Intellectual Property or Wealth in America

Intellectual Property: Cases and Materials

Author: David L Lang

Designed for a comprehensive intellectual property survey class (covering trademarks, copyrights, patents, trade secrets, the right of publicity, idea protection, international agreements, and other topics) or for a course focusing in greater depth on a more specific topic, such as copyright law. Because the authors believe that students of intellectual property law need experience in reading and interpreting statutory materials, they have designed the readings to supplement the relevant statutes rather than reiterate them, and to require the students to work directly and closely with statutes. The cases, notes, and textual materials have been carefully selected to generate in-depth classroom discussion.

Book review: Media Markets and Democracy or Private Real Estate Investment

Wealth in America: Trends in Wealth Inequality

Author: Lisa A Keister

Wealth ownership in the United States has long been concentrated in the hands of a small minority of the population. Because of scarce data on wealth ownership, the nature of wealth ownership distribution and knowledge about wealth inequality has received relatively little attention from social scientists. Keister synthesizes theory and data from various sources to present a detailed picture of household wealth distribution from 1962-1995. Utilizing existing survey data and a unique simulation model, the author isolates and examines processes that create this distribution, paying particular attention to the wealth ownership and accumulation of top wealth holders, those who control the bulk of household wealth. The results underscore the importance of wealth as an indicator of well-being, identify important causes of wealth inequality, and propose methods of lessening the recent increase in the concentration of wealth.

Table of Contents:

Preface;

Part I. Introduction:

1. Wealth and inequality;
2. Measuring trends in wealth inequality;

Part II. Wealth Distribution:
3. Who owns what? the changing distribution of wealth;
4. The rich and their wealth;
5. The rest of the distribution: the middle class and poor;
6. Are Americans getting richer?;

Part III. Wealth Accumulation:
7. The impact of social and economic trends on inequality;
8. Families and wealth inequality;
9. Wealth mobility;
10. Conclusions and implications; Appendix; References; Index.