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Links on the LawPundit Main Page : (2) (o,p) The Law Blogroll - Blawgs Beginning with the Letters O and P

By Andis Kaulins

Links on the LawPundit Main Page : (2) (o,p) The Law Blogroll - Blawgs Beginning with the Letters O and P:

The Online Guide to Mediation by Diane Levin has been renamed the Mediation Channel at the new location mediationchannel.com. An interesting posting there is Brain research shows differences in perception between East and West which also links to a self-test.

Opinio Juris "A weblog dedicated to reports, commentary, and debate on current developments and scholarship in the fields of international law and politics" has moved to a new location at opinionjuris.org. Try reading Trying to Buck Up British Citizenship: Lord Goldsmith Reports by Peter Spiro, which states: "As one of his lead initiatives as Prime Minister, Gordon Brown charged former British attorney general Lord Peter Goldsmith ... with undertaking a study of British citizenship." See the 134-page report at the .pdf link at that site.

At the Paper Chase, Roberts, Thomas urge Congress to approve pay hike for federal judges.

Patent Baristas points out that Patent Office Will Now Require Biological Deposits Before Publication.

Patent Docs informs us that GAO Testimony Supports POPA's Position on Examiner Attrition, writing:

"Ms. Nazzaro's testimony focused on the findings of the GAO's 2007 report entitled "U.S. Patent and Trademark Office: Hiring Efforts Are Not Sufficient to Reduce the Patent Application Backlog," which was based in part on a survey of 1,420 patent examiners. Not surprisingly, the GAO report provides ample support for POPA's position that the USPTO's antiquated production goals are the reason for the Patent Office's high examiner attrition rate....

As Mr. Budens noted during his testimony, the production goals currently being applied by the USPTO were developed more than 30 years ago."

Patently-O in Patently-O Bits and Bytes No. 21 tells us that "APJ Richard Lebovitz argues (on his own) that scientific researchers should be required to disclose potential patent rights prior to publication of related research as part of the conflict-of-interest review.... In his study of Science and Nature articles, Lebovitz found that ?almost one-third? of the research articles were associated with one or more patent filings." Read more there.

But the blockbuster posting at Patently-O is the one of March 13, 2008 regarding the book Patent Failure, where the posting Do Patents Stimulate R&D Investment and Promote Growth? begins as follows: "James Bessen and Michael J. Meurer have authored a new book presenting a careful empirical analysis of whether patent rights encourage innovation. Their conclusion: for the most part, today's patent system does not achieve its stated goal." [emphasis added by LawPundit]

The authors of the book write the following at Patently-O at the invitation of Dennis Crouch:

"by James Bessen and Michael J. Meurer

As background material, this post reviews the sizable body of empirical research analyzing the impact of patents on R&D investment and economic growth. Three future posts will present new empirical research featured in our book Patent Failure. The theme across all four posts is that patents often fail to perform effectively as property rights."

Read the rest here.

Patent Prospector also makes reference to that same book.

Peter Zura's 271 Patent Blog reported recently on the Latest Amendments to S.1145 writing, "The Senate has released the latest amendments to the Patent Reform Act in advance of Senate Floor Debate". See there for a list of those amendments.

The Patry Copyright Blog posts on Michael Eisner and the History of Copyright. What interests us his description of just how minimal copyrights were in the days of President Abraham Lincoln, raising the question for us as to why these rights are - and should or should not be - as extensive as they are today in the modern world:

"The types of works protected were very small: book, maps, and charts; "historical and other" prints; and musical compositions. The following works were not covered: paintings, drawings, lithographs, statues, models, designs of useful articles, and many other everyday literary and visual works. Motion pictures and sound recordings were not in existence. The only performance rights were for dramatic literary compositions; non-dramatic literary and musical compositions had no performance right. There was no translation right, and no right to prevent the making of derivative works."

The Philippine e-Legal Forum has recently elucidated Extradition procedures and principles in the United States.

PHOSITA directs us to a quiz to test our trademark knowledge.

PLI - Patent Blog posts on USPTO Request for more comments re: Markush Rules.

Prawfs Blawg asks Are Law Students Too Smart?

The Privacy and Security Law Blog lets us know that Some State Data Encryption Requirements More Effective than Others.

Professor Bainbridge is in three columns: Law & Business, Wine & Food, Punditry. It's a nicely designed concept. Perhaps the most important recent posting - except for wine and food and other things that matter - is Regulating Sovereign Wealth Funds.

Publawyer has quite a discovery from our point of view in finding a Firefox Add-On which is really quite cool, as the youth would say. As he explains, he has "been using a little Firefox addon for a while which is fantastically useful. Dr. Evil's 'Add to Search Bar' creates a search bar entry for pretty much any website that has a search facility. It works well with sites like BAILII and you can use it with Westlaw as well, but so far I haven't been able to get it to play with LexisNexis."

If you do not know BAILII, it is the British and Irish Legal Information Institute "where you can find British and Irish case law & legislation, European Union case law, Law Commission reports, and other law-related British and Irish material. BAILII thanks JISC for providing major funding for the BAILII Open Law project, and The Society for Computers & Law for continuing sponsorship. For more information, see About BAILII."

Full post as published by LawPundit on March 15, 2008 (boomark / email).