Legal Commentary

BLOGS BEGINNING WITH "A"

Autoblog coveres the auto industry. Right now the postings are all about the New York International Auto Show at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, March 21-30,2008. How about their latest posting New York 2008: Hyundai Genesis coupe, LIVE which contains the following YouTube video (make sure you see the very surprising ending - beautiful, indeed):

Below is a list of exhibitors. If we were in New York this coming week, we sure know one place we would visit.

LEVEL 1

Booth Company
1526 BMW of North America
1300 CBS 101.1
1305 Chevrolet
1432 City Cycles
1536 Coates Int'l
1501 Dodge
1420 Dub Publishing
1234 Empire Executive Services
1434/1436 Explorer Van Company
1405 Ford Motor Company
1200 Fresh 102.7
1305 General Motors
1315 GMC
1530 Grand Am Recreational Vehicles Inc.
1425 Honda
1600 Hot 97
1400 HQ Custom Design
1428 Karvajal Designs
1401 Kia Motors America Inc.
1302 Kiss-FM
1532 Klavierhaus
1500 K-Rock
1607 Lexus
1411 Lincoln Mercury
1413 Mazda North American Operations
1515 Mercedes-Benz
1424 Milner Motors
1613 Mitsubishi North America
1426/1427 Newport RI Concours d' Elegance
1207 Nissan North America Inc.
1233 Regal Cinemas
1421 Rolling Thunder Speedway
1422 Speed Racer
1301 Subaru of America, Inc.
1215 Suzuki
1601 Toyota Motor Sales
1430 US Army
1423 US Marines
1201 Volkswagen of America, Inc.

LEVEL 2

Booth Company
SC Dream Photo
CC Artist Charles Fazzino
DPH1 Ferretti - Super Speeders
DPH6 Grand Prix New York Racing
DPH3 Hennessey Performance Engineering
DPH2 Mallett Cars
DPH4 Polizei Ent.

LEVEL 3

Booth Company
308 Acura
707 Aston Martin
711 Audi
704 Bentley
304 American Honda Motor Co., Inc.
906 BMW of North America, LLC
510 Buick
508 Cadillac
502 Chevrolet
806 Chrysler
810 Dodge
200 Ford Motor Company
605 GMC
304 Honda
410 Hummer
310 Hyundai
703 Infiniti
208 Jaguar
708 Lamborghini
210 Land Rover North America
802 Lexus
202 Lincoln
205 Mazda North American Operations
902 Mercedes-Benz
203 Mercury
402 MINI
702 Nissan Motor Corp.
610 Pontiac
710 Porsche Cars North America, Inc.
408 Saab
706 Saleen
603 Saturn
404 Smart Car
602 Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Inc.
206 Volvo Cars of North America, LLC

LEVEL 4

Booth Company
4610 AB Tees
F Allstate Insurance
4618 Ameriprise
4609 Amsoil
4725 Axcel Sports
4519 Beugler Stripers
4022 Bumper Protection Company
4622 Capital One
4600 Car and Driver Magazine
C Chase Continental
4720 Custom Engraving Company
4727 David Lerner Associates
G Diabetes Foundation
4512 Euro Effects
4506 Exoticar Model Company, Inc
B Flintstone Car
4240 Garage Wall Wraps
B. GNYADA
4507 Green's O.K. Tire Store, Inc.
4416 Hawaii Business Show Enterprises
D2 Hybrid Technologies
4501 IBIZ, Inc.
4716 Italy's Magic Touch
4026 Katz Law Offices
4509 Kings Universal Products Corp.
A Lamborghini
4400 Liquid Lustre, Inc.
4628 Lots Publications
4500 Magic Man Productions
4800 Marriott Vacation Club Int'l
4708 MetLife Financial Services
4611/4710 MG Direct Imports
4412 Midtown Cellular Associates
4722 Mikhail Kats
4511/4517/4709 Mitchell Products
4705 MX Connections/Sticker World
4504 New England Leatherworks
E New York Auto Show Shop
4606 NYC Eyewear
4620 New York City Police Department
4608 Nomad Promoter
H Oasis Day Spa
4406/4410/4713/4630 Pocono Marketing International
4614/4711/4718 Prince Group Inc.
4612 SpeedGear
side Showcase Publications
4724 Sunglass Connection
4626 Super Shine
4503/4700 Televac Computer Co.
4716 Tocco Magico Inc.
4616 Trendy Corner
4240 Turnkey Drive
4729 Vacation Village Resorts
4707 Z-Best Products

Adam Crowe, "Rennaissance Man", digital designer and creative researcher, has his "Personal DNA" from www.personaldna.com posted at his blog (as a "considerate creator") - thank you, Adam - so we tried the personality test ourselves, coming out as a "freewheeling director", which suits us nicely. This is not a genetic DNA but rather a "personality" DNA test and it ours is now posted at the bottom of our right-hand LawPundit blog column (details here), with each colored square marking a certain characteristic. Really, in our case, the analysis is quite accurate, as it is supported by other similar tests we have taken. Quite apart from that, it is a good bit of fun, especially since one can print a customizable T-Shirt afterwards with the resulting color grid on the front and the text on the back. A purely individual T-Shirt as it were. We got one with "red" 3/4 arms.

A Fistful of Euros is a group blog we do not read as often as we should, because it has provocative postings which confront hard political and economic realities in Europe and the World. We do not necessarily agree with their conclusions, but one should be familiar with the real-world problems they discuss. Take a look at Alex Harrowell's Qatar: It?s Where the Money Comes From. He mentions the word Eurabia, if you are not already familiar with the concept, and in another blog posting, Swords Paperclips from the North">Swords Paperclips from the North, discusses the French Sarkozy-supported proposed Mediterranean Union, which was just negated via Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Via All About Latvia which inter alia has a column on Google News about Latvia, leading us to the Moscow Times, where we learn that the Russian-born Harvard Law School educated U.S. lawyer and businessman Leonid Rozhetskin has diappeared in Jurmala, Latvia, near Riga, and foul play is suspected.

Rozhetskin last year had "teamed up with Eric Eisner, son of Michael Eisner, the former CEO of The Walt Disney Company, to found a movie production company".

Rozhetskin had previously been executive vice chairman of Norilsk Nickel from 2001-2005, "the world's largest producer of palladium and nickel, one of the leading platinum producers and one of the largest copper producers. The Company also produces a large number of by-products, including metallic cobalt, rhodium, silver, gold, tellurium, selenium, iridium and ruthenium. Norilsk Nickel Group is engaged in prospecting, exploration, mining, beneficiation and metallurgical processing of minerals, with further production, marketing and sale of non-ferrous and precious metals."

Arianna Huffington's Huffington Post has become a very influential media power on the left. She also has a blog covering politics and has an upcoming book Right Is Wrong: How the Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America, Shredded the Constitution, and Made Us All Less Safe to be released on April 29, 2008.

At that same Huffington Post, Paul Loeb cites to Daily Kos, where Socratic writes about those watching Obama's speech on race that "they watched, listened, and agreed with what Barack Obama was saying about race in America...." or read Adam McKay, who concludes "It was a monumental moment in modern American politics." Socratic agrees:

"I decided today that there are a lot of good people in the world. I decided that after all the slogans, after all the bumper stickers, and after all the excruciating hours of listening to Bill O'Reilly divide us, most folks don't hate most other folks. And when someone stands up, and explains the situation clearly, concisely, and directly, they can see that, yeah, we have issues to work through and that, yeah, we need to do something. Today's speech wasn't about right or left, black or white, man or woman. Today Barack Obama gave a speech about basic human dignity, dignity that all of us deserve."

ars technica "the art of technology" is a group blog and one of the best blogs on the Internet, so that you should take a look at it if you do not know it. ars technica writes "Germany's Constitutional Court ruled this week that access to e-mail and phone records should only be granted in serious investigations. It has also struck down indiscriminate license plate scanning and put curbs on police spyware."

For more details about those decisions, see German court tightens up ISP, phone data retention rules by Nate Anderson, who has an interesting, and perhaps accurate view about why legislatures keep passing laws that courts find unconstitutional - could it be political? :

"While the decisions have all favored privacy rights, the court did not altogether eliminate remote computer snooping or data retention. They can continue under certain conditions, but the fact that the court does keep whacking away bits of legislation on these issues leads some German observers to wonder why such boundary-pushing legislation continues to get passed. One might ask the same question about video game violence laws in the US, which have been repeatedly struck down by courts but continue to pass legislatures around the country.

The answer in both cases seems to be that it's politically more expedient to look "tough" on crime, violence, and terrorism and then leave the courts to sort out what's actually constitutional. Such votes rarely have negative political consequences, though can end up costing governments plenty of money when the rules end up in court."

Anderson also has a recent posting on copyright law in Israel, Israel rebukes US: Our copyright laws are fine, thanks writing: "The Israeli government defends its copyright laws against content industry critics in the US who say that they don't go far enough."

As far as Internet copyright is concerned, the Israelis, for example, reject the draconic "takedown" system used in the U.S., arguing that this kind of control has a chilling effect on speech:

""A 'takedown' system which operates on the basis of a mere allegation of infringement would be an invitation to censorship and abuse of process," it says in the filing. "It is not the role of the ISP or Host to become a policeman of content. Requiring such would effectively bring the Internet to a halt.""

Arts of Innovation has a posting by Colin Stewart titled: Evolutionary design crossbreeds two innovation styles. The concept is as follows:

"The concept is to use a computerized trial-and-error method that mimicks the evolutionary process and eventually produces successful innovations. Because computers are so much faster than in the past, this method has now been used for designing cars, aircraft, USB memory sticks, yachts, optical fibers, ear implants, a cancer-detecting device, and a Wi-Fi antenna."

Our question is: is the result of that kind of a computerized trial-and-error method patentable according to current standards of patentability?

Full post as published by LawPundit on March 19, 2008 (boomark / email).