Intellectual Property Law

Supreme Court Justice Antonin "get over it" Scalia likely won't be watching it, but HBO will be re-living the election that launched a thousand legal briefs -- and tens of thousands of touch-screen voting machines -- when it airs the new film Recount beginning May 25th.

The movie stars Kevin Spacey as Al Gore's former chief of staff, Ron Klain, and Laura Dern as Katherine Harris, the formidable former Florida secretary of state who certified George Bush the victor.

The uncredited star, of course, is the hanging, dangling, pregnant chads that prompted Congress to pass the Help America Vote Act in 2002. The legislation allocated nearly $4 billion to states to replace antiquated punch-card and lever voting machines with expensive, new touch-screen and optical-scan equipment -- machines that have garnered just as much controversy as the ones they replaced.