I am pleased to announce the public release of my freely available intellectual property textbook, Information Property. I have been working it since 2012. In that time, it has evolved from a collection of supplementary problems, to a coursepack, to a casebook, to a textbook. The result reflects how I think an IP survey course should be taught, because it is how I teach my own IP survey course. Here are a few highlights of what I have done, and why:
First, this is a textbook, not a casebook. Although it contains a few edited cases, most of it consists of my own explantions of IP doctrines and how they fit together. The point is to put in one place everything that a beginning IP student should know, clearly explained, and vividly illustrated. It contains hundreds of images: patent drawings, copyright works-in-suit, infringing products, and much much more.
Second, the book presents a systematic exposition of IP concepts. I have broken every IP field down into the same seven basic topics: subject matter, ownership, procedures, similarity, prohibited conduct, secondary liability, and defenses. It brings out the ways in which different fields are alike, and the ways in which they diverge. I find that this approach helps enormously in bringing order to what can seem like a riotous diversity of forms of IP.
Third, the book has unusually broad coverage of IP fields. In addition to the standard topics (patent, copyright, trademark, and sometimes trade secret), it also covers undeveloped ideas, false advertising, geographic indications, right of publicity, design patent—and a unique chapter on trademark-like issues in identifier registries.
Fourth, the book is freely available. I have released it under a Creative Commons Attribution license, and it is available from my website as a free PDF download. In addition, I sell at-cost paperback (black-and-white) and hardbound (full-color) versions through Lulu.
I am grateful to the many students and colleagues who have read previous versions of Information Property and given me useful suggestions on how to improve future ones. I plan to revise and extend it in the years to come, and your comments are warmly welcomed.