Intellectual Property Transactions Case Practice Test 2026 – Your All-in-One Guide to Mastering IP Transactions!

The key idea is federal preemption under the Copyright Act. Under 17 U.S.C. § 301(a), rights in a copyrighted work are created and governed exclusively by federal law. When a state attempts to create or enforce its own “recording schemes” that purport to control or claim rights in a copyrighted work, those state schemes collide with the federal regime and are preempted.

In re Peregrine Entertainment, Ltd. reaffirmed that such state recording schemes cannot stand alongside the federal Copyright Act because the Act already provides a comprehensive, uniform framework for protecting original works. The effect is that the state-law mechanism is displaced by the federal act, since it would effectively grant or enforce rights that federal law already administers.

The other acts—Patent Act, Trademark Act, and Lanham Act—govern different subject matter (inventions, trademarks, and related brand protections). They do not address or replace the federal copyright framework for recording rights in copyrighted works, so they aren’t the basis for preempting state recording schemes in this context.