open Source Property: A Free Casebook is a free resource for instructors and students of the first-year Property Law course at American law schools, and anyone else with an interest in the subject.
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Fundamentals of Business Law
Melissa Randall; Community College of Denver Students · Melissa Randall · 2020
Undergraduate business law textbook written by Melissa Randall and Community College of Denver Students in collaboration with lawyers and business professionals for use in required 200 level business law courses in the United States. This book is an introductory survey of the legal topics required in undergraduate business law classes.
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Business Law I Essentials
Mirande Valbrune; Renee De Assis; Suzanne Cardell · OpenStax · 2026
Business Law I Essentials 2e is a brief introductory textbook designed to meet the scope and sequence requirements of courses on Business Law or the Legal Environment of Business. The concepts are presented in a streamlined manner, and cover the key concepts necessary to establish a strong foundation in the subject. The textbook follows a traditional approach to the study of business law. Each chapter contains learning objectives, explanatory narrative and concepts, references for further reading, and end-of-chapter questions. Business Law I Essentials 2e may need to be supplemented with additional content, cases, or related materials, and is offered as a foundational resource that focuses on the baseline concepts, issues, and approaches.
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Extended Readings on Copyright
Matthew Sag · Matthew Sag · 2019
Extended Readings on Copyright is subject to a non-commercial Create Commons license that allows you to add, subtract, and amend as you see fit, provided you extend those terms to any derivative work based on these materials and provided your provide appropriate attribution. I encourage you to share your edits and additions with me, but it is not obligatory.Extended Readings on Copyright can be used as a stand alone textbook on United States copyright law. The individual chapters are available on this website, and these can be used to supplement other materials. Individual chapters are likely to be more up to date than the consolidated build of the book.
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Trademark Law: An Open-Source Casebook
Barton Beebe · New York University · 2023
Trademark Law: An Open-Source Casebook is a free, “open” textbook designed for a four-credit trademark course, which is what I teach at NYU School of Law. Model syllabi for four-credit and three-credit courses are available in the Faculty Resources section of this website.
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Property
Christian Turner · CALI's eLangdell® Press · 2012
This is Volume 2 of a two volume set written for Property Law. From the Preface to Volume 1: Property, as a vaguely defined collection of contract, tort, and criminal cases, does not take on the natural structure of a substantive area of the law through the systematic study of duty, breach, causation, defenses, and damages. Instead this textbook and most Property courses survey various topics in law with two goals in mind. First, we will study a number of traditional property topics, those where the issue of "ownership" and what that entails have long been thought to be a central issue. Second, but most importantly, our interdisciplinary study will introduce some of the major analytical techniques in law, from reasoning using precedent to law and economics to distributive justice. As we roam among topics, our goal is always, relentlessly to ask, "Why?" "Why should the law protect this party's interest?" These major techniques that we will pick up along the way will help us provide better and better answers to this question.
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Property
Christian Turner · CALI's eLangdell® Press · 2012
This is Volume 1 of a two volume set written for Property Law. From the Preface: Property, as a vaguely defined collection of contract, tort, and criminal cases, does not take on the natural structure of a substantive area of the law through the systematic study of duty, breach, causation, defenses, and damages. Instead this textbook and most Property courses survey various topics in law with two goals in mind. First, we will study a number of traditional property topics, those where the issue of "ownership" and what that entails have long been thought to be a central issue. Second, but most importantly, our interdisciplinary study will introduce some of the major analytical techniques in law, from reasoning using precedent to law and economics to distributive justice. As we roam among topics, our goal is always, relentlessly to ask, "Why?" "Why should the law protect this party's interest?" These major techniques that we will pick up along the way will help us provide better and better answers to this question.
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Sales and Leases: A Problem-based Approach
Scott Burnham; Kristen Juras · CALI's eLangdell® Press · 2023
Sales and Leases is a coursebook for a 3-credit course in personal property sales and leases – the subject matter of UCC Articles 2 and 2A. Adjustments could be made for other credit allocations and chapters can be used on a stand-alone basis. The course is designed so that students both review the rules and principles they studied in their first-year course in Contracts and learn the rules that apply to the subset of contracts for the sale and lease of goods. Students taking this course should be well-prepared to solve legal problems in contracts and sales, and should be well-prepared for those parts of the bar exam as well. While the course in Contracts focuses on the rules of common-law contracts, the focus of this course is the rules found in legislation. Therefore, instead of emphasizing case analysis, the book contains a good deal of narrative that assists students in working through the complexity of the statutes. Students will need to supplement the book with a complete copy of the UCC that includes the Official Comments. Discussion of other statutes, such as UETA and Magnuson-Moss, is incorporated where appropriate. The approach is problem-based, which we believe is more appropriate for an upper-division course based primarily on statutes. The narrative is interspersed with problems for class discussion that require students to apply the principles and rules to particular fact situations. Many times there is an issue of interpretation or policy in the Code, however, and therefore each chapter also contains at least one case that explores an issue arising under the statute.
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Law of Wills
Browne Lewis · CALI's eLangdell® Press · 2016
The purpose of this casebook is to train law students to think and act like probate attorneys. This book is meant to be used in conjunction with the author's book on the law of trusts. This book's focus is problem-solving and legal application; the book includes numerous problems, so law students can learn to apply the law they learn from reading the cases. It also contains collaborative learning exercises to encourage students to engage in group problem-solving. The book is divided into three parts to reflect the main types of issues that students will encounter if they practice probate law. The book's organization mirrors the manner in which probate law is practiced in the real world. The book starts with an examination of the intestacy system because the majority of people die without executing a will. Therefore, most of the legal issues a probate lawyer faces center around the intestacy system. Unlike the typical wills casebook, this book provides a detailed discussion of the intestacy system. A chapter on ethics is included because probate attorneys encounter ethical issues that are different from attorneys practicing in other areas of law. The second part of the book includes an exploration of the testacy system. It is arranged so professors can lead students from the client interview to the will execution. The first three chapters of this section deal with issues that directly impact the existence of the inheritance system. It analyzes a person's ability to control the disposition of his or her property after death. This serves as the students' first introduction to the power of the “dead hand”. These chapters are included to start a public policy discussion about the rights of the dead, the right of heirs, and the necessity of an inheritance system. I tell my students that, when executing a will, they must think of the ways that it can be contested. In addition, I tell them that a will can be contested on two fronts-an attack on the testator and an attack on
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Bankruptcy Law and Practice
Gregory Germain · CALI's eLangdell® Press · 2024
This is the Fifth Edition of Bankruptcy Law and Practice, a Casebook Designed to Train Lawyers for the Practice of Bankruptcy Law. It is designed for a one-semester course in debtor/creditor law and bankruptcy. The book deals with both creditor remedies and debtor protections, starting with state law collection remedies, exemptions, and the important special protections for secured creditors under both Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code and state real property recording acts. After a thorough review of state law debt collection practice, the book covers the basics of straight bankruptcy law with a focus on Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code, both for individuals and businesses. Although the book has a practice focus, it covers the major Supreme Court cases (including those decided in June 2024), and important appellate cases with an emphasis on areas of uncertainty. The book also emphasizes the Bankruptcy Code itself, using problem sets to get students to work through the language of the Bankruptcy Code.
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Land Use
Christian Turner · CALI's eLangdell® Press · 2014
This text explores the laws governing the use of land. Sometimes narrowly focused, often intensely local, land use regulation may give the impression of a highly specialized field with small stakes. The text is divided into three parts: First, we will survey the ordinary, local administrative scheme of land use regulation. The cases in this section are intended to establish what that system is and what it's standards are. In the second part of the course, we will turn our attention to cases illustrating litigation attacks on the ordinary administrative scheme. The purpose here is not, as it was in the first part, to understand better the standards the administrators should apply, but to understand the constraints imposed on the contents of local laws, the procedures of enactment and permitting, and the composition of local lawmaking bodies. In the third part, we focus on the distributive concerns raised by land use regulation. The regulatory takings doctrine has gone from, literally, nothing, to wrestling to disentangle distributive concerns from substantive ones, to trying to craft either rules or standards to identify regulations that go “too far” and should be considered “takings” within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment. We will consider what the doctrine's purposes are, how it should be governed, and how it should be invoked as a procedural matter.
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United States Trademark Law
eLangdell Press Editorial Staff · CALI's eLangdell® Press · 2014
This Intellectual Property Supplement from eLangdell Press contains the text of federal laws and regulations in the area of copyright, trademarks and patents. The editors have endeavored to gather all relevant laws, rules and regulations. This collection is intended to be used primarily as a statutory supplement for law students and legal scholars in academic settings, although practitioners in this area of law will also find it useful. This volume, Volume III: Trademark Statutory Law contains Chapter 22 of Title 15 of the United States Code as it appears on the most current edition available on the U.S. Government website FDSYS. Updates to the U.S. Code not yet found in the FDSYS published editions can be found in the United States House of Representatives Office of Law Revision Counsel's Classification Tables. Some formatting modification has been performed to better accommodate electronic readers.
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United States Patent Law
eLangdell Press Editorial Staff · CALI's eLangdell® Press · 2014
This Intellectual Property Supplement from eLangdell Press contains the text of federal laws and regulations in the area of copyright, trademarks and patents. The editors have endeavored to gather all relevant laws, rules and regulations. This collection is intended to be used primarily as a statutory supplement for law students and legal scholars in academic settings, although practitioners in this area of law will also find it useful. This volume, Volume 2: Patent Statutory Law contains the text of Title 35 of the United States Code as it appears on the most current edition available on the U.S. Government website FDSYS. Updates to the U.S. Code not yet found in the FDSYS published editions can be found in the United States House of Representatives Office of Law Revision Counsel's Classification Tables. Some formatting modification has been performed to better accommodate electronic readers.
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United States Copyright Law
eLangdell Press Editorial Staff · CALI's eLangdell® Press · 2014
This Intellectual Property Supplement from eLangdell Press contains the text of federal laws and regulations in the area of copyright, trademarks and patents. The editors have endeavored to gather all relevant laws, rules and regulations. This collection is intended to be used primarily as a statutory supplement for law students and legal scholars in academic settings, although practitioners in this area of law will also find it useful. This volume, Volume 1: Copyright Statutory Law contains the text of Title 17 of the United States Code as it appears on the most current edition available on the U.S. Government website FDSYS. Updates to the U.S. Code not yet found in the FDSYS published editions can be found in the United States House of Representatives Office of Law Revision Counsel's Classification Tables. Some formatting modification has been performed to better accommodate electronic readers.
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New Media Futures
Daniel Faltesek; Daniel Adams · Oregon State University · 2019
This book is intended for use in a large introductory class in new media in a program that covers the “full-stack” including critical/cultural studies, media management, diffusion of innovation, and synthetic media production. The first half of this basic sequence covered new media and democracy, finance, intellectual property law, basic games, and transmedia. The second half of the sequence covers many topics related to aesthetics, design, technology, and methodology. To that end, this book needed to be written so that it would be helpful for many different professors and trajectories of study. This book is in neither engineering, social science, nor the humanities, but also all of those. At the same time, this is a program in the Communication Studies and Media Studies traditions of the United States and that texture will come across.
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Government Regulation and the Legal Environment of Business
Don Mayer; Daniel Warner; George Siedel; Jethro Lieberman · Saylor Foundation · 2012
Mayer, Warner, Siedel and Lieberman's Government Regulation and the Legal Environment of Business is an up-to-date textbook that covers legal issues that students must understand in today's highly regulated business environment. The text is organized to permit instructors to tailor the materials to their particular approach. The authors take special care to engage students by relating law to everyday events with their clear, concise and readable style. After introductory chapters covering the legal environment of business, Government Regulation and the Legal Environment of Business provides students with context and essential legal concepts relating to contracts, consumer credit transactions, bankruptcy, intellectual property, securities regulation, regulation of real estate, antitrust, unfair trade practices, employment law and labor relations. The text provides the vocabulary and legal savvy they will need to talk in an educated way to customers, suppliers, employees, creditors, shareholders, government regulators and other stakeholders — and to their own lawyers.