The Constitutionalization of Technology Law

Mark A Lemley, Professor of Law, Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California, Berkeley; Director, Berkeley Center for Law and Technology; of counsel, Fish & Richardson P.C.

1/01/2005
(Original Publish Date: 2000)

Technology lawyers, and especially intellectual property lawyers, have discovered the Constitution. They are filing suits to invalidate statutes and interposing constitutional defenses to intellectual property claims at an unprecedented rate. Scholars are focusing more attention on the complex interaction between intellectual property, Internet regulation and the Constitution than ever before. The goal of this symposium is to investigate two of those constitutional claims in much greater detail. In this introduction, I will endeavor to explain why the issue arises at all.