{"id":24206,"date":"2026-04-07T16:17:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T20:17:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/?page_id=24206"},"modified":"2026-04-07T16:35:06","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T20:35:06","slug":"first-ideas","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/in-print\/volume-114\/volume-114-issue-2-december-2025\/first-ideas\/","title":{"rendered":"First Ideas"},"content":{"rendered":"

We live in a world obsessed with firsts, in terms of accomplishments, <\/i>creations, races, and milestones. At the same time, societal understand<\/i>ings of <\/i>\u201c<\/span>first<\/i>\u201d <\/span>can obscure others who in fact came beforehand. This <\/i>Article is about understanding the hold that the idea of <\/i>\u201c<\/span>first<\/i>\u201d <\/span>has over <\/i>intellectual property laws and how this hold can make the allocation of <\/i>intellectual property rights less effective. It locates the roots of <\/i>\u201c<\/span>first<\/i>\u201d <\/span>as <\/i>a basis to allocate rights in traditional property law. It then sets out four <\/i>values that a rule of first possession can be seen to promote when it is <\/i>transplanted to intellectual property: fairness, order, societal benefits, <\/i>and rhetorical power.<\/i><\/p>\n

This Article\u2019s thick <\/i>description of how this principle of first possession <\/i>actually operates in patent, copyright, and trademark laws lays bare that <\/i>the idea of <\/i>\u201c<\/span>first<\/i>\u201d <\/span>has been mutated and contorted substantially. This <\/i>Article shows how patent, copyright, and trademark laws\u2019 mutations and <\/i>contortions of <\/i>\u201c<\/span>first<\/i>\u201d <\/span>are systematic. For one thing, they deviate from <\/i>actual first possession when they treat someone as a firstcomer for things <\/i>they have not actually done, through two mechanisms that I term to be <\/i>\u201c<\/span>constructive firsts<\/i>\u201d <\/span>and <\/i>\u201c<\/span>fictional firsts.<\/i>\u201d <\/span>These laws also diverge from <\/i>actual first possession when they consider latercomers as if they were <\/i>firstcomers, through three mechanisms that I term to be <\/i>\u201c<\/span>erased firsts,<\/i>\u201d <\/span>\u201c<\/span>excused firsts,<\/i>\u201d <\/span>and <\/i>\u201c<\/span>leapfrogging firsts.<\/i>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

All in all, this description and analysis show that the idea of <\/i>\u201c<\/span>first,<\/i>\u201d <\/span>something we reflexively believe to be objective and straightforward, is <\/i>instead<\/i>\u2014<\/span>at least in the context of intellectual property and due to its <\/i>mutations and contortions<\/i>\u2014<\/span>normative and thorny. An overly simplistic <\/i>understanding of <\/i>\u201c<\/span>first<\/i>\u201d <\/span>also obscures that the law must make compli<\/i>cated determinations as to which actions<\/i>\u2014<\/span>or verbs<\/i>\u2014<\/span>qualify someone as <\/i>a first <\/i>possessor at all.<\/i><\/p>\n

With this understanding of <\/i>\u201c<\/span>first<\/i>\u201d <\/span>both broken down and built out, this <\/i>Article <\/i>seeks to explore what optimal rules of allocation look like in intel<\/i>lectual property. It suggests that the purported values of <\/i>\u201c<\/span>first<\/i>\u201d<\/span>\u2014<\/span>fair<\/i>ness, order, societal benefits, and rhetorical value<\/i>\u2014<\/span>are in fact <\/i>undermined <\/i>to some degree by the mutations and contortions of <\/i>\u201c<\/span>first<\/i>\u201d <\/span>in <\/i>intellectual property. Indeed, rules awarding rights to those who create <\/i>later or better might instead sometimes better promote these same four <\/i>values, especially because sometimes awarding rights to those who cre<\/i>ate first might contravene these values. This Article then proposes that <\/i>these <\/i>key values are advanced by integrating in sensible ways awards of <\/i>patent, copyright, and trademark rights to firstcomers, latercomers, and <\/i>latercomers who create better.<\/i><\/p>\n

Continue reading First Ideas<\/strong><\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\nFromer_First-Ideas<\/a>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We live in a world obsessed with firsts, in terms of accomplishments, creations, races, and milestones. At the same time, societal understandings of \u201cfirst\u201d can obscure others who in fact […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13871,"featured_media":0,"parent":24190,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"abstract.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":"","_tec_slr_enabled":"","_tec_slr_layout":""},"class_list":["post-24206","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"ticketed":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13871"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24206"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24220,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24206\/revisions\/24220"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}