Property 1 – Carrier – Spring 2015
ACQUISITION BY CREATION
· Copyright: The right to control the control the reproduction and distribution of a creation.
o Exclusivity: Misappropriation tries to answer whether something should be imitated or when it is not because it will destroy the incentive to create.
Ø International News Service v. Associated Press:
1. S.Ct. holds misappropriation when INS copies AP’s news and sends it out before AP.
2. “Reaps what it has not sewn.”
Ø Cheney Brothers v. Doris Silk Corp.:
1. The conflict is between the inefficiencies produced by a monopoly over creation (higher prices, accessibility to a desired good) and both the sense of unfairness in allowing copycats to reap what they haven’t sewn and the fear that, without protection, creators will not create.
2. Notes:
o Copyright and the Common law:
Ø In the absence of some recognized right at common law, or under the statutes… a man’s property is limited to the chattels which embody his invention. Others may imitate at their pleasure.
Intellectual Property Law:
Patents
o Can be granted for processes or products that are novel, useful, and nonobvious.
o Last for 20 years from the date of the original application.
o Not renewable, once the patent ends it is public domain.
o Limitation: the laws of nature can’t be patented (new plant/mineral)
Copyright
o Protect expression of ideas in books, articles, music, ect.
o Protection begins as soon as the work is set in a tangible medium.
o Facts are not protected, but compilations of facts are.
o Ends usually 70 years after the death of the author and creator.
Trademarks
o Words or symbols used to indicate the source of a product or service.
o Help the consumer and the creator alike.
o Lost when the use is abandoned, or when they become generic, like asprin.
ACQUISITION BY CAPTURE
· Capture: Unowned property that is captured (wild animals, fugitive minerals like oil and gas) becomes the property of the person affecting the capture.
o Actual Possession: Must be in actual possession for it to become property
Ø Pierson v. Post: Mere pursuit is not enough; you need to have physical possession of the fox.
o Custom: Individuals conform to the customary rules to maximize the well being of the group creating the custom.
Ø Ghen v. Rich: Generally, a captor must acquire physical control over the animal, absent to a custom on the contrary.
Ø Keeble v. Hickeringill: Malicious interference with lawful activity is not allowed, although fair competition is.
· Fugitive Resources: Animals and Gas
o ANIMALS:
Ø Wild Animals: owned by the next possessor when escapes.
Ø Domesticated Animals: Constitute property of original possessor.
Ø Wild Animals Later Domesticated: If it can “return home” then O.G.
o OIL AND GAS:
Ø Result: If it escapes from your land, it is no longer yours.
Ø Permits the landowner to (capture) all the oil and gas from a well bottomed under her land even if it drains from a neighbor’s land.
o WATER:
Ø Groundwater: Eastern states apply the rule of capture under which a surface owner can take and use underground water as he wishes unless done maliciously.
1. Reasonable Use Doctrine: In Western states and some Eastern states, a surface owner can pump water for reasonable uses on her land in unlimited quantities.
o Surface Water:
Ø Prior Appropriation Doctrine: (West): the person who first appropriates mater and puts it in reasonable and beneficial use has a right superior to later; can be severed from the land and sold to another.
· Externalities:Definition: A’s behavior has to be inefficient in that the benefit they receive is less than the cost to other people. (A’s benefit
(a) Not an externality if A’s benefit exceeds the cost to others because the use is efficient (A’s benefit> B’s costs)
(b) Note: transactional costs may preclude one’s ability to be more efficient.
(c) Externalitie
claim of right on the part of an adverse possessor.
c. Continuous Possession
•A.P. needs to be on the land without interruption, and use the land as continuously as if they actually did own it.
•OR have the reasonable intent to continuously come back
1. – Howard v. Kuntoà Summer property under color of title (defective deed). When Howard, the original owner sought to eject him, Kunto countered that the limitations period had expired. Howard claims “not if you failed to occupy continuously” Kunto goes every summer, but that seemed to be enough. A reasonable owner would use the property during the summer and not at other times.
2. Tacking: Adverse Possessoràquestion of whether one possessor can tack the possession of the prior possessor to his own.
a. If privity of estate exists between the prior and present possessor, then tacking is allowed.
b. Privity of Estateà voluntary transfer from the first possessor to the second possessor of either an estate in the land or actual possession.
3. Tacking: Ownerà The adverse possession periods of two or more successive occupants may be added together to meet the statutory period requirements. The two people however must be in privity.
c. Ouster: If an adverse possessor is ousted from possession by a third party, the third party can’t tack the ousted possessor’s period of possession onto his own.
3. Disabilities
a. Meaning: Minority, legal incompetence, and imprisonment
b. Usually used when an owner has a disability, the statute of limitations will be tolled until the disability goes away.
c. Can’t be tacked
d. Don’t shorten the standard period for adverse possession
