In this episode of the CLE's vlog & podcast series, Prof. Henry E. Smith (Harvard) discusses his essays "Putting the Equity Back into Intellectual Property Remedies" and "Equity as Meta-Law" with Christophe Gösken (ETH Zurich). In his articles, Henry Smith argues that equity and related parts of the law solve complex and uncertain problems — including interdependent behavior and misuses of legal rules by opportunists — and do so in a characteristic fashion: as meta-law. 

These problems are rife in intellectual property settings. An attention to meta-law can focus on potential two-sided opportunism in scenarios of possible injunctions, and a more traditional equitable framework can help frame when presumptions for injunctions are appropriate and when they should be overcome. As a result, equity as meta-law could avoid flattening the law of intellectual property remedies.  

Paper References:  

Henry E. Smith - Harvard University
Putting the Equity Back into Intellectual Property Remedies
Notre Dame Law Review, 96(4), 1603–1622 (2021)
https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/ndlr/vol96/iss4/12 

Henry E. Smith - Harvard University
Equity as Meta-Law
The Yale Law Journal, 130(5), 1050–1287 (2021)
https://www.yalelawjournal.org/article/equity-as-meta-law 

Audio Credits for Trailer:  

AllttA by AllttA  
https://youtu.be/ZawLOcbQZ2w