Patry on Copyright
Bill Patry, Senior Copyright Counsel at Google (how’s that for a great job), emailed me and asked me to mention the publication of his new copyright treatise, Patry on Copyright.
I like the fact that Mr. Patry said this about his 5,800-plus page, $1500 treatise: “ The book is also chock full of wikipedia references, anecdotes, riffs on logic, congitive linguistics, etc. It is many books in one.”
Although I haven’t seen this treatise yet, I hope that it is a change from Nimmer on Copyright, which is so densely academic as to often be unusable by practitioners. Somehow, I doubt that we’ll ever see Nimmer referencing Wikipedia.
I would also add that it may be time for the intellectual property fathers of the 20th century, whose treatises have become so calcified and entrenched with the courts that it’s hard for anyone to compete with them, to make some room for the next generation. After all, Melville Nimmer died in 1985, and his treatise is now edited by his son, David Nimmer. Roger Milgrim (Milgrim on Trade Secrets) , Donald Chisum (Chisum on Patents) and Thomas McCarthy (McCarthy on Trademarks) are in their 60s. Bill Patry, by comparison, is only in his mid-50s. And, he has a blog. And, a sense of humor.
For some amusing repartee between Patry and readers of The Volokh Conspiracy, click here.
