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About USC Gould
USC Gould is a top-ranked law school with a 120-year history and reputation for academic excellence. We are located on the beautiful 228-acre USC University Park Campus, just south of downtown Los Angeles.
- Academics
Academics
Learn about our interdisciplinary curriculum, experiential learning opportunities and specialized areas.
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Admissions
USC Gould helps prepare you for a stellar legal career. You can pursue a JD degree, one of our numerous graduate and international offerings, or an online degree or certificate.
- Students
Students
Participate in an unparalleled learning experience with diversity of people and thought. Get involved in the law school community and participate in activities that enhance your studies.
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- Careers
Careers
We work closely with students, graduates and employers to support successful career goals and outcomes. Our overall placement rate is consistently strong, with 94 percent of our JD class employed within 10 months after graduation.
- Faculty
Faculty
Our faculty is distinguished for its scholarship, as well as for its commitment to teaching. Our 12:1 student-to-faculty ratio creates an intimate and collegial learning environment.
- Alumni and Giving
Alumni and Giving
The global Trojan network of more than 10,000 law alumni and donors include recognized leaders in numerous fields who are deeply committed to supporting student and law school success.
- Admissions

Jonathan Barnett
- FACULTY DIRECTORY
- LECTURERS IN LAW DIRECTORY
- EXPERTS DIRECTORY
- FACULTY IN THE NEWS
- SCHOLARSHIP AND PUBLICATIONS
- DISTINCTIONS AND AWARDS
- + CENTERS AND INITIATIVES
- CENTER FOR LAW AND PHILOSOPHY (CLP)
- CENTER FOR LAW AND SOCIAL SCIENCE (CLASS)
- CENTER FOR LAW, HISTORY AND CULTURE (CLHC)
- CENTER FOR TRANSNATIONAL LAW AND BUSINESS (CTLB)
- INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM INSTITUTE (IRI)
- PACIFIC CENTER FOR HEALTH POLICY AND ETHICS
- SAKS INSTITUTE FOR MENTAL HEALTH LAW, POLICY, AND ETHICS
- + WORKSHOPS AND CONFERENCES

Torrey H. Webb Professor of Law
Email: jbarnett@law.usc.eduTelephone: (213) 740-4792
Fax: (213) 740-5502
699 Exposition Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90089-0074 USA Room: 470
SSRN Author Page: Link
Last Updated: January 20, 2021
Jonathan Barnett is director of the law school's Media, Entertainment and Technology Law Program and the author of Innovators, Firms, and Markets: The Organizational Logic of Intellectual Property (Oxford University Press 2021). Barnett specializes in intellectual property, contracts, antitrust, and corporate law. Barnett has published in the Harvard Law Review, Yale Law Journal, Journal of Legal Studies, Review of Law & Economics, Journal of Corporation Law and other scholarly journals.
He joined USC Law in fall 2006 and was a visiting professor at New York University School of Law in fall 2010. Prior to academia, Barnett practiced corporate law as a senior associate at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton in New York, specializing in private equity and mergers and acquisitions transactions. He was also a visiting assistant professor at Fordham University School of Law in New York. A magna cum laude graduate of University of Pennsylvania, Barnett received a MPhil from Cambridge University and a JD from Yale Law School.
Books
- Innovators, Firms, and Markets: The Organizational Logic of Intellectual Property (Oxford University Press 2021). - (www)
Articles and Book Chapters
- "Patent Groupthink Unravels," Harvard Journal of Law & Technology (forthcoming 2021)
- “The Case for Noncompetes,” 87 University of Chicago Law Review 953 (2020) (with Ted Sichelman) - (www)
- "Stealth Commoditization: The Misuse of Smartphone Antitrust," CPI Antitrust Chronicle (September 23, 2019) - (SSRN)
- “'Patent Tigers' and Global Innovation," 42 Regulation 14 (Winter 2019-2020), - (PDF)
- "Antitrust Overreach: Undoing Cooperative Standardization in the Digital Economy", 25 Michigan Technology Law Review 163 (2019) - (SSRN) - (www)
- “The Certification Paradox”, in Cambridge Handbook of Technical Standardization Law, Vol. 2 (Jorge L. Contreras, ed., Cambridge University Press) (forthcoming 2019). - (SSRN)
- “The Patent System at a Crossroads,” 41 Regulation 44 (Spring 2018) - (PDF)
- "The Costs of Free: Commoditization, Bundling and Concentration", 14 Journal of Institutional Economics 1097 (2018). - (www)
- “Patent Tigers: The New Geography of Global Innovation”, 2 Criterion Journal on Innovation 429 (2017). - (www)
- “Has the Academy Led Patent Law Astray?” 32 Berkeley Technology Law Journal 1313 (2017). - (SSRN) - (www)
- "Why is Everyone Afraid of IP Licensing?" 30 Harvard Journal of Law & Technology 123 (2017). - (Hein) - (www)
- "Are There Really Patent Thickets?" 39 Regulation 14 (Winter 2016-2017). - (PDF)
- "Three Quasi-Fallacies in the Conventional Understanding of Intellectual Property," 12 Journal of Law, Economics & Policy 1 (2016). - (Hein) - (www)
- "The Anti-Commons Revisited," 29 Harvard Journal of Law and Technology 127 (2015). - (Hein) - (www) - (SSRN)
- “Hollywood Deals: Soft Contracts for Hard Markets,” 64 Duke Law Journal 605 (2015). - (Hein) - (SSRN) - (bepress)
- “From Patent Thickets to Patent Networks: The Legal Infrastructure of the Digital Economy,” 55 Jurimetrics 1 (2014) - (SSRN) - (bepress) - (Hein)
- "Copyright Without Creators,” 9 Review of Law & Economics 389 (2013). - (SSRN) - (bepress)
- "Intermediaries Revisited: Is Efficient Certification Consistent with Profit Maximization?" 37 Journal of Corporation Law 475 (2012). - (SSRN) - (bepress) - (Hein)
- "The Host's Dilemma: Strategic Forfeiture in Platform Markets for Informational Goods," 124 Harvard Law Review 1861 (2011). - (www) - (SSRN) - (bepress) - (Hein)
- "What's So Bad About Stealing?" 4 Journal of Tort Law 1 (2011). - (bepress) - (SSRN)
- "Intellectual Property as a Law of Organization," 84 Southern California Law Review 785 (2011). - (SSRN) - (bepress) - (www) - (Hein)
- "Do Patents Matter? Empirical Evidence on the Incentive Thesis," in Handbook on Law, Innovation & Growth (Robert E. Litan, ed., Edward Elgar Publishing) (2011). - (SSRN) - (www)
- "The Illusion of the Commons," 25 Berkeley Technology Law Journal 1751 (2010). - (Hein) - (SSRN) - (bepress)
- "The Fashion Lottery: Cooperative Innovation in Stochastic Markets," 39 Journal of Legal Studies 159 (2010) (with Gilles Grolleau and Sana El-Harbi). - (SSRN) - (bepress)
- "Property as Process: How Innovation Markets Select Innovation Regimes," 119 Yale Law Journal 384 (2009). - (SSRN) - (Hein) - (bepress)
- "Is Intellectual Property Trivial?" 157 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 1691 (2009). - (Hein) - (SSRN) - (bepress)
- "Certification Drag: The Opinion Puzzle and Other Transactional Curiosities," 33 Journal of Corporation Law 95 (2007). - (Hein) - (SSRN) - (bepress)
- "Shopping for Gucci on Canal Street: Status Consumption, Intellectual Property and the Incentive Thesis," 91 Virginia Law Review 1381 (2005). - (Hein) - (SSRN)
- "Private Protection of Patentable Goods," 25 Cardozo Law Review 1251 (2004). - (Hein) - (SSRN)
- "Rational Underenforcement of Vice Laws," 54 Rutgers Law Review 423 (2002). - (Hein) - (SSRN)
- "Cultivating the Genetic Commons: Imperfect Patent Protection and the Network Model of Innovation," 37 San Diego Law Review 987 (2000). - (Hein) - (SSRN)
- "Rights, Costs, and the Incommensurability Problem," 86 Virginia Law Review 1303 (2000). - (Hein)
Other Publications
- "Antitrustifying Contract: Thoughts on Epic Games v. Apple and Apple v. Qualcomm," Truth on the Market, Oct. 26, 2020 - (www)
- "Unfair use, democracy and the Supreme Court," The Hill, October 6, 2020 - (www)
- "The Long Shadow of the Blackberry Shutdown That Wasn't," Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property, July 2020 - (PDF)
- "Will Montesquieu Rescue Antitrust," Truth on the Market, August 25, 2020 - (www)
- "Big is not necessarily bad," The Hill, July 30, 2020 - (www)
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"Lessons from Luckin Coffee: The Underappreciated Risks of Variable Interest Entities," CLS Blue Sky Blog (Columbia Law School), July 29, 2020
- (www) - "For the Bar, Competition Is Always 'Unethical'", Truth on the Market, June 8, 2020 - (www)
- "The End of Patent Groupthink," Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property, April 2020 - (PDF)
- "The Forgotten Virtues of Doing Nothing," Truth on the Market, Nov. 12, 2019 - (PDF)
- "The Puzzling Case of the WeWork Non-IPO," The CLS Blue Sky Blog, Oct. 8, 2019 - (www)
- "Qualcomm ruling a case of antitrust gone wrong", The Hill (May 28, 2019), - (PDF)
- "Antitrust Overreach: Undoing Cooperative Standardization in the Digital Economy," The CLS Blue Sky Blog, Nov. 28, 2018 - (www)
- “Digital Disruption Demands Antitrust Restraint”, The Hill, July 4, 2018 (also posted at Competition Policy International, July 4, 2018). - (www)
- “SCOTUS is about to decide to hear the easiest antitrust case ever”, The Hill, March 31, 2018 (also posted at Competition Policy International, April 2, 2018). - (www)
- "Does the Supreme Court Understand the Innovation Economy?" (with Ted Sichelman), Forbes, July 13, 2017. - (www)
- “An Economic Argument Against Mandatory Patent Exhaustion” (with Ted Sichelman), Patently-O, March 19, 2017. - (www)
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"Amicus Brief of 44 Law, Economics and Business Professors in Support of Respondent in Impression Products, Inc. v. Lexmark International, Inc., Supreme Court of the United States" (Filed Feb. 23, 2017) (co-lead author, with Ted Sichelman).
- (SSRN)
FACULTY IN THE NEWS
San Francisco Chronicle
April 14, 2021
Re: Jean Lantz Reisz
Jean Reisz was interviewed about the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco's rejection of an earlier U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals decision that denied asylum to Salvadoran sisters who were harassed by a gang. “Their journey to asylum has been difficult and longer than it should have been,” she said. The judge and the board “ignored the evidence and denied lifesaving relief to the twins based on unlawful conclusions” that the court has now overturned. The article also appeared in Microsoft News.
RECENT SCHOLARSHIP
Michael Simkovic
February, 2021
"Income Taxes and Work Hours," University of Virginia Law and Economics Workshop, University of Virginia Law School, Charlottesville, VA.
Dorothy S. Lund
February, 2021
“The Corporate Governance Machine” (with Elizabeth Pollman), 122 Columbia Law Review (forthcoming 2022)
Michael Simkovic
February, 2021
“Income Taxes & Work Hours,” Florida Tax Review.