Intellectual Property Law
IP Law Daily 
Review for intellectual property and media law.
Post Frequency: 1.9/day Last Entry: March 24, 2009 at 14:28:17 Recent Entries: 654
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Google?s OpenEdge Could Dramatically Reduce Google?s Impact on the Internet?s CoreThe Technology Liberation Front
Posted on December 18, 2008On the Google Public Policy Blog, Richard Whitt?s response to the recent Wall Street Journal article (of now considerable infamy) fails to mention one of the primary benefits of Google?s OpenEdge caching program. Whitt only mentions the following benefits: By bringing YouTube videos and other content physically closer to end users, site operators can improve page load times for videos and Web pages...
New York to Tax Music and Creativity on the InternetThe Technology Liberation Front
Posted on December 17, 2008pGov. Paterson unveiled the New York a href="http://publications.budget.state.ny.us/eBudget0910/ExecutiveBudget.html"budget/a yesterday, and among the 137 proposed new and increased taxes is a new tax on digital products. An a href="http://www.nypost...
Yahoo! Data-Retention Policy vs. The New Justice DepartmentThe Technology Liberation Front
Posted on December 17, 2008pa href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/posttech/2008/12/yahoo_changes_data-retention_p.html?nav=rss_blog"emimg src="http://www.dabbledoo.com/ee/images/uploads/gadgetell/yahoo_logo.jpg" alt="" width="250" height="175"The Washington Post/em reports today/a that Yahoo! has changed its data retention policy to anonymize user behavior information after 3 months, rather than its previous, much lengthier retention window of 13 months...
Google's OpenEdge Could Dramatically Reduce Google's Impact on the Internet's CoreThe Technology Liberation Front
Posted on December 17, 2008On the Google Public Policy Blog, Richard Whitt?s response to the recent Wall Street Journal article (of now considerable infamy) fails to mention one of the primary benefits of Google?s OpenEdge caching program. Whitt only mentions the following benefits: By bringing YouTube videos and other content physically closer to end users, site operators can improve page load times for videos and Web pages...
TWiL 19: Getting In Trouble On The Internetsthis WEEK in LAW
Posted on December 16, 2008Hosts: Denise Howell, Colette Vogele, Ernest Svenson, J. Craig Williams, and Scott Wolfe Obama's BlackBerry issues, blogging vs. advertising, the MySpace suicide case, and more. Talking points: http://delicious.com/thisweekinlaw/19. Audible pick: We Are Smarter Than Me: How to Unleash the Power of Crowds in Your Business, Unabridged, By Barry Libert and Jon Spector, Narrated by Stow Lovejoy...
What Does Obama's Attorney General Pick Mean For The Adult Movie Industry?The Reverse Cowgirl
Posted on December 11, 2008In a nutshell, the answer's not clear yet. While the 80's pitted a conservative administration against the adult movie industry in a battle over obscenity, Clinton's liberal reign of the 90's ushered the porn business into a period of unprecedented, explosive growth...
Craigslist Founder: Tech Czar Must 'Crack The Whip'Tech Daily Dose
Posted on December 11, 2008[Cross-posted from NationalJournal.com's Lost in Transition Blog] Craig Newmark, the founder of classifieds giant craigslist, has some advice for President-elect Barack Obama as he searches for a chief technology officer: Find someone who can foster public-private sector partnerships and "crack the whip" to bring about necessary reforms in tech policy...
MPAA Urges Obama to Embrace Internet FilteringWired: Threat Level
Posted on December 10, 2008The Motion Picture Association of America is urging the incoming Obama administration to adapt internet filtering technology to block illicit file sharing of motion pictures and television shows. The Hollywood studio lobbying organization, in a position paper posted on Obama's transition website -- change...
Hollywood's Anti-Piracy Priorities For ObamaTech Daily Dose
Posted on December 09, 2008Increasing efforts to fight illegal movie theater videotaping as well as Internet and optical disc piracy are key points in a one-pager submitted to President-elect Barack Obama's transition team this week by the Motion Picture Association of America...
Copyright Stakeholder Reflects On Obama MeetingTech Daily Dose
Posted on December 09, 2008The Copyright Alliance's seven-member board of directors met with President-elect Barack Obama's transition team last week to discuss strategies for protecting intellectual property. The alliance is backed by NBC Universal, the Professional Photographers of America, Time Warner, Viacom and other stakeholders in the content community...
RT @hyperactive: Lawrence Lessig on Charlie Rose, talking about copyright, creative commons, digital media and Obama. http://snurl.co ...copyright - Twitter Search
Posted on December 09, 2008RT @hyperactive: Lawrence Lessig on Charlie Rose, talking about copyright, creative commons, digital media and Obama. http://snurl.co ...
MPAA Wants Obama To Target Canada Over CopyrightMichael Geist Blog
Posted on December 09, 2008The election of Barack Obama has led to considerable speculation about what the change in administration might mean for U.S. pressure on Canada on intellectual property issues. If the MPAA - the lead Hollywood lobbyist - has anything to say about it, the pressure will only increase...
Suggestion for Obama Foreign Policy on IPEXCESS COPYRIGHT
Posted on December 09, 2008Here's a provocative op-ed in the Mercury suggesting that the new US Obama administration should be less aggressive on IP in US foreign and trade relations.Here's the conclusion:Whoever becomes Obama's U.S. trade representative must re-evaluate our IP foreign policy and reassess how much foreign infringement affects U...
Obama Gives You a Seat at the Table on Change.govlouisgray.com
Posted on December 06, 2008By Jesse Stay of Stay N' Alive (Twitter/FriendFeed)Today the Obama-Biden transition team started an unprecedented move in transparency and openness to the public in a move to get feedback from the public. The team launched "Your Seat at the Table" on Change...
Amazon.com Add-On Hack Was a University ProjectWired: Threat Level
Posted on December 05, 2008The Firefox browser add-on that provided a "download 4 free" button on Amazon.com linking to freebies on The Pirate Bay was developed as part of a university project, a social parody of sorts for a media design class. A tutor for the two students at the liberal art school, Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam, Netherlands, said in an e-mail Friday that he and the course instructor "supported and encouraged it from its early beginnings," tutor jaromil said...
New short film asks, "Why Copyright?"Law & Disorder
Posted on December 04, 200850 years ago, did anyone but big rightsholders and lawmakers care about copyright? It certainly wasn't the tremendous public issue it has become today, and a new short film from Canadian law professor Michael Geist takes a look at why copyright matters to people and what they think copyright should cover...
Hackers, Others Seek DMCA ExemptionsWired: Threat Level
Posted on December 03, 2008The U.S. Copyright Office has received 19 comments constituting nine requests for exemptions to anti-circumvention provisionsto the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Every three years, the office and the Librarian of Congress request proposed changes as required under the decade-old law...
Craigslist Rant Prompts Criminal Libel ChargesABA Journal Daily News
Posted on December 02, 2008A Colorado man who reportedly bashed his ex-girlfriend and her lawyer on Craigslist now has the unusual distinction of being charged with criminal libel. The rarely used charges stem from posts that J.P. Weichel is alleged to have authored on the popular site's "rants and raves" section last December, ABC News reports...
Open Transition PrinciplesLessig Blog
Posted on December 02, 2008As I indicated yesterday, I was very encouraged by the decision by the Obama transition team to freely license change.gov (not actually a .gov entity, so not exempt from the rights of copyright). But over the weekend, a bunch of us got together to begin (actually, continue) the process of framing "open government principles...
Barack Obama: Champion for Copyright Reform?The Legal Satyricon
Posted on December 02, 2008I?m no fan of our President-elect, but I have to tip my hat to him on this interesting bit of P.R.: The new administration?s transition site, Change.gov, is being published under a Creative Commons license. (source) This means that the content is not subject to the draconian, life-plus-70 protection that is the default under the current federal copyright act...
Lessig?s call for a ?simple blanket license? in RemixThe Technology Liberation Front
Posted on December 01, 2008I?m finishing up Stanford Law School professor Lawrence Lessig?s latest book, Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy and wanted to make a brief comment about his call for a ?simple blanket license? to solve online music piracy. Overall, I thought Prof...
Apple Bullying Wiki Site Over Piss-Poor DMCA ClaimsThe Legal Satyricon
Posted on November 29, 2008Manufactured in China, and learning valuable lessons in freedom by manufacturing osmosisAs an avid Apple user, sometimes I just want to punch somebody over at Cupertino in the balls. First, I love their nomenclature for their brutal DRM scheme ? Fairplay...
Copyright CzarPublic Law No: 110-403
Posted on November 24, 2008Lessig has an inside track to Czar-dom. Apparently, he and Barack were profs together at Chicago.
On ObamaCTO.org: Wish Lists are for Santa ClausThe Technology Liberation Front
Posted on November 19, 2008The idea of an Obama Administration CTO has captured the hearts of many. I am generally skeptical of the idea, which is likely to be more symbolism than substance. But I?m really skeptical of the priorities being suggested for a government CTO on ObamaCTO...
Linking to third-party content: Does Section 230 Provide Immunity?California Defamation Law Blog
Posted on November 18, 2008Eric Goldman of the Technology Law Blog seems to think so and I agree. The Communications Decency Act was passed in 1996 and later was interpreted by courts to immunize internet service providers form torts committed by users of their systems. In specific, it says: "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider...
Harvard Law Professor Takes on the RIAALegal Blog Watch
Posted on November 18, 2008If you're a fan of Jonathan Harr's book, A Civil Action, you probably remember Harvard law professor, Charles Nesson, who was retained by plaintiffs lawyer Jan Schlictmann to give his firm (which represented a group of Woburn, Mass., residents in...
Lawyers not on Twitter?Blawg Review
Posted on November 16, 2008Blawg Review #186 at the Res Ipsa Blog is following the Twitter War that just broke out in the blawgosphere.David Giacalone a lawyer who writes in haiku verse, not tweets, takes a full post on his weblog f/k/a to knock Twitter and lawyers who tweet, knowing full well some might call him a twit, or worse...
Classmates.com User Sues; Schoolmates Weren't Really Looking for HimWired Top Stories
Posted on November 12, 2008When Classmates.com told user Anthony Michaels last Christmas Eve that his former school chums were trying to contact him, he pulled out his wallet and upgraded to the premium membership that would let him contact long-lost fifth-grade dodge-ball buddies and see if his secret crush from high school had looked him up online...
Obama Wants Your Media Reform IdeasSave the Internet Blog
Posted on November 07, 2008Day two of President-Elect Barack Obama?s transition to the White House, and already he came out strong for media reform. Yesterday he laid out his science and technology agenda, prominently highlighting three core issues that Free Press and our activists work toward everyday...
MPAA Already Lobbying ObamaWired: Threat Level
Posted on November 05, 2008The Motion Picture Association of America has wasted no time when it comes to cozying up with Sen. Barack Obama. Hours after Obama became the 44th president-elect, MPAA Chairman Dan Glickman applauded the Illinois senator's victory...
Genius Blawg Review (carinval of law blogs) this week. Must read! http://poprl.com/3CK (my previous favorite was by @kevinhell)kevinhell - Twitter Search
Posted on October 21, 2008Genius Blawg Review (carinval of law blogs) this week. Must read! http://poprl.com/3CK (my previous favorite was by @kevinhell)
TWiL 18: Dispatches from the Electronic Frontierthis WEEK in LAW
Posted on October 18, 2008Hosts: Denise Howell, Colette Vogele, Evan Brown and Karl Susman The McCain-YouTube DMCA takedown letter discussion, LimeWire, and more. Guest: Fred von Lohmann of the Electronic Frontier Foundation Talking points: http://del.icio.us/thisweekinlaw/18...
YouTube to McCain: You Made Your DMCA Bed, Lie in ItWired: Threat Level
Posted on October 15, 2008YouTube on Tuesday rebuffed a request from John McCain's presidential campaign to examine fair-use issues more carefully before yanking campaign videos in response to DMCA takedown notices. "Lawyers and judges constantly disagree about what does and does not constitute fair-use," YouTube's general counsel Zahavah Levine wrote in a letter Tuesday...
Larry Lessig Defends PiratesAbove the Law
Posted on October 14, 2008Stanford law professor Larry Lessig had an editorial in the Wall Street Journal's weekend edition, "In defense of piracy." Lessig starts off hating on the lawyers who went after the mother in the dancing baby/YouTube/Prince's "Let's Go Crazy" case. (Background here...
Law Profs Question Felony Charge Against Accused Palin E-Mail HackerABA Journal Daily News
Posted on October 14, 2008Two law professors are wondering why the University of Tennessee student charged with hacking into Sarah Palin?s e-mail account was charged with a felony. Law professors Orin Kerr of George Washington University and Paul Ohm of the University of Colorado questioned the felony charge against David Kernell, the son of a Democratic state legislator, in blog posts at the Volokh Conspiracy, notes the Chronicle of Higher Education...
Google Profiting From Typo Squatting, Report ChargesWired: Threat Level
Posted on October 13, 2008Google is profiting from millions of typo-squatting websites that earn advertising from Google's Adsense advertising program, Harvard University professor Ben Edelman says. In a report published Monday, Edelman says Google profits from typo-squatting websites that run ads using Google's Adsense ? which, ironically, are often bought by the owners of the legitimate sites web surfers were trying to visit...
Court Rules That Palin Must Save Yahoo EmailsSlashdot: Your Rights Online
Posted on October 12, 2008quarterbuck writes "An Anchorage judge has ruled that Governor Sarah Palin must save her emails, as they were apparently used for state business. Last week a Tennessee man was arrested over hacking one of her Yahoo email accounts. The Washington Post also reports that Sarah Palin, her husband, and officials had set up email accounts known only to each other...
Open Source Community Embraces Federal RulingLaw.com - Legal Technology
Posted on October 09, 2008The first major ruling on open source licensing, held by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, has wide support in the open source community. They believe the ruling increases software developers' control over their products but maintains open source's collaborative goals.
NSA Snooped on Innocent Americans' Private Calls from Iraq, Former Operators ChargeWired: Threat Level
Posted on October 09, 2008The National Security Agency routinely listened in on the intimate and innocent phone calls of Americans in Iraq, including government personnel, journalists and aid workers, as they called back into the United States, according to two former NSA operators who spoke to ABC News...
Anonymity and the InternetZDNet Blogs
Posted on October 09, 2008A case winding its way through a court in Pennsylvania attempts to pierce the veil of anonymity that protects web forum participants' ability to say whatever they want about public figures. Though I don't agree with the conclusions of the judge, I am not fan of anonymity of the Internet, as it tends to turn civil discourse into a "flame war...
Esbin?s Early History of the Net Neutrality Debate in U.S.The Technology Liberation Front
Posted on October 08, 2008My colleague Barbara Esbin, a Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Communications and Competition Policy at The Progress & Freedom Foundation, was asked to pen a short history of the net neutrality wars in the U.S. for a French publication, La Lettre de l?Autorité...
The PRO-IP Act and Movies and MusicLaw of the Game
Posted on October 08, 2008This week's Law of the Game on Joystiq (link) covers the new PRO-IP Act as it applies to video games. As a sidenote to that column, I wanted to discuss my thoughts on the PRO-IP Act as it applies to movies and music, where I also think the Act is as much a detriment to producers as it is to consumers...
10 Years Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act - Success or Failure?The Technology Liberation Front
Posted on October 08, 2008It?s nearing Halloween, so it must mean the anniversary of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is just around the corner. In fact, it was 10 years ago, on Sunday, that Congress passed the DMCA, on October 12, 1998. The law was signed by President Clinton on October 28, 1998...
Esbin???s Early History of the Net Neutrality Debate in U.S.The Technology Liberation Front
Posted on October 08, 2008My colleague Barbara Esbin, a Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Communications and Competition Policy at The Progress & Freedom Foundation, was asked to pen a short history of the net neutrality wars in the U.S. for a French publication, La Lettre de l???Autorit??...
Michael Moore Intended to Flout Slacker Uprising?s International RightsMashable!
Posted on October 06, 2008I don?t agree with Michael Moore over much, but for all his many jarring viewpoints, I find his approach to copyright and digital media surprisingly modern and refreshing. As Stan noted last month, Michael Moore decided to release the somewhat stale movie Slacker Uprising for free via download on the Internet: ?This is being done entirely as a gift to my fans,? Moore said...
Dozier Internet Law: The Internet?s loose legal cannonLIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION®
Posted on October 06, 2008They?re back: A Virginia lawyer used intimidation and bullying tactics, including spurious trademark infringement and defamation claims, to shut down a Web site that criticized him, Public Citizen argues in lawsuit filed against the lawyer and his firm...
Michael Moore Intended to Flout Slacker Uprising???s International RightsMashable!
Posted on October 06, 2008I don???t agree with Michael Moore over much, but for all his many jarring viewpoints, I find his approach to copyright and digital media surprisingly modern and refreshing. As Stan noted last month, Michael Moore decided to release the somewhat stale movie Slacker Uprising??for free via download on the Internet: ???This is being done entirely as a gift to my fans,??? Moore said...
Dozier Internet Law: The Internet???s loose legal cannonLIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION??
Posted on October 06, 2008They???re back: A Virginia lawyer used intimidation and bullying tactics, including spurious trademark infringement and defamation claims, to shut down a Web site that criticized him, Public Citizen argues in lawsuit filed against the lawyer and his firm...
???Watchmen??? Shows Messy Side of Super LifeNYT > Movies
Posted on October 06, 2008Journalists were given an extended look at the movie, about the tawdry life of superheroes who have fallen from grace.
Supremes Mull Whether Bad Databases Make for Illegal SearchesWired: Threat Level
Posted on October 04, 2008If a false entry in a database leads to a unconstitutional police search that reveals illegal drugs, does the government get to hold it against you? That's the question the Supreme Court will tackle on Tuesday in a case civil liberties groups such as the Electronic Privacy Information Center argue will have broad implications in a world where we are constantly being evaluated against databases and watch lists that are riddled with frustratingly persistent errors...
Legal aspects of bloggingLIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION®
Posted on October 03, 2008General practice and other non-bloggy lawyers seeking an introduction to legal aspects of blogging can now get one, along with continuing legal education credit in California, Illinois and New York, from Lawline, the web-based CLE provider. The online introductory presentation, which in fact is called ?Legal Aspects of Blogging,? is given by the MBA?s [...
An Open Source Legal BreakthroughSlashdot: Your Rights Online
Posted on October 03, 2008jammag writes "Open source advocate Bruce Perens writes in Datamation about a major court victory for open source: 'An appeals court has erased most of the doubt around Open Source licensing, permanently, in a decision that was extremely favorable toward projects like GNU, Creative Commons, Wikipedia, and Linux...
Pandora Music Box Remains OpenG4 TV - TheFeed
Posted on October 03, 2008If anyone ever denied the existence of TEH internets god, this is all the proof you need. After almost facing an end to their excellent service, uber-leet internet radio site Pandora will now live longer for our listening pleasures, after Congress passed the Webcaster Settlement Act last night...
Fiction or Fiction: 750,000 American Jobs Lost to IP PiracyWired: Threat Level
Posted on October 03, 2008Declaring that 750,000 Americans are out of work because of intellectual property piracy, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is urging President Bush to sign legislation creating a cabinet-level copyright czar to oversee expanded IP enforcement efforts...
Legal aspects of bloggingLIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION??
Posted on October 03, 2008General practice and other non-bloggy lawyers seeking an introduction to legal aspects of blogging can now get one, along with continuing legal education credit in California, Illinois and New York, from Lawline, the web-based CLE provider. The online introductory presentation, which in fact is called ???Legal Aspects of Blogging,??? is given by the MBA???s [...
?Watchmen? Shows Messy Side of Super LifeNYT > Movies
Posted on October 02, 2008Journalists were given an extended look at the movie, about the tawdry life of superheroes who have fallen from grace.
"Screw you guys, I'm going home"IPcentral Weblog
Posted on October 02, 2008The Copyright Royalty Board is expected to set new compensation rates today for CDs and digital downloads - resulting in news that is a bit hard to take seriously. Various news outlets are reporting that Apple is threatening to shut down its iTunes store if faced with a royalty hike...
Right to Copy DVDs to PCs at Center of Copyright SpatWSJ.com: Law Blog - WSJ.com
Posted on October 01, 2008DMCA junkies, start your engines. Once again, the movie industry is going after a new technology it believes violates copyright laws. The majors ? including Walt Disney, Warners, News Corp.?s Fox, Universal, Paramount and Sony ? are ganging up to sue RealNetworks Inc...
RIAA Lawsuit Campaign Losing CredibilityEFF.org Updates
Posted on October 01, 2008San Francisco - Five years after the Recording Industry of America (RIAA) began its massive litigation campaign against music fans suspected of sharing copyrighted music files over the Internet, the campaign has failed to get artists paid or reduce peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing...
Links for 2008-09-09 [Digg]
Posted on September 30, 2008Lawyers (and Legal Professionals) to Follow on Twitter A comprehensive list of legal professionals (lawyers, firms, academic, librarians) active on Twitter. Legal tweets galore...
Intellectual Property Laws and Government Security Threaten Science and KnowledgeThe Technology Liberation Front
Posted on September 30, 2008If you find the title of this post provocative, you?ll be interested in a Cato Institute book forum on Friday, October 10th. In The Crime of Reason, Nobel laureate in physics Robert Laughlin argues that intellectual property laws and government security demands threaten the development of new knowledge...
Blawg Review #179Legal Blog Watch
Posted on September 29, 2008The IP.Com team celebrates the 70th anniversary of the ballpoint pen by penning Blawg Review #179. Not surprisingly, this issue of Blawg Review focuses heavily on IP and patent-related posts. But if you don't follow those topics closely, you'll still...
IP bill passes Senate, no civil enforcement power for DoJ (Julian Sanchez/Ars Technica)Techmeme
Posted on September 27, 2008Julian Sanchez / Ars Technica: IP bill passes Senate, no civil enforcement power for DoJ ? The PRO-IP Act, which would ramp up enforcement of intellectual property laws and stiffen penalties for infringers, won approval by unanimous consent in the Senate Friday?but only after legislators stripped out a controversial provision ?
Public Knowledge Warns of ?Grave Dangers? of Deep Packet InspectionPublic Knowledge - Blogging, Events, and Action Alerts
Posted on September 25, 2008For Immediate Release: September 25, 2008 Public Knowledge President and Co-Founder Gigi B. Sohn today warned the Senate Commerce Committee of the privacy intrusion that occurs when Internet Service Providers (ISPs) inspect detailed customer information using a technique called Deep Packet Inspection (DPI)...
Heller?s First Amendment ? and the Extra Protection it Just Might Provide for Dada and SurrealismPrawfsBlawg
Posted on September 23, 2008?It is often suggested we may be floating in a sea of radio messages from other civilizations, messages which we do not yet know how to decipher.? (from the book, Godel, Escher, Bach) ?It's like a book elegantly bound, but in a language that you can't read just yet?(from the song, ?I Will Possess Your Heart?) These quotes ? respectively from computer scientist Douglas Hofstadter and the rock band Death Cab for Cutie ? were not, but could have been, about The Codex Seraphinianus...
Free Culture Conference 2008Public Knowledge - Blogging, Events, and Action Alerts
Posted on September 18, 2008October 11, 2008 - 10:00am US/Pacific to October 12, 2008 - 6:30pm US/Pacific University of California, Berkeley Chevron Auditorium, International House 2299 Piedmont Ave Berkeley, CA Students for Free Culture is holding a conference for, and about, free culture, technology, copyright, remixing, and free software...
Comcast Officially Informs Customers Of The 250 GB Bandwidth Cap [Comcast]Consumerist
Posted on September 18, 2008Reader Michael forwarded Comcast's official warning about the new 250 GB download cap that they've added (or rather, that they've now admitted to) in their Acceptable Use Policy. The cap has been in place for some time, but Comcast is just now getting around to telling everyone about it...
Copyright's Paradox: brilliantly argued scholarly book tackles free speech vs. copyrightBoing Boing
Posted on September 17, 2008Among copyfighters, Neil Netanel is rightly hailed as one of the most important writers and thinkers in the field (he's one of the few people whose words are quoted on a photocopied sheet over one of the toilets at the Electronic Frontier Foundation!) and his latest book, Copyright's Paradox, cements that reputation...
Gov. Palin's Yahoo Email Account HackedEFF.org Updates
Posted on September 17, 2008Last night, someone apparently obtained access to the Yahoo! email account of Governor Sarah Palin, the Republican candidate for Vice President. Screenshots of Gov. Palin's email account are now widely available on the sites such as Wikileaks and Gawker...
End of the BlogThe Patry Copyright Blog
Posted on August 01, 2008I have decided to end the blog, after doing around 800 postings over about 4 years. I regret closing the blog and I owe readers an explanation. There are two reasons.1. The Inability or Refusal to Accept the Blog for What it is: A Personal BlogI have been a full-time copyright lawyer for 26 years...
Communications Decency Act - NJ
Posted on June 30, 2008Donato v. Moldow: New Jersey Superior Court, Appellate Division has held that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act immunized the proprietor of an online message board from liability for allegedly defamatory content posted by third-parties, despite the exercise of editorial control in the selection and editing of the messages...
Tom the Dancing Bug on Disney's eternal copyrightWaxy.org Links
Posted on May 28, 2008reminiscent of my own Mickey comic from 2003 [via]
MuxFindFimoculous.com
Posted on May 27, 2008MuxFind.com, for searching Muxtapes, and thereby pretty much recreating Napster in a browser. (It says that the service is not associated with Muxtape. If that's true, Muxtape might wanna shut it down before everyone gets sued outta existence.) Update#1: Fred likes it...
NY Times on Net NeutralityMichael Geist Blog
Posted on May 20, 2008The NY Times runs an editorial supporting net neutrality legislation.
Did Hershey's Just Abandon its Trademark?PrawfsBlawg
Posted on May 20, 2008Here is something I picked up at the local Target store. It's a Hershey's-brand three-compartment silicone muffin pan. When you bake muffins in this pan, they come out - adorably, of course - in the shape of oversized Hershey's chocolate bars - complete with the Hershey's name and logo intaglioed in the shape of the finished muffin...
Lessig on the Proposed Orphaned Works Act: ?Unfair and Unwise?WSJ.com: Law Blog - WSJ.com
Posted on May 20, 2008If you manage to check out one item this week on copyright law (excepting, of course, any copyright posts that show up here on the Law Blog), we?d encourage you to check out Larry Lessig?s op-ed in today?s NYT on the proposed Orphaned Works Act being kicked around Congress...
Peer-to-Patent VideoTechnology Liberation Front
Posted on May 20, 2008Here?s a video highlighting the Peer-to-Patent project originated by Beth Noveck and New York Law School?s ?Do Tank.? Whether because of inappropriately low standards for granting patents or recent decades? outburst of inventiveness in technological fields, the Patent and Trademark Office is swamped...
Section 230 Gives Filtering ISPs Absolute ImmunityChicago IP Litigation Blog
Posted on May 20, 2008e360Insight, LLC v. Comcast Corp., No. 08 C 340, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Apr. 10, 2008) (Zagel, J.).Judge Zagel granted defendant Comcast judgment on the pleadings, dismissing plaintiff e360Insight?s ("e360") Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, First Amendment, and related state law claims...
Promoting free expression on the internetGoogle Public Policy Blog
Posted on May 20, 2008Posted by Pablo Chavez, Senior Policy CounselGoogle's commitment to freedom of expression is at the core of everything we do -- whether it's independent media organizations using YouTube to express themselves in Venezuela, or citizen journalists using Blogger to chronicle Myanmar's crackdown last year on Buddhist monk protests...
Unfriendly Shores? Recent Developments in U.S. Law May Trouble Foreign Trademark OwnersThe TTABlog®
Posted on May 20, 2008Fraud was a major topic of discussion at INTA Berlin after yesterday morning's presentation. Non-US attorneys and agents who may not fully understand the use-based trademark regime that exists in the United States, are trying to come to grips with the problem...
YouTomb's tracking who ordered YouTube takedownsWaxy.org Links
Posted on May 20, 2008recent takedowns are on the homepage of the MIT project [via]
IP Think Tank Global Week in Review - 16 May 2008Duncan Bucknell's site updates
Posted on May 16, 2008Here is IP Think Tank?s weekly selection of top intellectual property news breaking in the blogosphere and internet. Please join the discussion by adding your comments on any of these stories, and please do let me know if you think we?ve missed something important, or if there is a source you think should be monitored...
Federal Circuit Affirms Decision Holding Lovenox Patent UnenforceableOrange Book Blog
Posted on May 14, 2008Aventis Pharma v. Amphastar and Teva, No. 2007-1280 (Fed. Cir. 2008) by Robert S. Dailey Earlier today, the Federal Circuit affirmed a district court decision holding Aventis's patent on Lovenox (enoxaparin) unenforceable. The district court had found that renowned Aventis scientist, Dr...
Universal Music: when we get hit with copyright damages, that's "unconstitutionally excessive"Boing Boing
Posted on May 14, 2008Universal Music Group loves the idea of suing music fans for the full freight when it comes to copyright infringement, celebrating their ability to extract $150,000 per act of infringement with punitive damages on top -- but now that Universal's been slapped with one of these copyright suits (for sampling Hendrix without permission, something I think they should be able to do, FWIW), they've decided that these damages are "unconstitutionally excessive...
GPhA Files Amicus Brief in Appeal of "Baseless Paragraph IV Certification" Case; Warns of Chilling Effect on Future Patent ChallengesOrange Book Blog
Posted on May 12, 2008Takeda v. Mylan and Alphapharm, Nos. 2007-1269, -1270 (Fed. Cir.) In February 2006, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York determined that Takeda's patent on pioglitazone, the active ingredient in ACTOS, is neither invalid for obviousness nor unenforceable due to inequitable conduct...
IP Think Tank Global Week in Review - 9 May 2008Duncan Bucknell's site updates
Posted on May 10, 2008Here is IP Think Tank?s weekly selection of top intellectual property news breaking in the blogosphere and internet. Please join the discussion by adding your comments on any of these stories, and please do let me know if you think we?ve missed something important, or if there is a source you think should be monitored...
ACI "FDA Boot Camp" Conference, San Francisco, May 29-30Orange Book Blog
Posted on May 07, 2008American Conference Institute's very popular "FDA Boot Camp" returns to San Francisco later this month, May 29-30. The conference is designed to give patent lawyers, product liability lawyers, and life sciences investment and securities experts a strong working knowledge of core FDA regulatory competencies...
ACI "In-House Counsel Forum on Pharmaceutical Antitrust," National Harbor, Maryland, May 20-21Orange Book Blog
Posted on May 03, 2008American Conference Institute is holding its fourth annual "Pharmaceutical Antitrust" conference on May 20-21, in National Harbor, Maryland. According to ACI, at the conference, "leading in-house pharmaceutical counsel, government regulators, and expert attorneys will provide practical advice on how to successfully tackle the most complex antitrust issues facing brand-name and generic pharmaceutical companies...
Law Professor Making Trouble,The Volokh Conspiracy
Posted on April 29, 2008and I mean that in the best possible way: The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office may have a major problem on its hands -- the possibly unconstitutional appointment of nearly two-thirds of its patent appeals judges.... The flaw, discovered by highly regarded intellectual property scholar John Duffy of George Washington University Law School, could also afflict the appointment of nearly half of the agency's trademark appeals judges...
Internet Cases » A guide to registering the copyright in your blogdel.icio.us/jurisnipper
Posted on April 29, 2008bookmark this on del.icio.us - posted by jurisnipper to copyright blog - more about this bookmark...
Muxtape InterviewFimoculous.com
Posted on April 28, 2008Interview with Muxtape founder Justin Ouellette. He shrugs of the copyright question. (Legally, there's no doubt he's screwed if the labels want to take him down. The only question is whether they think he's a threat or a help. I'll give it 50-50.)
WBR "PharmaBiotech IP Summit," Philadelphia, May 28-30Orange Book Blog
Posted on April 28, 2008Worldwide Business Research will be holding a conference entitled "PharmaBiotech IP Summit," May 28-30 at the Ritz-Carlton in Philadelphia. According to WBR, "the event balances the challenges of IP protection, enforcement and management, providing both strategic and actionable insights through case studies and interactive session formats...
Is Victoria?s Secret a Stolen Bra Design?City Room
Posted on April 21, 2008A Long Island paralegal has sued Victoria?s Secret, saying the company mass-produced her idea for a "strapless convertible bra" that can be worn 100 different ways.
Is Victoria???s Secret a Stolen Bra Design?City Room
Posted on April 21, 2008A Long Island paralegal has sued Victoria???s Secret, saying the company mass-produced her idea for a "strapless convertible bra" that can be worn 100 different ways.
Privacy of Electronic CommunicationsInfo 205 - Spring 2008: Information Law and Policy (Three Day Delay)
Posted on April 20, 2008EPIC FAILpf.org
Posted on April 20, 2008So apparently the state of Oregon has been trying to assert copyright over their statutes.This position, has, of course, no basis in law or fact.What I find baffling is the motivation for trying to do so....
TWiL 14: Blogger and Podcaster Liabilitythis WEEK in LAW
Posted on April 18, 2008Hosts: Denise Howell, Karl Susman, Debbie Weil, Kevin O'Keefe, and Victor Cajiao Managing the legal risks related for blogging and podcasting. Talking points: http://del.icio.us/thisweekinlaw/14. Audible Book Pick: The Small Business Bible By Steven D...
Couture in Court 7Counterfeit Chic
Posted on April 17, 2008For those who prefer briefs to boxers, a periodic collection of fashionable events in the judicial system: Capsized: New Era challenges Mike23Nike also objects to MikeCloseup look at a "tribute brand"Hot Pink: Victoria's Secret objects to Intertex's PinkishOh Baby: Phat Fashion sues Victoria's Secret in trademark disputeNaughty Knickers in a twist: Spanx smacks rival Spank brandSpace invader: Smartwool aims to shoot down Smart WoolDogg muzzled after biting WranglerCollege daze: Juicy Couture puts the squeeze on Juicy CampusThink mink: TTABlog scopes out the Mink Bikini decisionDouble down: Appeals court rules against Ralph Lauren in U...
The Federal Shield LawLegal Talk Network - Law News and Legal Topics
Posted on April 17, 2008The Federal Shield Law is pending in Congress. Meanwhile, reporters have come under fire for protecting the privacy of their sources resulting in jail time and high fines. Join Law.com bloggers and co-hosts J. Craig Williams and Bob Ambrogi as they explore the shield law with the experts: Lucy Dalglish, Executive Director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Geoffrey R...
Woman Sues Blockbuster For Telling All Her Facebook Friends What She Was Renting [Beacon]Consumerist
Posted on April 17, 2008Facebook's Beacon has finally resulted in a lawsuit. A Texas woman has sued Blockbuster for participating in Beacon, claiming that "Blockbuster violated the federal Videotape Privacy Protection Act by sharing information about her movie rentals and sales with Facebook without first obtaining her written consent," says MediaPost...
Oregon state sends cease-and-desists for republishing statutesWaxy.org Links
Posted on April 16, 2008they claim copyright on the typesetting and numbering of the documents, not the text of the statutes themselves
San Francisco tomorrow: Copyright in a Hyper Digital Age: Copyrights? Copyleft? What rights are left?Creative Commons » CC News
Posted on April 16, 2008Many events featuring CC in California over the next and past few days. The CC Salon Los Angeles starts in an hour. On Sunday I spoke at Lugradio Live USA (slides), as did CC-enabled record label Magnatune?s founder, John Buckman (his slides). Given that Lugradio Live is primarily a Linux conference, we each did a take on open source and open content...
San Francisco tomorrow: Copyright in a Hyper Digital Age: Copyrights? Copyleft? What rights are left?Creative Commons ?? CC News
Posted on April 16, 2008Many events featuring CC in California over the next and past few days. The CC Salon Los Angeles starts in an hour. On Sunday I spoke at Lugradio Live USA (slides), as did CC-enabled record label Magnatune???s founder, John Buckman (his slides). Given that Lugradio Live is primarily a Linux conference, we each did a take on open source and open content...
Introducing... the IP Finance BlogIMPACT®
Posted on April 10, 2008Looking across the blog rolls on some the other law blogs recently, I found the IP Finance Blog. This:"looks at financial issues for intellectual property rights: securitisation and collateral, IP valuation for acquisition and balance sheet purposes, tax and R&D breaks, film and product finance, calculating quantum of damages--anything that happens where IP meets money...
Wal-Mart learns a painful copyright lessonThe Patry Copyright Blog
Posted on April 10, 2008The Wall Street Journal had a front page story by Gary McWilliams yesterday entitled "Candid Camera: Troves of Videos Vexes Wal-Mart." The story doesn't use the word copyright, but copyright is the key element of the story. The story begins:For nearly 30 years, Wal-Mart Stores Inc...
Introducing... the IP Finance BlogIMPACT??
Posted on April 10, 2008Looking across the blog rolls on some the other law blogs recently, I found the IP Finance Blog. This:"looks at financial issues for intellectual property rights: securitisation and collateral, IP valuation for acquisition and balance sheet purposes, tax and R&D breaks, film and product finance, calculating quantum of damages--anything that happens where IP meets money...
Universal Music: it's illegal to throw away the promo CD we sent you without your permissionBoing Boing
Posted on April 09, 2008The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Fred von Lohmann sez, "In a brief filed in federal court yesterday, Universal Music Group (UMG) states that, when it comes to the millions of promotional CDs ('promo CDs') that it has sent out to music reviewers, radio stations, DJs, and other music industry insiders, throwing them away is 'an unauthorized distribution' that violates copyright law...
Wireless Companies Say that they Can Censor Your Speech--Tell the FCC They Can't!Public Knowledge - Blogging, Events, and Action Alerts
Posted on April 09, 2008This Monday, April 14, is the deadline for submitting reply comments to the FCC on the issue of whether wireless phone companies should be able to block text messages based on their source or content. Several months ago, Public Knowledge, Free Press and a number of other organizations filed a petition asking the FCC to declare such practices to be illegal...
Section 108 Study GroupKevin Heller's Friends' Facebook Posts
Posted on April 09, 2008Section 108 Study Grouphttp://www.section108.gov/Information about the Section 108 Study Group.The report of the Section 108 Study Group is now available; both the full report and an executive summary are up at http://www.section108.gov/---The Section 108 Study Group is a select committee of copyright experts charged with updating for the digital world the Copyright Act's balance between the rights of creators and copyright owners and the needs of libraries and archives...
Universal Music: it's illegal to throw away the promo CD we sent you without your permissionBoing Boing
Posted on April 09, 2008The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Fred von Lohmann sez, "In a brief filed in federal court yesterday, Universal Music Group (UMG) states that, when it comes to the millions of promotional CDs ('promo CDs') that it has sent out to music reviewers, radio stations, DJs, and other music industry insiders, throwing them away is 'an unauthorized distribution' that violates copyright law...
Swinging for the Bleachers and Striking OutThe Patry Copyright Blog
Posted on April 08, 2008Given that Section 301 of the Copyright Act preempts equivalent state law causes of actions and remedies, state courts can not hear claims brought directly under the Copyright Act, or what are really copyright claims dressed up in the sheep?s clothing of a state claim, like unfair competition via mere copying of a work (protected or not)...
EFF Asks Court to Limit What Is PatentableThe Electronic Frontier Foundation | Deeplinks Blogs
Posted on April 08, 2008In re Bilski is an appellate court case that provides an opportunity to eliminate business method patents and curtail efforts to claim monopolies on basic human skills, behaviors, and interactions. Bilski is challenging the rejection of his application for a patent on a method of managing the risk of bad weather through commodities trading...
Center for Intellectual Property 8th Annual Intellectual Property SymposiumPublic Knowledge - Blogging, Events, and Action Alerts
Posted on April 07, 2008UMUC Inn and Conference Center Adelphi, Maryland Join the University of Maryland University College?s Center for Intellectual Property for its annual symposium exploring the relationship between the U.S. copyright monopoly, technological innovation and higher education institutions...
Second Life - A New Dimension for Trademark Infringement, by Max VernTarlton Law Library Current Trademark Literature
Posted on April 07, 200890 Journal of the Patent and Trademark Office Society 51 (2008)
Blawg of the Day -- CultureLibre.caInter Alia
Posted on April 07, 2008CultureLibre.ca is a Canadian blog -- French Canadian, to be precise. It's published by Olivier Charbonneau, a professional librarian and researcher at Concordia University. He's discussing a number of legal issues here, including the Internet, intellectual property, digital life, libraries, and more...
Seventh Circuit Vacates Google's Judgment Against Stoller CompaniesThe TTABlog®
Posted on April 07, 2008The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has vacated the March 15, 2007 judgment entered by the Chicago federal district court in Google's RICO lawsuit against Leo Stoller's companies, Central Mfg. Inc. and Stealth Industries, Inc. The appellate court ruled (here) that the lower court had erred in denying Leo Stoller's motion to intervene (TTABlogged here), and it returned the case to the district court for reconsideration of Stoller's motion...
Judge Posner?s ?How Judges Think?The Patry Copyright Blog
Posted on April 07, 2008To call Judge Richard Posner prolific is an obvious and trite truism. I have a whole shelf devoted to his books (I have 15 of his 24 books), and am proud to add his most recent one, ?How Judges Think,? available here, at amazon.com for $19.77, and here, at Barnes and Noble...
How OK Go Benefited from Net NeutralityWaxy.org Links
Posted on April 07, 2008NYT op-ed by their lead singer [via]
Seventh Circuit Vacates Google's Judgment Against Stoller CompaniesThe TTABlog??
Posted on April 07, 2008The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has vacated the March 15, 2007 judgment entered by the Chicago federal district court in Google's RICO lawsuit against Leo Stoller's companies, Central Mfg. Inc. and Stealth Industries, Inc. The appellate court ruled (here) that the lower court had erred in denying Leo Stoller's motion to intervene (TTABlogged here), and it returned the case to the district court for reconsideration of Stoller's motion...
Facebook Scrabble: Like Scrabulous, Except You Can't PlaySilicon Alley Insider
Posted on April 06, 2008Mattel and RealNetworks have released a legal version of Scrabble for Facebook. Who cares? Brothers Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, who have created Scrabulous, a very popular knock-off version of the game for the social network. When last we checked in on the Agarwallas, they were supposedly negotiating with Mattel, Real (RNWK), Hasbro and Electronic Arts (ERTS), all of whom have rights to the game...
Subpoenas to bloggersLIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION®
Posted on April 05, 2008Walter Olson rounds up blogosphere reaction to the now-famous ?Seidel subpoena,? which kind of underwhelmed me but evidently has everyone else up in arms. New Hampshire blogger Kathleen Seidel, whose weblog Neurodiversity presents a fearless, systematically researched, and frequently brilliant ongoing critique of autism vaccine litigation...
Global minilinks for 2008-04-05The Electronic Frontier Foundation | Deeplinks Blogs
Posted on April 05, 2008Chaos Computer Club Publishes German Official's FingerprintSnatched from a glass left after a talk, Interior Minister Wolfgang Schauble's fingerprint is now (irrevocably) the biometric of choice for German pranksters... A Technical Guide to PhormThe Foundation for Information Policy Research's Richard Clayton analyses exactly how Phorm works -- including fake cookies for every website you visit, and fake HTTP redirects every time you visit a new site...
Subpoenas to bloggersLIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION??
Posted on April 05, 2008Walter Olson rounds up blogosphere reaction to the now-famous ???Seidel subpoena,??? which kind of underwhelmed me but evidently has everyone else up in arms. New Hampshire blogger Kathleen Seidel, whose weblog Neurodiversity presents a fearless, systematically researched, and frequently brilliant ongoing critique of autism vaccine litigation...
University of Colorado to host discussion between EFF attorneys and RIAA lawyer on April 9thRecording Industry vs The People
Posted on April 04, 2008On April 9th, the University of Colorado will be hosting a discussion featuring EFF attorneys Cindy Cohn and Fred von Lohmann and the RIAA's litigation attorney Richard L. Gabriel, entitled "The War on "Piracy": A Fight for Industry Survival or a Failed Approach?"Refreshments will be served...
Facebook LawsuitFimoculous.com
Posted on April 04, 2008So a judge ruled yesterday that Facebook must defend itself against the charge of stealing the initial code for the site. I suspect this won't go much further, but I could be wrong -- and if I am, doesn't this somehow remind of you of the Microsoft antitrust case of the '90s?
Hillary's Short TakePatent Prospector
Posted on April 04, 2008During a Pennsylvania campaign stop, Hillary Clinton spoke as if opposed to the pending Patent Reform Act. Asked by a local inventor, Clinton reportedly said she opposes anything in the bill that would hurt manufacturers, noting that New York manufacturers oppose the bill...
US Judiciary opts to spend millions on accessing its own records, which are now available on the Web for freeBoing Boing
Posted on April 04, 2008Rogue archivist Carl Malamud sez, Some days, the U.S. government truly astounds. At Public.Resource.Org, we released 50 years of decisions of the U.S. Courts of Appeals. Knowing that the U.S. Courts have to pay big bucks to West Law and Lexis/Nexis to access their own archives, we though they might be interested in having their very own copy...
The recent making available casesThe Patry Copyright Blog
Posted on April 04, 2008There have been three opinions in six weeks on the suits brought by RIAA in which the issue of the alleged making available right as well as infringement of the distribution right have been raised. They are not the first opinions, nor will they be the last, but they are interesting in their own right, and are noteworthy because the judges involved took the time to address the issues seriously and thoughtfully...
University prof says students can't sell notes from his classes because it violates his copyrightBoing Boing
Posted on April 04, 2008Michael Moulton, a prof at the University of Florida, is suing a company tha republishes his students' notes from class, because he says that taking notes on his classes and selling them violates his copyright. Those notes are illegal, Faulkner and Moulton contend, since they are derivative works of the professor's copyrighted lectures...
Library of Congress Experience Sneak PreviewLibrary of Congress Blog
Posted on April 04, 2008This past Monday, Cheryl Regan of the Library?s Interpretive Programs Office (i.e., she?s in charge of exhibitions) was gracious enough to allow me to tip-toe around the fabrication materials and power tools over in the Thomas Jefferson Building and lead me on a behind-the-scenes tour of the installation of our new Library of Congress Experience...
State Sues Unclaimed Money Site After Finding It Told Wile E. Coyote He Had Unclaimed MoneyTechdirt
Posted on April 03, 2008Pennsylvania is suing a website that promised to help people get access to unclaimed money they were owed after investigators determined that the site was convincing people to pay $24.95 for a membership by telling them they had unclaimed money, no matter who they were...
Free, worldwide patent search site ? NEWThe Invent Blog®
Posted on April 03, 2008PriorSmart.com [Originally posted on The Invent Blog. Copyright © Nipper, LLC 2004-2007. All Rights Reserved.]
RIAA: N.Y. judge's 'making available' ruling was no setbackThe Iconoclast
Posted on April 03, 2008The Recording Industry Association of America says a New York judge's ruling earlier this week really wasn't much of a setback for them. In fact, they say they don't mind it much at all. This is my article from Tuesday to which the RIAA is responding...
Administration Asserts No Fourth Amendment for Domestic Military OperationsThe Electronic Frontier Foundation | Deeplinks Blogs
Posted on April 02, 2008What Could It Mean for Warrantless Domestic Surveillance? Today's Washington Post reports on a newly released memo, "Memorandum for William J. Haynes II, General Counsel of the Department of Defense Re: Military Interrogation of Alien Unlawful Combatants Held Outside the United States" (March 14, 2003) , which which was declassified and released publicly yesterday...
School District Didn't Violate First Amendment for Reassigning Teacher Who Blogged--Richerson v. BeckonTechnology & Marketing Law Blog
Posted on April 02, 2008By Eric Goldman Richerson v. Beckon, 2008 WL 833076 (W.D. Wash. March 27, 2008) A school district appointed Richerson to...
Gibson Sues Makers Of Guitar Hero And Rock Band For Patent Infringment [Gibson]Consumerist
Posted on April 02, 2008Gibson is suing Activision, Harmonix, Electronic Arts, and MTV over alleged patent infringement over the companies' involvement in Rock Band and the Guitar Hero series. The lawsuit is not over Guitar Hero's use of the iconic Les Paul, SG, and Explorer guitars as controllers, but for violation of a decade-old patent for...
Judge Posner and the Continuing Violation DoctrineThe Patry Copyright Blog
Posted on April 02, 2008Seventh Circuit Judge Richard Posner issued an opinion yesterday that spells out his interpretation of the continuing violation doctrine in statute of limitations law. The case, Limestone Development Corp. v. Village of Lemont, Illinois, may be found here on the court's website...
In an About Face, New Jersey Provides Lawyer Records to WebsiteABA Journal Daily News
Posted on April 02, 2008The state of New Jersey has complied with a request for records of thousands of lawyers in the state by lawyer-ranking website Avvo. Avvo had petitioned the New Jersey Supreme Court for access to names, year of admission and current bar status of?
Arrests in fake Craigslist "everything must go" ad rip-offBoing Boing
Posted on April 02, 2008Oregon cops caught the alleged crooks who posted a fake "moving, everything must go, just come and take it" ad on Craigslist, which ended up costing their victim almost everything he owned. The pair had allegedly stolen a saddle from the man and wanted to cover up the crime, but they used a traceable IP address to commit the fraud...
Annie Get Your GunCounterfeit Chic
Posted on April 02, 2008If anything could provoke yet another round of hand-wringing anxiety in the cultivated bundle of neuroses that is Woody Allen, it's seeing his own face appear on a giant billboard for American Apparel -- without authorization. Hence the USD $10 million lawsuit filed on Monday in federal district court in Manhattan, claiming that American Apparel violated Allen's rights of publicity by appropriating an image from his film Annie Hall...
eBay Bans Auctions of Digital PropertyG4 TV - TheFeed
Posted on April 02, 2008eBay has dropped the banhammer on auctions that contain digital property. The trouble was that allowing digital goods meant sellers could put up as many auctions as they wanted, because they had an unlimited number of copies that could be delivered. These multiple listings were choking the pipes and making it hard for people to find what they were actually looking for when browsing...
'Borat' Defamation Suit Is DismissedWSJ.com: Law
Posted on April 02, 2008A judge has tossed a defamation lawsuit brought by a businessman shown in the movie "Borat" as he is chased by comedian Sacha Baron Cohen.
Sony BMG Sued For Using Pirated SoftwareSilicon Alley Insider
Posted on April 01, 2008You read that headline right -- Sony BMG, ardent foe of music piracy, is in trouble for using pirated software. The company is being sued by PointDev, a French software company that makes Windows administration tools, after an IT worker at Sony BMG called and supplied the company with a pirated license number for one of its products...
Why TechCrunch Is Suing Facebook For $25 MillionThe Trademark Blog
Posted on April 01, 2008TechCrunch: "Why We're Suing Facebook For $25 Million In Statutory Damages": So we?ve been increasingly concerned about developments at Facebook over the last few months that allow advertisers to post ads using my picture and name to endorse their products without my explicit permission...
NYC Lawyers Subpoena CodeSlashdot: Your Rights Online
Posted on April 01, 2008RonMcMahon writes "Lawyers for the city of New York have subpoenaed the text message records of thousands of people involved in demonstrations at the 2004 Republican National Convention. Tad Hirsch, creator of the TXTmob code that enabled convention demonstrators to transmit messages to thousands of telephones, has been instructed to release the content of messages exchanged on the service and to identify people who sent and received messages...
Offering to Distribute = Distribution, says in Court Elektra v. BarkerThe Electronic Frontier Foundation | Deeplinks Blogs
Posted on April 01, 2008Yesterday, a federal court ruled in Elektra v. Barker that "an offer to distribute ... for the purpose of further distribution" may be enough to violate a copyright owner's distribution right. This ruling opens the door open for civil attempt liability when it comes to distribution -- in other words, that having a song in a shared folder without authorization might be infringing, even if no one ever downloads it from you...
No April Fools joke: Continuation and claim limit rules held invalid; permanently enjoinedFilewrapper®
Posted on April 01, 2008In a ruling today regarding the parties' motions for summary judgment in the consolidated cases challenging the USPTO's new claim and continutation rules, Judge Cacheris ruled the rules were invalid, and permanently enjoined their enforcement...
Julie Hilden on Fox v. FCCMedia Law Prof Blog
Posted on April 01, 2008FindLaw's Julie Hilden weighs in on the Supreme Court's possible decision in the "fleeting expletives" case, Fox v. FCC here.
*** USPTO Continuation Ruled Dead (For Now) ***Peter Zura's 271 Patent Blog
Posted on April 01, 2008Judge Cacheris from the ED Va. granted GSK?s and Tafas?s Motions for Summary Judgment finding that the PTO?s "hard limit" on the number of continuation applications and claims per patent were excessive extensions of PTO authority:Because the USPTO?s rulemaking authority under 35 U...
Prepare to Repel B'ardersTechnorati Search for: "blawg review"
Posted on March 31, 2008On my legal weblog, Declarations and Exclusions, I am once again pleased to host an edition of Blawg Review, the carnival of law-related bloggers and blogging. Blawg Review #153 is a "themed" version, driven on this occasion by matters generally nautical and specifically piratical...
"5 Famous Inventors (Who Stole Their Big Idea)"SIVACRACY.NET
Posted on March 31, 2008Well, at least according to this website.
Richards on Intellectual PrivacyLegal Theory Blog
Posted on March 31, 2008Neil M. Richards (Washington University School of Law) has posted Intellectual Privacy (Texas Law Review, Vol. 87, No. 2, December 2008) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:This paper is about intellectual privacy - the protection of records of our intellectual activities - and how legal protection of these records is essential to the First Amendment values of free thought and expression...
Neil Netanel?s Copyright?s ParadoxThe Patry Copyright Blog
Posted on March 31, 2008On December 13th, 2007, I did a post on UCLA law professor Neil Netanel?s article discussing the causes for copyright?s expansion something like a major league baseball player (pick your favorite) juiced on steroids. I noted that the article was originally intended to be part of a forthcoming book ?Copyright?s Paradox...
TTABlog Quarterly Index: January 2008 - March 2008The TTABlog®
Posted on March 31, 2008For those who haven't noticed, e-mail subscriptions to the TTABlog are available. Just enter your e-mail address in the box on the right to receive a daily update via Feeblitz.Section 2(a) - Deceptiveness:TTAB Affirms 2(a) Deceptiveness Refusal of "MINK BIKINI" for Minkless Clothing Finding "MINK" Deceptive and Deceptively Misdescriptive for Clothing, TTAB Affirms 2(a) and 2(e)(1) RefusalsSection 2(a) - False Connection: TTAB Reverses 2(a) Refusal of "L'OREAL PARIS" for Aloe Vera Drinks: PTO Fails to Show False Connection with French Cosmetics CompanySection 2(d) - Likelihood of Confusion: TTAB Grants 2(d) Summary Judgment: "MEIER'S" and "MEYER VINEYARD" for Wine Confusingly Similar TTAB Finds Design Marks for Motorcycles Confusingly Similar: What Say You? Fame Dominates as TTAB Sustains "PLAYBOY" Opposition to "PLAY BODY" for Clothing Precedential No...
Sparks fly over copyright at Tech Policy SummitLawgarithms
Posted on March 31, 2008The group of copyright scholars and advocates gathered Wednesday at the Tech Policy Summit in Hollywood demonstrated that while copyright must function in a converged world, opinions on how it should function are as divergent as ever. The panel (pictured from left to right) consisted of Patrick Ross (Executive Director, Copyright Alliance), Fred von Lohmann (Senior Staff Attorney, EFF), Matt Zinn (VP and general counsel, TiVo), and moderator Doug Lichtman of UCLA Law School...
Blawg of the Day -- AtlanteknologyInter Alia
Posted on March 31, 2008Our next featured Canadian blog is Atlanteknology, which is published by Charles Perez, a lawyer and trade-mark agent in Halifax, Nova Scotia. On his blog, he's providing insight, information, and inspiration for Atlantic Canadians on technology issues, such as domain names, file sharing, financing, and various intellectual property subjects...
Global minilinks for 2008-03-29The Electronic Frontier Foundation | Deeplinks Blogs
Posted on March 30, 2008Israel Adopts Fair UseIn their reform of national copyright law, Israel opts for an open-ended and court-defined idea of fair use, similar to the United States. India Wants Blackberry CryptoOn the eve of renewing RIM's license in the country, India wants the keys to the mobile device's encryption system...
Blawg Book Highlighter #26: Patent Failure: How Judges, Bureaucrats, and Lawyers Put Innovators at RiskBlawg's Blog by Bill Gratsch
Posted on March 29, 2008Blawg Book Highlighter #26: Patent Failure: How Judges, Bureaucrats, and Lawyers Put Innovators at Risk The Patent and Copyright Clause of the US Constitution was proposed in 1787 by James Madison and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney. In Federalist #43, Madison wrote, ?The utility of the clause will scarcely be questioned...
Fordham IP: Copyright Exceptions and Limitations43(B)log
Posted on March 29, 2008A. Copyright Law Exceptions and Limitations The development agenda issues, library proposals, fair use, de minimus use, the role of the three-step test, new legislative developments Moderator: Prof. Justin Hughes, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Some argue that in a heightened-enforcement environment, it is more important?people have a right?to know what uses of copyrighted materials are allowed...
Fordham IP: Free speech and P2P issues43(B)log
Posted on March 29, 2008Free Speech and Copyright and Trademark Issues in the US and around the World Moderator: Prof. Sonia Katyal, Fordham University School of Law Speakers: Prof. Robert Burrell, University of Queensland, Brisbane Exporting Controversy: Free Speech and Trade Agreements It has recently been suggested that freedom of expression should be treated as a trade issue, in part so as to ensure that future trade agreements are more ?balanced?...
minilinks for 2008-03-28The Electronic Frontier Foundation | Deeplinks Blogs
Posted on March 28, 2008NY Times Wiretapping Coverage -- The Inside StoryAn excerpt from NY Times author Eric Lichtblau's new book on warrantless wiretapping. Fee for All -- Music as Service from ISPsWarner is developing proposals that would make access to music a service charged by ISPs...
Fordham IP Law & Policy Conference: copyright in the morning43(B)log
Posted on March 28, 2008Fordham Intellectual Property Law Institute, Sixteenth Annual Conference, Intellectual Property Law & Policy Orphan Works legislation in the U.S. and around the WorldModerator: Steven J. Metalitz, Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp, Wash. D.C. Speakers: Prof...
Fordham IP Law & Policy Conference: copyright part 243(B)log
Posted on March 28, 200811:20 ? 1:15 The Challenges and Opportunities of Copyright in the Web 2.0 World Moderator: Morton David Goldberg, Cowan, Liebowitz & Latman, P.C. Speakers: Marty Hansen, Covington & Burling, Wash. D.C. Web 2.0: A Brief Overview of Issues and Challenges User-generated content: That doesn?t really capture the uniqueness and challenges from a copyright perspective: ?user-manipulated content? is better...
Music Tax Details From Source: ?Pay Us Not To Sue You?TechCrunch
Posted on March 28, 2008We learned yesterday that Warner Music, the third largest music label, is gunning for a $5/month music tax on U.S. residents. Some of the details were in the article: they?ve hired industry veteran Jim Griffin to create a new entity around the project, presumably to get other labels involved...
Under 18? Get Off My Google!G4 TV - TheFeed
Posted on March 28, 2008A clause in Google's Terms of Service actually means that no one under 18 is allowed to use Google or any of its services (search, GMail, YouTube). "You may not use ... Google's products, software, services and web sites ... and may not accept the Terms if ...
IP Think Tank Global Week in Review - 28 March 2008Duncan Bucknell's site updates
Posted on March 28, 2008Here is IP Think Tank?s weekly selection of top intellectual property news breaking in the blogosphere and internet. Please join the discussion by adding your comments on any of these stories, and please do let me know if you think we?ve missed something important, or if there is a source you think should be monitored...
Attorneys? Fees and Objectively Reasonable ClaimsThe Patry Copyright Blog
Posted on March 27, 2008Can attorneys? fees be awarded to a prevailing defendant under Section 505 of the Copyright Act if the court finds plaintiff?s unsuccessful claim was nevertheless objectively reasonable? The Sixth Circuit said yes this week in the latest Bridgeport Music saga, Bridgeport Music, Inc...
JuicyCampus on ?Absurd? AG Probes: We Don?t Have to Enforce Our RulesABA Journal Daily News
Posted on March 27, 2008An anonymous campus gossip website that is now the subject of at least two state attorney general investigations has responded to claims that it may have violated its own terms and conditions by providing a bulletin board for allegedly malicious, defamatory and potentially harmful posts...
Patently-O Bits and Bytes No. 25Patent Law Blog (Patently-O)
Posted on March 27, 2008Japanese Patents: Fordham?s new IPLJ blog wrestles with my question: ?Why are relatively few non-Japanese applications filed in Japan?? [IPLJ][Patently-O] On the Radio: Legal Talk Network on Patent Troll Tracker: Ray Niro and I were guests on the internet radio show lawyer-to-lawyer...
She Lit a Candle and Showed Me the WayPatent Prospector
Posted on March 27, 2008Patent examiners act as gatekeepers between inventors and the pearly entrance to patent glory. With the patent office hell-bent on rejection, achieving salvation can come down to knowing thy gatekeeper. Enter USPTO Examiners, a spanking new website, offering deliverance while boasting "We Examine the Examiners...
Google Image Labeler ? Community Intellectual Property Cops?The Invent Blog®
Posted on March 26, 2008Google has a new ?product? in beta. Called the ?Google Image Labeler,? it is ?a feature of Google Search that allows you to label images and help improve the quality of Google?s image search results.? You are partnered with another person and are shown a series of images over a two-minute period...
40% of Section 337 Actions Go to TrialI/P Updates
Posted on March 26, 2008According to Tom Jarvis in webinar entitled "IP Litigation at the ITC: Recent Developments and Best Practices," about 40% of ITC cases go to trial while only about 3% of district court cases go to trial. However, settlements often occur after trial and frequently involve monetary payments.
Blizzard Sues Over WOW-BotG4 TV - TheFeed
Posted on March 26, 2008Blizzard, creators of World of Warcraft, are suing the maker of "MMO Glider," a WoW add-on that "plays your World of Warcraft character for you, the way you want it. It grinds, it loots, it skins, it heals, it even farms soul shards....
Film Maker and PK Submit Testimony on Orphan WorksPublic Knowledge - Blogging, Events, and Action Alerts
Posted on March 26, 2008PK and a group of film makers told the House Judiciary Committee last week what we would like to see as key elements of orphan works legislation. The testimony was submitted by PK and the following group of independent film maker organizations: Doculink, Film Independent, International Documentary Association, Independent Feature Project, National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture, and Tribeca Film Institute, for the record for the March 13 House Judiciary hearing that Rashmi wrote about here...
Public Knowledge files comments on ACTAPublic Knowledge - Blogging, Events, and Action Alerts
Posted on March 26, 2008Public Knowledge filed comments regarding the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) last Friday advising the office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) that ACTA should not adversely affect the rights of consumers and technology innovators in its efforts to curb counterfeiting and piracy...
RIAA vice president and Ray Beckerman to share dais on Friday, March 28th, at Fordham University Law School, to discuss statutory damagesRecording Industry vs The People
Posted on March 26, 2008On Friday, March 28, 2008, at the 16th Annual "Intellectual Property Law & Policy" conference, a 2-day conference hosted by Fordham University School of Law in New York City, Kenneth Doroshow, the RIAA's Senior Vice President of Litigation and Legal Affairs, will speak on the subject of copyright statutory damages...
Cybersquatting explosion puts emphasis on trademark owners to demand actionIAM Magazine - Blog
Posted on March 26, 2008The number of domain name disputes being handled by WIPO under the UDRP is at a record high and the signs are that dramatic annual increases will keep on coming for the foreseeable future. According to a press release issued by WIPO yesterday, its Arbitration and Mediation Centre received over 2,500 complaints about cybersquatting during 2007, up 18% on the 2006 figure and a massive 48% on the figure for 2005...
Turn-It-In and Kiss-It-GoodbyeThe Patry Copyright Blog
Posted on March 25, 2008On March 26, 2007, I did a posting about high school students who filed suit against a company hired by their school to catch papers were that were copied and not original. On March 11, Judge Claude Hilton of the Eastern District of Virginia issued his decision in the case, A...
Smashing Pumpkins Sue Virgin Over "Artistic Integrity"Pitchfork: News
Posted on March 25, 2008LOLz Photo by Matt Ziegler Okay so this is just kinda funny. According to a Billboard.com report, Billy Corgan and his Smashing Pumpkins are suing former label Virgin Records-- with which they put out Siamese Dream, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, Adore, and Machina/The Machines of God-- for damaging their "artistic integrity" and undoing the "considerable amount of goodwill in the eyes of the public" the band has "worked hard for over two decades to accumulate...
Patent Troll Tracker & Cisco's New Blog PolicyPatent Law Blog (Patently-O)
Posted on March 24, 2008Most major companies are still trying to get their heads wrapped around the flat world concepts that Thomas Friedman presented in his 2005 bestseller. The reputational power of the internet is now driving many corporate balance sheets. The business issue: ensuring that the reputation is going right way...
The Fair Use Defense in CopyrightMedia Law Prof Blog
Posted on March 24, 2008Jennifer E. Rothman, Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, has published "Why Custom Cannot Save Copyright's Fair Use Defense," at 93 Virginia Law Review in Brief 243 (2008). Here is the abstract. This article is a short reply to Richard Epstein's...
Fox Rebuffs FCC Indecency FineWSJ.com: Law
Posted on March 24, 2008Fox Television refused to pay a $91,000 indecency fine over a reality TV episode featuring strippers and whipped cream. Fox said the FCC's ruling was "arbitrary and capricious, inconsistent with precedent, and patently unconstitutional."
phosita ::: quick links for 2008-03-24PHOSITA
Posted on March 24, 2008WIPO Meeting on Enhancing Value of PCT Searches and Opinions Major patent Offices are looking at ways of sharing search and examination reports in order to reduce the unnecessary duplication of work as far as possible. The PCT was specifically designed to address this issue, and yet it is not being routinely used...
Adwords Ad Creates Initial Interest Confusion--Storus v. AroaTechnology & Marketing Law Blog
Posted on March 24, 2008By Eric Goldman Storus Corp. v. Aroa Marketing Inc., No. C-06-2454 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 15, 2008). (Sorry for my delay...
Blawg Review #152TechnoLawyer Blog
Posted on March 24, 2008Blawg Review #152, TechnoLawyer Style Blawg Review is not just a blog, it's a clever social networking concept. Every week, a different blawg hosts Blawg Review, pointing out what it deems the most interesting blawg Posts from the previous week. Sometimes, the hosting blog will develop a theme around Blawg Review...
Justin.tv -- one year old and still full of illegal content [Lifecasters]Valleywag
Posted on March 24, 2008Lifecasting site Justin.tv has come a long way since banning a broadcaster for one night of indecent exposure -- that is, sexual acts. There may be less porn now, but other illegal content now graces Justin.tv's servers. Right now I'm watching a stream of Fox Sports Net West's broadcast of the San Diego Padres playing the Los Angeles Angels...
Welcome, Radar readers!Counterfeit Chic
Posted on March 24, 2008Easter Monday. The eggs have been hunted, the lamb roasted, and the heads bitten off chocolate bunnies everywhere. Those most fanciful of couture confections, Easter bonnets, have been taken off parade and stored in hatboxes until next year. And while the lilies still decorating many churches "toil not, neither do they spin," the rest of us have to get back to work...
Open-government advocate calls Ohio Supreme Court records panel unconstitutionalLibrary Stuff
Posted on March 23, 2008Cleveland Plain Dealer - ?Cleveland lawyer David Marburger, of the Ohio Coalition for Open Government, said a court- appointed commission drawing up rules on what court records the public should have access to does not have the constitutional authority to do so...
Global minilinks for 2008-03-22The Electronic Frontier Foundation | Deeplinks Blogs
Posted on March 23, 2008Antigua Says It Will Start Ignoring US CopyrightsWTO gave Antigua the right to ignore US IP rights as part of a judgement over online gambling bans. Now the small country is threatening to begin its data haven status, starting in April. France's Oliviennes Law in Final Negotiations (Google Translation)Sticking point among parties to the discussion is ISP filtering; outside, users are worried about government access to IP addresses and end-user liability for others using their network...
No, you can?t use Trademark Law to stifle critics!The Legal Satyricon
Posted on March 23, 2008It does not entirely turn my stomach when a corporation wants to stifle a critic. Most people and companies would want the same. It does entirely turn my stomach when an attorney misuses his position as an officer of the court to try and support such efforts - this is the kind of behavior that gives our otherwise-honorable profession a dirty name...
Amateur HourPatent Prospector
Posted on March 23, 2008WikiPatents and the USPTO-condoned Peer to Patent projects are attempts at solutions looking for a problem. The implicit conjecture is that patent examiners are limited in their search capabilities, and a helping hand is just what they need. Nothing could be further from the truth...
Low-res transformativeness43(B)log
Posted on March 22, 2008Quick, what's this a picture of?(If you can't tell, pull back and try again.)Adam Connelly paints pictures of pornographic images, pixellated so that it's our minds, not the paint, providing the salacious details. He says: "Drawing its subjects from the vast pool of freely-available Internet porn, my work delves into issues of public and private identity, privacy, censorship, information sharing, and information awareness...
IP Think Tank Global Week in Review - 21 March 2008Duncan Bucknell's site updates
Posted on March 22, 2008Here is IP Think Tank?s weekly selection of top intellectual property news breaking in the blogosphere and internet. Please join the discussion by adding your comments on any of these stories, and please do let me know if you think we?ve missed something important, or if there is a source you think should be monitored...
Trademark rights, speech rightsLIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION®
Posted on March 22, 2008Public Citizen: A federal judge today upheld a Georgia man?s First Amendment right to criticize Wal-Mart?s business practices by using satire to compare its destructive effects on communities to both the Holocaust and al-Qaeda terrorists.In rejecting the company?s claim of trademark infringement, the U...
Israel Fights Back: A Purim StoryThe Patry Copyright Blog
Posted on March 21, 2008It is fitting that on today, the Jewish holiday of Purim I discuss the recent, heroic response of the Government of Israel to the bullying by the U.S. International Intellectual Property Alliance in its submission to the United States Trade Representative regarding the U...
Friday IP Round-UpPatent Baristas
Posted on March 21, 2008The Kentucky BioAlliance has established a fund to provide stipends for Kentucky-based biotech companies to attend the annual Biotechnology Industry Organization BIO2008 conference. Companies that are selected will be awarded a stipend to cover up to $800 in expenses associated with attending the annual BIO International Conference...
minilinks for 2008-03-20The Electronic Frontier Foundation | Deeplinks Blogs
Posted on March 21, 2008FISA Attacks Fail to Sway CT RepresentativeRep. Joe Courtney has a good video explaining why he opposes telecom immunity, despite being attacked on the issue. Republican Opposes Telecom ImmunityA Republican candidate in North Carolina says he wants telephone companies held accountable...
Deception about defamation43(B)log
Posted on March 21, 2008This story, College Gossip Site Under Scrutiny, reports: ?New Jersey prosecutors have subpoenaed records of JuicyCampus.com, a Web site that publishes anonymous, often malicious gossip about college students?. JuicyCampus may be violating the state?s Consumer Fraud Act by suggesting that it doesn?t allow offensive material but providing no enforcement of that rule ? and no way for users to report or dispute the material, New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram said Tuesday...
CAFC Judicial ConferencePatent Docs
Posted on March 21, 2008By Donald Zuhn -- The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit will be holding a Judicial Conference entitled "The Federal Circuit: A National Court of Appeals: Addressing New Challenges" on May 15, 2008 in Washington, DC. Topics and speakers at the conference will include: ? State of the...
EPIC Sues For Access To Virginia Fusion Center RecordsJD Scoop
Posted on March 21, 2008One of our newest contributors, the Electronic Privacy Information Center ("EPIC"), is sharing some very Scoop-worthy filings, including the complaint it filed today seeking documents about the federal government's role in an effort to limit accountability of state "Fusion Centers...
Photographs are not Derivative Works Part IIThe Patry Copyright Blog
Posted on March 20, 2008On February 5th, I did a posting about the question of whether photographs of objects are derivative works of those objects. I have long answered that question negatively, but the post was prompted by an Iliinois case that came out the other way, Schrock v...
Plagiarism detection is fair use43(B)log
Posted on March 20, 2008Turnitin is a plagiarism-detection service. Schools using Turnitin require students to submit papers through Turnitin?s system, which compares their papers to Turnitin?s database and, if there?s a suspicious match, generates a report for the relevant teacher...
Knockoff News 79Counterfeit Chic
Posted on March 19, 2008A periodic collection of news about counterfeits, fakes, knockoffs, replicas, imitations, and the culture of copying in general around the globe:United South Africa: Country's designers decry lack of IP protection for emerging fashionNot tough enough: Uganda vows to strengthen legal penalties on counterfeit sellersFalse charity: His Church sends seized fakes to AfricaHard candy: M&Ms accuses Naked Cowboy of fraud in USPTO claim (See related post...
USPTO Issues Service Mark Registration for "THE TTABLOG"The TTABlog®
Posted on March 19, 2008In case you missed it, on March 18, 2008, the USPTO issued Registration No. 3,398,417 for the mark THE TTABLOG for "An online blog featuring commentary and information in the field of trademarks; an online blog featuring commentary and information regarding decisions of the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board and the courts relating to trademark law...
NJ AG Anne Milgram goes after JuicyCampusIPBiz
Posted on March 19, 2008AP reported: JuicyCampus may be violating the state's Consumer Fraud Act by suggesting that it doesn't allow offensive material but providing no enforcement of that rule ? and no way for users to report or dispute the material, New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram said Tuesday...
COMMENT, Big Boi, Dr. Seuss and the King: Expanding the Constitutional Protections for the Satirical Use of Famous Trademarks, by Aaron F. JaroffTarlton Law Library Current Trademark Literature
Posted on March 19, 200857 American University Law Review 641 (2008)
Copyfighters beat down Tennessee billBoing Boing
Posted on March 19, 2008Copyfighters in Tennessee have scored a massive win, defanging a crappy, RIAA-written state bill: SB3974 is a Bill written by the RIAA, and sponsored by Knoxville Sen. Tim Burchett, that forces any institution of ?higher learning? to monitor all public university students and (according to the RIAA) expel any who access copyrighted content...
Patently-O Bits and Bytes No. 24Patent Law Blog (Patently-O)
Posted on March 19, 2008Using Prosecution Histories: I?m going to do a survey next week on how prosecution history is used in practice, but I would like some reader input to help me create the survey. What are some examples of times when you look at the prosecution history of an application? This survey will span prosecution, litigation, licensing, FTO, patent families and related applications, and will also touch on the cost associated with reviewing a prosecution history...
Why is Prostitution Illegal, but Pornography is Not?The Legal Satyricon
Posted on March 18, 2008I have heard (and read) this question asked by lots of really intelligent people. See, e.g., Rogier van Bakel. Of course, Rogier?s take on it is more rooted in the ?morality? vs. liberty battle. Rogier is a five star general in the battle for common sense and liberty...
Patently-O Bits and Bytes No. 23Patent Law Blog (Patently-O)
Posted on March 18, 2008Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights v. Craigslist, Inc., 2008 WL 681168 (7th Cir. March 14, 2008) (?Using the remarkably candid postings on Craigslist, the Lawyers? Committee can identify many targets to investigate. It can dispatch testers and collect damages from any landlord or owner who engages in discrimination...
Alleged MySpace Cyber Stalker Subpoenas Threat LevelWired: Threat Level
Posted on March 18, 2008Alleged cyber stalking victim Amor Hilton, the teenage hostess of the Stickam show Bare Naked. Image: Hilton's MySpace profile Jeffrey Weinberg, the convicted hacker accused of trying to ransom an internet pin-up girl's MySpace account for phone sex, thinks this humble blog may hold the key to his freedom, judging from the subpoena his public defender just sent to Wired's corporate overlords...
Turnitin.com Lawsuit Yields Rulings on Browsewrap Contracts, Fair Use of Copyrighted ExpressionTechLaw
Posted on March 18, 2008An opinion released a few days ago in the Turnitin.com lawsuit, A.V. v. iParadigms, No. 07-293 (E.D. Va., March 11, 2008), took up several issues of interest to cyberlaw attorneys. The court (1) enforced a clickwrap agreement, (2) declined to enforce terms of use that were viewable by clicking on a hyperlink at the bottom of a Web page, and (3) held that Turnitin...
Federal District Court docket info for free?Ernie The Attorney
Posted on March 18, 2008Thanks to my friend Al Robert for pointing this out. Justia has a free online database of all federal docket information from Jan 1, 2004 to the present. The information is sparse, but at least you can see all of the recent cases filed related to a certain party...
Google?s Thin-Skinned LawyersBits
Posted on March 18, 2008Google bans sites that earn money from its AdSense network from taking action that "reflects poorly on Google or otherwise disparages or devalues Google's reputation or goodwill." It says it isn't trying to stifle criticism, but it has the right to.
Obama Fan Strikes OutCounterfeit Chic
Posted on March 18, 2008He built it, and they came. Now the Obama supporter who developed a line of t-shirts based on baseball team logos has been forced to dismantle his website, ObamaofDreams.com, at the objection of Major League Baseball. While typefaces themselves are not protected by copyright, their use is frequently an essential trademark element...
Anonymous Bloggers Carry on Tradition of the Federalist PapersChicago IP Litigation Blog
Posted on March 17, 2008There has been a lot of coverage of Troll Tracker's recently disclosed identity.* Troll Tracker ended his anonymity a few weeks ago and now faces a libel law suit along with his employer, Cisco, based upon statements he made about a case involving Cisco -- this is one of the many reasons I do not write about cases that my firm or I are involved in...
Did the US gov't sell exclusive access to its legislative history to Thomson West?Boing Boing
Posted on March 17, 2008Rogue archivist Carl Malamud writes, John Wonderlich of the Sunlight Foundation alerted me to a situation about a month ago that we've been pursuing (with EFF's help) at the Government Accountability Office, which is an arm of the U.S. Congress. The law librarians at GAO have compiled complete federal legislative histories from 1915 on...
Eliot Spitzer and those Nude PhotosThe Patry Copyright Blog
Posted on March 17, 2008Last week, those of us in the New York metropolitan area, were treated to a constant barrage of news stories about now former (as of today) NY governor Eliot Spitzer's dallying with prostitutes, including "Kristen," a/k/a Ashley Alexandra Dupre, a/k/a Ashley Youmans...
TWiL 13: Domain Name Lawthis WEEK in LAW
Posted on March 17, 2008Hosts: Denise Howell, Bret Fausett, Cathy Kirkman, Collette Vogele, and Marty Schwimmer WikiLeaks, Julius Baer, Dynadot, registrars, domain tasting vs. front running, ICANN, Network Solutions, and more. Talking points: http://del.icio.us/thisweekinlaw/13...
Is Godaddy a Mass Cybersquatter?The Legal Satyricon
Posted on March 16, 2008We have all bumped into pay-per-click sites while looking for actually useful information. You know these sites. You type in a domain name, fully expecting to find a useful website, and all you find is a sponsored link generic page. The Periplaneta Americana of the Internet What you findat motoguzzi...
EFF Celebrates Sunshine WeekThe Electronic Frontier Foundation | Deeplinks Blogs
Posted on March 16, 2008The principles of open government are promoted and celebrated each year during Sunshine Week ? observed this year March 16-22. The weeklong initiative is built around National Freedom of Information Day, which has been celebrated since the 1970s on March 16, James Madison?s birthday...
Harry Potter and the Lexicon of Fair UseInfo/Law
Posted on March 15, 2008No, it?s not the eighth installment of the Rowling series - rather, it?s the latest installment of the ongoing legal fistfight over RDR Books and Steven Vander Ark?s attempt to publish a book version of the on-line guide to the Harry Potter wizarding world...
IP Think Tank Global Week in Review - 14 March 2008Duncan Bucknell's site updates
Posted on March 15, 2008Here is IP Think Tank?s weekly selection of top intellectual property news breaking in the blogosphere and internet. Please join the discussion by adding your comments on any of these stories, and please do let me know if you think we?ve missed something important, or if there is a source you think should be monitored...
Fair Use and the APWhat is Fair Use?
Posted on March 15, 2008The Associated Press is being accused of copyright infringement due to distributing personal pictures from an individual's Myspace account through the wire services. The individual is Ashley Youmans AKA Ashley Alexandra Dupre, AKA Kristen, of Eliot Spitzer fame, and she is claiming that AP did not ask permission before using her personal photographs for their stories...
RIAA's unethical investigations to be dragged into the open in court caseBoing Boing
Posted on March 14, 2008Tanya Andersen, a single mom in Oregon who was unsuccessfully sued by the RIAA, is countersuing, and her lawyer is planning to use the suit to drag all the tawdry details of the RIAA's sneaky, unethical "investigation" techniques into the open: Lybeck tells Ars that he'll be digging into agreements between the RIAA, RIAA member companies, MediaSentry, and the Settlement Support Sentry...
Patently-O Bits and Bytes No. 22Patent Law Blog (Patently-O)
Posted on March 14, 2008Question on Patent Issuance: I know that I have read this before ? Is there a standard time that patents issue? E.g., is it proper to file a patent infringement case at 12:01 am on the day that the patent is scheduled to issue? What if the PTO?s website is delayed in its update? What about filing at 12:00:01 am? Ward v...
Friday IP Roundup: Pi EitionPatent Baristas
Posted on March 14, 2008Today is Pi Day 2008. Pi, Greek letter (), is the symbol for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Pi = 3.1415926535? Pi Day is celebrated by math enthusiasts around the world on March 14th at 1:59 p.m. The first theoretical calculation of a value of pi was by Archimedes of Syracuse (287-212 BC)...
Patents, Property, and Corporations: a Historical and Economic ReminderPatent Prospector
Posted on March 14, 2008Economists Bessen and Meurer have published a book, Patent Failure, detailing the results of their study of the economic benefits of the patent system. In their own words, a central theme in the conclusions from their study is that "patents often fail to perform effectively as property rights...
Litman on Fair UseLegal Theory Blog
Posted on March 14, 2008Jessica Litman (University of Michigan) has posted Billowing White Goo (Columbia Journal of Law & the Arts, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:In this paper, written for a symposium on Fair Use: Incredibly Expanding or Extraordinarily Shrinking?, I argue that the size of the fair use footprint has remained about the same over the past three decades, while the size and scope of copyright's exclusive rights have expanded markedly...
minilinks for 2008-03-14The Electronic Frontier Foundation | Deeplinks Blogs
Posted on March 14, 2008Analysis: Firm Stance on FISA Pays Big for DemocratsConfronting the President on spying powers turns out to be a better strategy than capitulation. President Weakens Spying OversightThe Intelligence Oversight Board has been stripped of much of its authority -- reversing reforms of the 70s...
Global minilinks for 2008-03-14The Electronic Frontier Foundation | Deeplinks Blogs
Posted on March 14, 2008Italian Privacy Authority Upholds Privacy of P2P Users' IP addressesGoogle translation of court decision defending 3000 Italian P2P users, whose IP addresses were obtained by German label Peppermint. License Plate Surveillance 'The Hallmarks of a Totalitarian State', Says German Supreme CourtRoundly rejects the technology from being used in the country...
What do file-sharers have in common with discriminatory renters?43(B)log
Posted on March 14, 2008Answer: Not a secondary liability regime.Eric Goldman blogged about the decision in Chicago Lawyers? Committee for Civil Rights Under Law v. Craigslist, Inc., No. 07-1101 (7th Cir. March 14, 2008). He says, ?I don?t think there?s much value to parsing [Judge Easterbrook?s] confusing statutory analysis? to figure out how the case comports with past Seventh Circuit precedent, and I won?t fight him on that, but there?s a sentence in the opinion that cries out for correction: ?Grokster is incompatible with treating §230(c)(1) as a grant of comprehensive immunity from civil liability for content provided by a third party...
The Unpleasantries of Service of ProcessThe Patry Copyright Blog
Posted on March 14, 2008How do you obtain personal jurisdiction over a defendant in a copyright case? Personal jurisdiction is, in federal question cases such as copyright, intertwined with service of process. A suit for copyright infringement is instituted by the filing of a complaint with the clerk of the district court and serving a copy of the complaint along with a summons on the defendant...
RIAA's unethical investigations to be dragged into the open in court caseBoing Boing
Posted on March 14, 2008Tanya Andersen, a single mom in Oregon who was unsuccessfully sued by the RIAA, is countersuing, and her lawyer is planning to use the suit to drag all the tawdry details of the RIAA's sneaky, unethical "investigation" techniques into the open: Lybeck tells Ars that he'll be digging into agreements between the RIAA, RIAA member companies, MediaSentry, and the Settlement Support Sentry...
Bodo on CopynormsLegal Theory Blog
Posted on March 13, 2008Balazs Bodo has a nice post on copynorms (the social norms governing the conduct regulated by copyright law) on his CIS blog. Here is a taste:For me the question is not if there is a way to change norms to cover current copyright legislation, but the healthy compromise where these two can meet...
eBay Denied 230 Defense for Its Marketing Representations--Mazur v. eBayTechnology & Marketing Law Blog
Posted on March 13, 2008By Eric Goldman Mazur v. eBay Inc., 2008 WL 618988 (N.D. Cal. March 4, 2008) I declared Monday "47 USC...
Patently-O Bits and Bytes No. 21Patent Law Blog (Patently-O)
Posted on March 13, 2008Disclose Disclose Disclose: 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. [6 Nw. J. of Tech...
Interpreting the DMCAMedia Law Prof Blog
Posted on March 13, 2008Timothy K. Armstrong, University of Cincinnati College of Law, has published "Fair Circumvention" as University of Cincinnati Public Law Research Paper 08-08. Here is the abstract. Judicial decisions construing the key liability provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA),...
Dumpster Diving Leads to VARA SuitThe Legal Satyricon
Posted on March 13, 2008Art dealer or VARA Scofflaw? Here?s an interesting one, found at On Point News. It isn?t very often that you see a VARA suit, but we have one going on in the Middle District of Florida. Artist Robert Rauschenberg is suing artist Robert Fontaine for selling works of art that bear certificates of authenticity attesting to the fact that Rauschenberg created them...
RateMyCop censored by GoDaddyBoing Boing
Posted on March 12, 2008RateMyCop.com -- a site where the general public can comment on police officers -- has been shut down by its hosting company, GoDaddy. The company claims his site had been engaged in "suspicious activity." Various police departments and organizations have spoken out against RateMyCop, arguing that it would reveal the identities of undercovers (undercovers are not listed on RateMyCop) or put police in danger by revealing their addresses and personal information (personal information and addresses are not given on RateMyCop), or that it would be used to grind axes against cops (RateMyCop has a facility for police rebuttal)...
Old is New ? Satire v. ParodyThe Legal Satyricon
Posted on March 12, 2008I?ve always been a bit uncomfortable with how the 9th Circuit dealt with the Cat in the Hat case. Dr. Seuss Enters., L.P., v. Penguin Books USA, Inc., 109 F.3d 1394 (9th Cir. 1997). I just came across a 1998 article by Santa Clara intellectual property professor, Tyler Ochoa...
Troll Tracker, Defamation, and Splitting the BarPatent Law Blog (Patently-O)
Posted on March 12, 2008Rick Frenkel ? who until recently was known only as the Patent Troll Tracker ? has now been sued for defamation by two Eastern District of Texas lawyers: Johnny Ward, Jr. and Eric Albritton. Frenkel recently revealed himself as an IP Director at Cisco Systems...
USC IP Institute 17 and 18 March 2008The IP ADR Blog
Posted on March 12, 2008Mike Young writes to tell us that the USC IP Institute is coming up on March 17 and 18. See brochure below. Mike is moderating a panel on fair use with a a group of experts, including Tony Falzone. Tony is with Stanford's Fair Use Project, and is currently in hot litigation with J...
The Great ?Cockaholic? Battle - Ornamentation vs. Trademark UseThe Legal Satyricon
Posted on March 12, 2008Niiice Cock Urban Dictionary defines ?cockaholic? as ?someone with an insatiable lust for the shaft.? With the term defined, you would think that you would have to enter an alternate universe to find two parties arguing over who is the true ?cockaholic...
A Free Speech Double Whammy: Flawed Anti-Phishing Bill Would Dilute Trademark Fair Use and Anonymity ProtectionsThe Electronic Frontier Foundation | Deeplinks Blogs
Posted on March 12, 2008Congress is contemplating a so-called ?Anti-Phishing Consumer Protection Act? (APCPA) that takes an odd view of consumer protection. In the name of stopping phishing schemes, Senator Olympia Snowe has introduced S. 2661, a bill that would expand trademark law, limit consumer access to information about competitive products, and eviscerate key protections for anonymous speech...
Michael Eisner and the History of CopyrightThe Patry Copyright Blog
Posted on March 12, 2008There have been a number of reports on Michael Eisner's statement during an interview at the SXSW on Tuesday that:I have a long history, obviously, of believing in copyright. I think basically what separated this country from the rest of the world was patents and copyrights...
Patent Office: Application Costs Could Increase by $100,000 or MorePatent Baristas
Posted on March 11, 2008The United States Patent and Trademark Office is moving ever onward with its proposed revision to the rules of practice pertaining to any claim using alternative language to claim one or more species. That is, if the claims use Markush or other forms of alternative language...
minilinks for 2008-03-10The Electronic Frontier Foundation | Deeplinks Blogs
Posted on March 11, 2008Net Neutrality: Internet Wrecking Ball?Andy Kessler argues that technical fixes won't keep the Internet free. A Wave of the Watch List, and Speech DisappearsA Treasury Department blacklist apparently has the power to shut down websites. (login may be required) International Crypto Law Made EasyA Google map that pinpoints the state of crypto law around the world...
MPAA clarifies stance against Net neutralityBit Player
Posted on March 11, 2008MPAA chief Dan Glickman made it official today: Hollywood will fight Net neutrality regulations being considered by Congress and the FCC. Glickman's comments, which were in his annual "state of the industry" speech at ShoWest, weren't exactly surprising, given that the MPAA had urged the FCC last year not to adopt neutrality rules that would hurt anti-piracy efforts...
Do Employers Using Facebook for Background Checks Face Legal Risks?Legal Blog Watch
Posted on March 11, 2008As employers increasingly turn to social networking sites like Facebook to conduct background checks on job applicants and employees, a potential face-off is brewing regarding the legality of this practice, according to reports from Financial Week and The New York...
Monopoly Shuffle: A Remix ContestCreative Commons » CC News
Posted on March 11, 2008On May 28-30, The Center for Intellectual Property at the University of Maryland University College will be hosting a symposium focused on U.S. copyright monopoly, technological innovation and higher education institutions titled ?Monopoly: Playing the Innovation Game?...
Upcoming CLE: Las Vegas!The Invent Blog®
Posted on March 10, 2008I?ll be speaking in Las Vegas next month (April 11th) for Dunes, speaking at their Patent Drafting & Prosecution CLE on ?Tips and Tricks for Expediting Examination of Your Clients? Cases.? Summary of my presentation: Let?s face it, clients can be driven crazy by how long it takes these days to get a patent...
Google Shores Up Email Security With Contacts APITechdirt
Posted on March 10, 2008Anyone who's visited more than a handful of "social networking" sites have come across one that asks you to give it the password to your GMail/HotMail/Yahoo! account in order to add everyone in your email address book to your list of friends. This kind of borderline spam request is questionable in the best of circumstances, but Ben Adida points out a frightening story in which one of these sites was emailing the username and password of every user to the author's personal GMail account...
"Don't Cite Me Bro!"Fairly Useful
Posted on March 10, 2008Something strange is happening in the legal academy. Literally hundreds of law professors are posting their papers on the ssrn website where they can be accessed by the public, but at the same time publicly proclaiming ???DO NOT CITE OR CIRCULATE WITHOUT PERMISSION...
"Kentucky Lawmaker Wants to Make Anonymous Internet Posting Illegal":The Volokh Conspiracy
Posted on March 10, 2008WTVQ reports (thanks to Andy Banducci for the pointer); the bill text is here. Pretty clearly unconstitutional, see McIntyre v. Ohio Elec. Comm'n (1995) and the cases on...
Blawg Review #150: Trust Me, it's GoodChicago IP Litigation Blog
Posted on March 10, 2008Blawg Review #150 is up at Trust Matters by Charlie Green, co-author of The Trusted Advisor and creator of the Carnival of Trust, which I will be hosting on the first Monday of May. This week's review links to the Blog's follow-up post about whether photographs of copyrighted Thomas & Friends toy trains are derivative works -- click here for the post.
Don't Sell Ads on Your Blog:The Volokh Conspiracy
Posted on March 10, 2008Just a friendly public service reminder, prompted by a brief conversation I had over the weekend: If you (1) make only a little money by selling ads on your blog (or...
Some books worth readingThe Progress & Freedom Foundation Blog
Posted on March 10, 2008I used to be better about posting short reviews of the books I was reading, but I've gotten lazy and stopped doing so. I?m going to try to get back in that habit. For now, I?ll just post a few links for some interesting books I?ve read recently, or just started digging into: * The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet, by Daniel J...
Orcas and Statutory DamagesThe Patry Copyright Blog
Posted on March 10, 2008Jonathan Smith is the owner of an unusual copyright: During a performance at Sea World on March 4, 1987, two orcas attacked Smith, a trainer. An audience member, Mr. Chiang-Shek, recorded the performance (and thus the Attack) using a camcorder. The video is approximately five minutes long...
Viacom v. YouTube Order re Punitive DamagesThe Trademark Blog
Posted on March 10, 2008Commentary here.
MediaSentry not licensed in Michigan according to letter from Mich. Dept. of Labor & Economic GrowthRecording Industry vs The People
Posted on March 10, 2008According to a letter we have been provided by a reader, a complaint was filed by that reader with the Department of Labor and Economic Growth in Michigan that MediaSentry was unlicensed.The Department confirmed that MediaSentry was not licensed in Michigan, and that it would be sent a letter informing it of the need for a license to conduct regulated activities...
Beyond Trademark Law: What the Right of Publicity Can Learn From Cultural Studies, by David TanTarlton Law Library Current Trademark Literature
Posted on March 09, 200825 Cardozo Arts and Entertainment Law Journal 913 (2008)
My Trademark Fair Use ProjectInfo/Law
Posted on March 09, 2008I have been relatively absent from the blog for a few weeks as I worked to complete two pieces of writing that have consumed all my time and brainpower. Both concern trademark ?fair use? ? the defenses available to those who use trademarks to facilitate their free expression...
Cal State U forced to re-hire Quaker math teacher who inserted "non-violently" into loyalty oathBoing Boing
Posted on March 09, 2008Atonius sez, "Marianne Kearney-Brown, the Quaker math teacher who was fired by California State University for inserting the word 'non-violently' into her loyalty oath to the state, has been reinstated after Atty General Jerry Brown clarified that the oath doesn't require employees to take up arms...
Lessig Questions Pirate Party?s ExistenceTorrentFreak
Posted on March 08, 2008At a preview of his new ?Change Congress? project, the Stanford professor took a swipe at the Pirate Party of the United States. Whilst expressing skepticism about it?s utility, his main criticism seemed to be the name. Lawrence Lessig appears to be in and out of the tech news recently - the will-he-won?t-he run for Congress, has caused a storm of blog-posts this last month alone...
Ricky Gervais Inspires Copyright OpinionThe Patry Copyright Blog
Posted on March 07, 2008I am a huge fan of English comedian Ricky Gervais, the star and c-creator of The Office and Extras. Of these two, I prefer Extras: the episode with Kate Winslet, playing a nun in a Holocaust movie, who off the set gives one of the extras advice about phone sex, is delicious...
IP Think Tank Global Week in Review - 7 March 2008Duncan Bucknell's site updates
Posted on March 07, 2008Here is IP Think Tank?s weekly selection of top intellectual property news breaking in the blogosphere and internet. Please join the discussion by adding your comments on any of these stories, and please do let me know if you think we?ve missed something important, or if there is a source you think should be monitored...
Las Vegas Creator of HAREM BODY CHAINS Files Trademark Infringement Lawsuit Against eBay CompetitorLas Vegas Trademark Attorney
Posted on March 07, 2008On March 4, 2008, Trinity's Jewelry LLC filed a trademark infringement lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada against Inquisition Tattoo, Inc. and its husband and wife owners, Tatiana Metaxa (aka Tatiana Eivin or Tatiana Metaxa-Rosenfeld) and Michael Metaxa (collectively, the "defendants")...
House IP Leader Endorses P2P BlockingSlashdot: Your Rights Online
Posted on March 07, 2008Technical Writing Geek points out an Ars Technica report on comments from Representative Howard Coble (R-NC), who sits on the House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property. In a recent editorial, Coble attempts to discourage P2P file sharing among young people, and praises Ohio University for its ban on P2P applications last year...
Who Owns Your Emails, Blog Posts, or FaceBook Pages? How About You?madisonian.net
Posted on March 07, 2008Dan Solove?s recent post about David Lat and Facebook and Bruce Boyden?s post about the possible destruction of Nabokov?s unpublished novel raise some questions. Who owns your emails, blog entries, FaceBook pages, and so on? What about when you die? Does your family get the material? What if you wanted it destroyed? What if one of your email accounts was one that you did not want your family to see? In general is there a theoretical explanation for whatever position one may take on these questions? Of course there is (this blog is run by law professors after all)...
Julie Hilden On the Wikileaks CaseMedia Law Prof Blog
Posted on March 06, 2008FindLaw's Julie Hilden writes about the Wikileaks case in part one of a two part column.
Why Do They Do That Thing They Do?The MTTLR Blog
Posted on March 06, 2008From original image by Rhett Redelings, with permission. (or How I Learned to Stop Hating the Mouse1) ?Don?t hate the player, hate the game?2 At one time, copyright law was to be a little-known discipline that few lawyers practiced, and one the general public knew (or cared) little about...
Eighth Tosses Most Deep Pockets from Blogging Sex Scandal SuitDecision of the Day
Posted on March 06, 2008Steinbuch v. Cutler, 07-1509 (8th Cir., March 6, 2008) Once upon a time, Jessica Cutler was one of the biggest names in the blogging world. An intern to a Republican Senator by day, Cutler spent her nights engaged in all manner of sexual escapades - sometimes for money - with some of the dullest men in D...
Julius Baer Drops Case Against Wikileaks after EFF, ACLU Help Restore Wikileaks.org Domain NameThe Electronic Frontier Foundation | Deeplinks Blogs
Posted on March 05, 2008Following a federal district court's reversal of its prior ruling that disabled one of the domain names of whistleblower site "Wikileaks," Swiss bank Julius Baer has decided that it has had enough. On Wednesday, Julius Baer filed a motion of voluntary dismissal, effectively ending the case...
Patently-O Bits and BytesPatent Law Blog (Patently-O)
Posted on March 05, 2008March 6, 2008, I will be the keynote speaker at the Missouri Inventor of the Year award program sponsored by the Bar Association of Metro St. Louis (BAMSL). I look forward to seeing my fellow Missourians there. 6:00 PM in Forest Park [LINK] April 11?13, 2008, I will be part of the annual Oregon/Washington Patent Conference ? This year at the Salishan Resort on the Oregon coast...
Important FRE 408 Discussion in Ralph Lauren v. US Polo Ass'n (2d Cir)The Trademark Blog
Posted on March 05, 2008Plaintiff says to Defendant during settlement discussions "we have a problem with your trademark A but not your trademark B." Plaintiff goes on to sue for infringement on both A and B. Defendant seeks to enter plaintiff's statement to prove estoppel by acquiescence...
Ninth Circuit: "Exclusive" license from only one copyright co-owner really a nonexclusive licenseFilewrapper®
Posted on March 05, 2008In a decision last week, the Ninth Circuit affirmed a district court's dismissal of a copyright infringement claim for lack of standing, as well as several related claims. The plaintiff obtained an "exclusive" license for one of the exclusive rights from a single co-owner of several copyrighted works...
When DJ and infringement suits both filed, transfer factors determine appropriate forumFilewrapper®
Posted on March 05, 2008In a decision Friday, the Federal Circuit decided a case addressing the requirements for a declaratory judgment action post-MedImmune. The court reversed and remanded a district court's decision that there was no declaratory judgment jurisdiction applying the pre-MedImmune reasonable apprehension of suit standard rejected by the Supreme Court...
Things to do in Denver when you?re DUMBThe Legal Satyricon
Posted on March 05, 2008Andrew Feinstein is a frustrated Denver Nuggets fan. Sick of what he perceived as mismanagement of the basketball team by Nuggets coach George Karl, Feinstein launched www.firegeorgekarl.com. George Karl seemed to take it all in stride. When asked about the blog by the Rocky Mountain News, he said: ?The longer you?re with a team, the more people like you and the more people dislike you,? Karl said...
Sports and the Law: Supreme Court Might Hear Dispute Over Fantasy Sports Property RightsAbovethelaw.com
Posted on March 04, 2008On Friday, February 22, Major League Baseball Advanced Media, L.P. (?MLBAM?) and the Major League Baseball Players Association (?MLBPA?) filed a petition for a writ of certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court (No. 07-1099), seeking to overturn the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals? ruling that the first amendment protects free use of baseball players? names and statistics in fantasy sports games...
An Interesting Fair Use ProjectThe Patry Copyright Blog
Posted on March 04, 2008Professor Peter Friedman of Case Western Reserve University, in the very hot political state of Ohio, has started a unique blog that is well worth visiting. As part of his legal analysis and writing class, his students are compiling briefs on either side of a lawsuit alleging copyright infringement in connection with real actors, but supplemented by fictional materials to squarely frame the fair use issue...
Downloading versus Streaming of MusicWhat is Fair Use?
Posted on March 04, 2008It's not directly on point for our problem regarding the K Cera Cera case, but in United States v. Am. Soc?y of Composers, Authors and Publishers, 485 F. Supp. 2d 438, 440-47 (S.D.N.Y. 2007)(Conner, J.)(pdf), the court held that an internet service that supplies downloads of a "digital music file embodying a particular song does not [engage in a] 'public performance' of that song within the meaning the United States Copyright Act, 17 U...
To what extent does the First Amendment allow the public and the media to access the transcript of a plea colloquy, a plea agreement's "cooperation addendum," and the documents supporting a motion to seal the plea proceedingsHow Appealing
Posted on March 04, 2008To what extent does the First Amendment allow the public and the media to access the transcript of a plea colloquy, a plea agreement's "cooperation addendum," and the documents supporting a motion to seal the plea proceedings: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit today issued this ruling on the federal government's appeal from a federal district court's ruling unsealing these documents...
Public Knowledge Praises State Senate Telecom Bill; Slams House Bill as 'Wrong Way'Public Knowledge - Blogging, Events, and Action Alerts
Posted on March 04, 2008Annapolis, MD - Two committees in the Maryland legislature today held hearings on bills that would point the high-tech future of the state in opposite directions. Public Knowledge, the Washington, D.C.-based public interest group, testified in favor of one, and against another...
Is the DMCA Still Relevant?Info/Law
Posted on March 04, 2008That?s the question I?ve been asking myself (and, occasionally, others) for most of the last year. (As some of you know, I?ve spent quite a bit of that time working on a new paper about the DMCA, and I?m not jaded enough yet not to feel a twinge of regret at the prospect that the point I?ve written about may be on its way to becoming moot)...
Forwarding Offensive Articles Along With Additional Offensive Comments Falls Outside Protection of CDA Section 230Technology Law Update
Posted on March 03, 2008John Doe Anti-Terrorism Officer v. City of New York, No. 06-cv-13738 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 6, 2008), involves the sending of offensive articles by e-mail, to which the sender allegedly added his own offensive comments. The case involves hostile work environment claims...
Facebook Banishment and Due ProcessConcurring Opinions
Posted on March 03, 2008Recently, I was talking with David Lat, author of the blog Above the Law, and he was complaining about being banished from Facebook. David was an active user of Facebook, and he suddenly and inexplicably found himself banned from the site. Facebook didn't supply him with any reason...
Wikileaks UpdateThe Legal Satyricon
Posted on March 03, 2008I?ve gotten ahold of the Wikileaks order. (Via EFF) It is better than I could have imagined. Judge White begins by stating the importance of the First Amendment issues in play: The First Amendment encompasses the ?right to receive information and ideas...
dhowell: Recording TWiL with Bret Fausett on Th. a.m.; what are your burning questions about domain law and ICANN?Twitter / dhowell
Posted on March 03, 2008dhowell: Recording TWiL with Bret Fausett on Th. a.m.; what are your burning questions about domain law and ICANN?
A lawyer who plagiarizes violates disciplinary rules [?]IPBiz
Posted on March 03, 2008IPBiz just ran across an interesting post by patent attorney Brett J. Trout at Blawgit:According to U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Paul J. Kilburg, West Des Moines Peter Cannon ?violated the Iowa Rules of Professional Conduct by plagiarizing material for briefs and by unreasonably billing his client for preparation of those briefs...
Conference Announcement: IP Scholars at StanfordLegal Theory Blog
Posted on March 03, 2008Save the Date: Eighth Annual Intellectual Property Scholars ConferenceThe Program in Law, Science & Technology at Stanford Law School will host the Eighth Annual Intellectual Property Scholars Conference on August 7-8, 2008. Please save the date!The IP Scholars Conference brings together intellectual property scholars to present their works-in-progress in order to benefit from the critique of colleagues...
Marie Lindor replies to RIAA and MediaSentry in support of her motion to compel MediaSentry to respond to subpoenaRecording Industry vs The People
Posted on March 03, 2008In UMG v. Lindor, defendant has filed reply papers in further support of her motion to compel MediaSentry to respond to the subpoena duces tecum with which it was served, responding to the opposition papers filed by the RIAA and by MediaSentry.March 3, 2008, Letter of Ray Beckerman responding to MediaSentry*Exhibit A - Tom Mizzone declaration*Exhibit B - Text documents (Part 1)*Exhibit B - Text documents (Part 2)*Exhibit C - List of backup materials requested*Exhibit D - Confidentiality stipulation and emails*Exhibit E - Tom Mullaney emails indicating no further documents would be produced even with confidentiality stipulation*Exhibit F - Reply brief of Oregon Attorney General in Arista v...
This is a job for?LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION®
Posted on March 02, 2008From the Philadelphia Inquirer:\\n\\nA convenience store chain\\\'s billboard advertising its fried chicken sandwich is ruffling the feathers of some residents.\\n\\nSheetz unveiled the \\\"Crispy Frickin\\\' Chicken\\\" billboards at the beginning of February...
Swede This Film!madisonian.net
Posted on March 02, 2008Three things seem related today: First: I saw Be Kind, Rewind this weekend. The movie has an amiable charm. It?s a goofball of a film, wildly implausible at every level and built out of devices that scrape the pavement of the plot like broken mufflers...
Phrase "Crispy Frickin' Chicken" Deemed Fowl?SIVACRACY.NET
Posted on March 01, 2008From the Philadelphia Inquirer: A convenience store chain's billboard advertising its fried chicken sandwich is ruffling the feathers of some residents. Sheetz unveiled the "Crispy Frickin' Chicken" billboards at the beginning of February. The campaign consists of 100 billboards placed locations that carry the sandwich, spokeswoman Monica Jones said Thursday...
Global minilinksThe Electronic Frontier Foundation | Deeplinks Blogs
Posted on March 01, 2008From the Philadelphia Inquirer:\n\nA convenience store chain\'s billboard advertising its fried chicken sandwich is ruffling the feathers of some residents.\n\nSheetz unveiled the \"Crispy Frickin\' Chicken\" billboards at the beginning of February.\n\nThe campaign consists of 100 billboards placed locations that carry the sandwich, spokeswoman Monica Jones said Thursday...
WikiLeaks Win as Judge Rescinds U.S. Shutdown OrderDigg / Technology
Posted on March 01, 2008From the Philadelphia Inquirer:\\\\n\\\\nA convenience store chain\\\\\\\'s billboard advertising its fried chicken sandwich is ruffling the feathers of some residents.\\\\n\\\\nSheetz unveiled the \\\\\\\"Crispy Frickin\\\\\\\' Chicken\\\\\\\" billboards at the beginning of February...
Bush Calls Surveillance Bill an ?Urgent Priority?NYT > Technology
Posted on February 29, 2008\n \n\nIt looks like one of the pseudonymous posters in the AutoAdmit case has decided to fight the plaintiffs? discovery efforts. \nThe motion to quash makes some good points. Mr. AK47 is correct ? his statement was outrageous, nasty, and mean? but it does not seem to speak to any of the claims in the case...
Attorney Sanctions in Patent Trials, a Trend?WSJ.com: Law Blog - WSJ.com
Posted on February 29, 2008Perhaps it?s a coincidence of timing, but not a coincidence of fact. In the span of two weeks, two different teams of outside litigators representing Medtronic in two different patent trials, heard in two different jurisdictions, were both fined attorneys fees...
IP Think Tank Global Week in Review - 29 February 2008Duncan Bucknell's site updates
Posted on February 29, 2008Perhaps it?s a coincidence of timing, but not a coincidence of fact. In the span of two weeks, two different teams of outside litigators representing Medtronic in two different patent trials, heard in two different jurisdictions, were both fined attorneys fees...
This Is The Week In IP That Was This WeekThe Trademark Blog
Posted on February 29, 2008The Independent: "Hands off our kilts: Scots bid to copyright their national dress." Bonus IPKat link to a picture of a cat wearing a kilt here.) Counterfet Chic: "The Audacity of Hope." AOL: Company Logo Quiz 43(B)log: Thomas The Tank Engine of Free Expression Seattle Trademark Lawyer: Trademark Dilution Weekend (Part 2) Likelihood of Confusion: Luxury Goods Rental TTABlog: TTAB Issues Non-Ultimate Sanction For Failure To Comply With Board Order ...
Who Owns Your Website (Now available in Chinese)Blawg IT-Internet Patent, Trademark and Copyright Issues with Attorney Brett Trout
Posted on February 29, 2008My last Who Owns Your Website post was very well received. The jist of that post was that unless your website was created by your employee in the course of employment OR you obtained a written assignment of all rights in the website, you probably do not own your website...
Peer To Peer Legal AssistanceMedia Law Prof Blog
Posted on February 29, 2008My last Who Owns Your Website post was very well received. The jist of that post was that unless your website was created by your employee in the course of employment OR you obtained a written assignment of all rights in the website, you probably do not own your website...
How much does a patent cost?The Invent Blog®
Posted on February 29, 2008According to Alan Kasper, the First Vice President of the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA), more than I expected. In recent testimony before Congress, Mr. Kasper noted that: ?the preparation and filing of an original application of minimal complexity (10 page specification, 10 claims) on average by a firm having my firm?s size is $8,548...
The Death of DivisibilityThe Patry Copyright Blog
Posted on February 29, 2008Karaoke cases continue to flood the courts of appeals, much like plonk (in the sense of bad wine, not in the sense of female police officers or of adding posters to one?s kill file in UseNet-speak; see here). The most recent addition to the back shelves of copyright case law is Sybersound Records, Inc...
US stem cell patent successIPKat - IP news and fun for everyone
Posted on February 29, 2008Karaoke cases continue to flood the courts of appeals, much like plonk (in the sense of bad wine, not in the sense of female police officers or of adding posters to one?s kill file in UseNet-speak; see here). The most recent addition to the back shelves of copyright case law is Sybersound Records, Inc...
How much does a patent cost?The Invent Blog??
Posted on February 29, 2008According to Alan Kasper, the First Vice President of the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA), more than I expected. In recent testimony before Congress, Mr. Kasper noted that: ???the preparation and filing of an original application of minimal complexity (10 page specification, 10 claims) on average by a firm having my firm???s size is $8,548...
Bush Calls Surveillance Bill an ???Urgent Priority???NYT > Technology
Posted on February 29, 2008\n \n\nIt looks like one of the pseudonymous posters in the AutoAdmit case has decided to fight the plaintiffs??? discovery efforts. \nThe motion to quash makes some good points. Mr. AK47 is correct ??? his statement was outrageous, nasty, and mean??? but it does not seem to speak to any of the claims in the case...
Stanford / Google "Legal Futures Summit"The Progress & Freedom Foundation Blog
Posted on February 29, 2008Wow, look at the lineup for this Google and Stanford Law School event that I am speaking at next week as part of a "Legal Futures Summit," which is billed as "a conversation between some of the world's leading thinkers about the future of privacy, intellectual property, competition, innovation, globalization, and other areas of the law undergoing rapid change due to technological advancement...
Patently-O Bits and Bytes No. 18Patent Law Blog (Patently-O)
Posted on February 28, 2008Harvard?s Journal of Law & Technology is generally considered on of the top two academic journals focusing on Law & Technology (along with Berkeley?s TLJ). JOLT recently increased its online footprint with the JOLT DIGEST where they regularly cover important new cases...
"End Software Patents" Launches With Website and ReportPeter Zura's 271 Patent Blog
Posted on February 28, 2008Coming in fashionably late to the "great patent reform debate", this organization (covered previously here) "will initially focus on two approaches: 1) assisting corporations that choose to challenge software patents in the courts and at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on the basis that patents for software and designs with no physically innovative step have no legal validity, and 2) public education aimed at passing laws to protect software from patent law...
AutoAdmit Case - Motion to Quash by ?AK47?The Legal Satyricon
Posted on February 28, 2008It looks like one of the pseudonymous posters in the AutoAdmit case has decided to fight the plaintiffs? discovery efforts. The motion to quash makes some good points. Mr. AK47 is correct ? his statement was outrageous, nasty, and mean? but it does not seem to speak to any of the claims in the case...
Bush Calls Surveillance Bill an ?Urgent Priority?NYT > Technology
Posted on February 28, 2008\n \n\nIt looks like one of the pseudonymous posters in the AutoAdmit case has decided to fight the plaintiffs? discovery efforts. \nThe motion to quash makes some good points. Mr. AK47 is correct ? his statement was outrageous, nasty, and mean? but it does not seem to speak to any of the claims in the case...
Keep Track of Competitors With Google® Patents RSS FeedsMaryland Intellectual Property Law Blog
Posted on February 28, 2008\\n \\n\\nIt looks like one of the pseudonymous posters in the AutoAdmit case has decided to fight the plaintiffs? discovery efforts. \\nThe motion to quash makes some good points. Mr. AK47 is correct ? his statement was outrageous, nasty, and mean? but it does not seem to speak to any of the claims in the case...
Will Tasini Get Birched?The Patry Copyright Blog
Posted on February 28, 2008Last June, I had a post about the Eleventh Circuit vacating its pre-Tasini panel opinion in the Greenberg v. National Geographic case, 244 F.3d 1267 (11th Cir. 2001), vacated, 488 F.3d 1331 (11th Cir. 2007), vacated and pet. for reh?g en banc granted, 497 F...
Is WikiLeaks Judge Having Second Thoughts?Wired: Threat Level
Posted on February 28, 2008The WikiLeaks judge might be softening. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White issued a document late Thursday suggesting he might have erred last week when he signed an order that took down the WikiLeaks site and also locked "the WikiLeaks.org domain name to prevent transfer of the domain name to a different domain registrar...
RIAA Keeps Settlement Money, Artists May Sue (Enigmax/TorrentFreak)Techmeme
Posted on February 28, 2008Karaoke cases continue to flood the courts of appeals, much like plonk (in the sense of bad wine, not in the sense of female police officers or of adding posters to one?s kill file in UseNet-speak; see here). The most recent addition to the back shelves of copyright case law is Sybersound Records, Inc...
AutoAdmit Case - Motion to Quash by ???AK47???The Legal Satyricon
Posted on February 28, 2008It looks like one of the pseudonymous posters in the AutoAdmit case has decided to fight the plaintiffs??? discovery efforts. The motion to quash makes some good points. Mr. AK47 is correct ??? his statement was outrageous, nasty, and mean??? but it does not seem to speak to any of the claims in the case...
Keep Track of Competitors With Google?? Patents RSS FeedsMaryland Intellectual Property Law Blog
Posted on February 28, 2008\\n \\n\\nIt looks like one of the pseudonymous posters in the AutoAdmit case has decided to fight the plaintiffs??? discovery efforts. \\nThe motion to quash makes some good points. Mr. AK47 is correct ??? his statement was outrageous, nasty, and mean??? but it does not seem to speak to any of the claims in the case...
NBC Sued for Suicide of Alleged Pedophile ProsecutorWSJ.com: Law Blog - WSJ.com
Posted on February 27, 2008On the afternoon of November 5, a camera crew from the ?To Catch a Predator? series, produced by investigative reporter Chris Hansen, accompanied a SWAT team to the house of a Texas prosecutor, Louis William Conradt Jr. Since 2004, the TV program has worked with local police departments and an online watchdog group called Perverted Justice that provides ?decoys? ? adults who pose as teenage boys ? to lure suspected pedophiles to so-called sting houses...
Video Of Comcast's Opening Remarks During Net Neutrality Hearing With Seats Stuffed By Company Employees [Net Neutrality]Consumerist
Posted on February 27, 2008On the afternoon of November 5, a camera crew from the ?To Catch a Predator? series, produced by investigative reporter Chris Hansen, accompanied a SWAT team to the house of a Texas prosecutor, Louis William Conradt Jr. Since 2004, the TV program has worked with local police departments and an online watchdog group called Perverted Justice that provides ?decoys? ? adults who pose as teenage boys ? to lure suspected pedophiles to so-called sting houses...
German Court Shoots Down Computer SurveillanceNYT > Technology
Posted on February 27, 2008On the afternoon of November 5, a camera crew from the ?To Catch a Predator? series, produced by investigative reporter Chris Hansen, accompanied a SWAT team to the house of a Texas prosecutor, Louis William Conradt Jr. Since 2004, the TV program has worked with local police departments and an online watchdog group called Perverted Justice that provides ?decoys? ? adults who pose as teenage boys ? to lure suspected pedophiles to so-called sting houses...
Claim Construction Reversal Rates I ? Overall Reversal RatesPatent Law Blog (Patently-O)
Posted on February 27, 2008By David Schwartz How do district court judges with varying levels of experience perform on claim construction? To study that question, I compiled a large database that includes every single post Markman Federal Circuit decision involving claim construction...
Duke Lacrosse II: First Amendment Implications?PrawfsBlawg
Posted on February 27, 2008Continuing my thoughts on the latest Duke lacrosse lawsuit. One interesting feature is the role that the First Amendment might play for the defendants. Much of the conduct described in the complaint, and much of the conduct that presumably forms the basis for the players' claims against Duke and Duke officials (and to law-enforcement officials to a lesser degree), centers on all sorts of public statements that stated or suggested that some or all the players had done something wrong...
Wikileaks UpdateDiscourse.net
Posted on February 27, 2008Updated docket Notable filings include:Application by EFF and others to intervene as defendants or to appear as amici Motion by EFF and others to intervene, with proposed Answer and Counterclaims in Intervention Thanks to James S. Tyre for making these available...
The Counterfeit Triangle?Counterfeit Chic
Posted on February 27, 2008Updated docket\n\nNotable filings include:Application by EFF and others to intervene as defendants or to appear as amici\nMotion by EFF and others to intervene, with proposed Answer and Counterclaims in Intervention\n\nThanks to James S. Tyre for making these available...
Wiki Community Patent Review Update.Anticipate This!? | Patent and Trademark Law Blog
Posted on February 26, 2008Many months ago, we had posted on WikiPatents, an online community designed to review U.S. patents and published applications. WikiPatents has the largest database of patents on the Internet that are open for public comment. The site allows PDF downloading of patents and free patent translation into multiple languages...
Times Online on DomainingThe Legal Satyricon
Posted on February 26, 2008If you type in ?debts.com? for example, you get a site filled with nothing but paid links to other sites. Presumably, this is not what someone going to that page is looking for, but it?s a nice business for the domain owner. It seems peculiar and unjust that so much money could be made by taking advantage of people?s clumsiness in finding what they are looking for on the web...
Nashville copyright bill protest this WedsBoing Boing
Posted on February 26, 2008Chris sez, "This Wednesday we are going to protest at the State Capitol in Nashville against a Bill restricting the exchange of information at all institutions of higher learning. (Please help us spread the word to others!) Hearing scheduled for 8:30AM - Wed Feb 27th - Room LP 12...
3/6: Bruce Perens: Innovation Goes Public(title unknown)
Posted on February 26, 2008Chris sez, \"This Wednesday we are going to protest at the State Capitol in Nashville against a Bill restricting the exchange of information at all institutions of higher learning. (Please help us spread the word to others!) Hearing scheduled for 8:30AM - Wed Feb 27th - Room LP 12...
Criminal Law in Virtual Worlds:The Volokh Conspiracy
Posted on February 26, 2008Chris sez, \\\"This Wednesday we are going to protest at the State Capitol in Nashville against a Bill restricting the exchange of information at all institutions of higher learning. (Please help us spread the word to others!) Hearing scheduled for 8:30AM - Wed Feb 27th - Room LP 12...
Fox News Porn - Fair Use Orgy!The Legal Satyricon
Posted on February 26, 2008This is going to be a fun election for intellectual property wonks. We?ve already seen the Clash of the Anti-Hillaristas! Now, Fox News finds itself in a fair use maelstrom. In an effort to criticize the network that brought us eight years of darkness, an anonymous webmaster has created the Fox News Porn website...
ReliefPatent Prospector
Posted on February 26, 2008Carlos Amado owns 5,293,615, which claims an interface method between spreadsheet and database programs. Amado sued Microsoft for its Office product infringing, and won 4¢ per copy royalty, and an injunction. The injunction was stayed pending post-trial motions, during which Amado got 12¢ per copy royalty...
NYSBA: Staying Legal Online:: Tech Law Advisor :: Reloaded ::
Posted on February 26, 2008The New York State Bar Association presents a two-hour Webinar on: Staying Legal Online: Advising Clients About Web Site Content Wednesday, March 12, 2008 12:00 p.m. ? 2:00 p.m. (Eastern Time) (more?)
An Idea by any other nameThe Patry Copyright Blog
Posted on February 26, 2008Copyright, like many areas of law has its pat phrases; one of the most common is that there is no protection for ideas, but only for the expression of ideas. As Judge Easterbrook observed, this is not an analytical tool, but merely a way to state a conclusion...
CaféPress Denied 230 Motion to Dismiss--Curran v. AmazonTechnology & Marketing Law Blog
Posted on February 26, 2008by John L. Welch and Ann Lamport HammitteLowrie, Lando & Anastasi, LLPForeign trademark owners who seek registration in the United States may be troubled by several recent developments in American trademark law. The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board?s current fraud jurisprudence holds an applicant or registrant strictly responsible for false statements made to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) regarding use of its mark on the goods and services involved, with very little room for error or innocence...
Obscenity ScholarshipThe Legal Satyricon
Posted on February 26, 2008Clay Calvert and Robert Richards call for an end to the obscenity laws.
Unmasked: The Patent Troll Tracker Steps ForwardPeter Zura's 271 Patent Blog
Posted on February 25, 2008Less than 6 months after having a bounty placed on his identity (recently upped to $15k) by Ray Niro, the Patent Troll Tracker has stepped forward and revealed himself - he is none other than Rick Frenkel, Director of Intellectual Property at Cisco Systems, Inc...
Knockoff News 78Counterfeit Chic
Posted on February 25, 2008When is a party a prevailing party in a copyright infringement action for purposes of awarding attorney\'s fees? Attorneys? fees in copyright cases may be (but need not be) awarded to the prevailing party, a concept that has some grey areas. The Seventh Circuit, in an opinion by Chief Judge Easterbrook, just cleared one such area up: where plaintiff moves to dismiss a case without prejudice but the district judge dismisses with prejudice...
Courts Split over Legal Fees in Copyright Infringement LawsuitsWired: Threat Level
Posted on February 25, 2008Defendants who prevail in copyright infringement suits are automatically entitled to defense costs, a federal appeals court is ruling. The decision (.pdf) by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals noted the Copyright Act allows "reasonable" attorney fees to any "prevailing party," in a copyright action, a ruling contradicting a 5th U...
Network Solutions, ICANN Sued Over Domain Front RunningTechCrunch
Posted on February 25, 2008Network Solutions and ICANN are being sued over ?front running? domain registration practices. ?Network Solutions has forced millions of people to buy Internet domain names from them instead of cheaper competitors through a scheme that?s netted the firm millions of dollars,? according to the federal class action lawsuit filed by Kabateck Brown Kellner...
Blawg Review at BlawgITBlawg IT-Internet Patent, Trademark and Copyright Issues with Attorney Brett Trout
Posted on February 25, 2008My Blawg Review #148 is now up over at the new BlawgIT.com website. If you don't check it out, you will have no one but yourself to blame the next time you get into a legal dispute with your badger.Brett Trout
Patently-O Bits and Bytes No. 17Patent Law Blog (Patently-O)
Posted on February 25, 2008Increasing Complexity: The House Judiciary Subcommittee on IP is holding its PTO oversight hearing on Feb 27 at 1:30 pm. These graphs, originally from Patently-O, will be used by POPA when demanding enhanced examiner pay. Judicial Conference: The CAFC's Judicial Conference is scheduled for May 15, 2008 in DC at the Grand Hyatt...
FCC Hearing: Comcast Uses Hacker TechniquesTorrentFreak
Posted on February 25, 2008Today is an important day for network neutrality, as the FCC?s Broadband Network management hearing has been discussing Comcast?s attempt to slow down BitTorrent traffic. One of the panelists said Comcast uses ?hacker techniques? to manage their network...
EU Decision on IP Addresses Could Hurt Search EnginesTop Tech News
Posted on February 25, 2008Today is an important day for network neutrality, as the FCC?s Broadband Network management hearing has been discussing Comcast?s attempt to slow down BitTorrent traffic. One of the panelists said Comcast uses ?hacker techniques? to manage their network...
minilinks for 2008-02-25The Electronic Frontier Foundation | Blog Posts
Posted on February 25, 2008Today is an important day for network neutrality, as the FCC?s Broadband Network management hearing has been discussing Comcast?s attempt to slow down BitTorrent traffic. One of the panelists said Comcast uses ?hacker techniques? to manage their network...
Google asks Are IP addresses personal?Blawgr / Published News
Posted on February 25, 2008Today is an important day for network neutrality, as the FCC?s Broadband Network management hearing has been discussing Comcast?s attempt to slow down BitTorrent traffic. One of the panelists said Comcast uses ?hacker techniques? to manage their network...
I Have a ... Xerox43(B)log
Posted on February 25, 2008Drew Hansen writes on plagiarism and orators in the Houston Chronicle, proposing that political oratory operates under different standards from academic writing. Oratorical reuses that are transformative, are done with consent, or are obvious quotations from near-universally known sources such as the Bible, he argues, are not plagiarism...
Tinsley Mortimer Was "File Sharing," If You Know What We Mean [Socialites]Gawker
Posted on February 25, 2008Drew Hansen writes on plagiarism and orators in the Houston Chronicle, proposing that political oratory operates under different standards from academic writing. Oratorical reuses that are transformative, are done with consent, or are obvious quotations from near-universally known sources such as the Bible, he argues, are not plagiarism...
On why I am not runningLessig Blog
Posted on February 25, 2008With lots of mixed feelings, I have decided a run for Congress would not help the Change Congress movement. I explain the thinking in this 5 minute video (a new record for me!). First question: What happens to the contributions to Lessig08? As explained on the ActBlue page, all will go to (the yet to be established) Change Congress organization...
How Judges, Bureaucrats and Lawyers Put Innovators at RiskI/P Updates
Posted on February 25, 2008In "Patent Failure; How Judges, Bureaucrats, and Lawyers Put Innovators at Risk," (Princeton University Press, March 2008), James Bessen and Michael J. Meurer consider many reforms, most of which have also been advanced by other people. Of course, the devil is in the details...
F.C.C. to Act on Delaying of Broadband TrafficNYT > Technology
Posted on February 25, 2008In \"Patent Failure; How Judges, Bureaucrats, and Lawyers Put Innovators at Risk,\" (Princeton University Press, March 2008), James Bessen and Michael J. Meurer consider many reforms, most of which have also been advanced by other people. Of course, the devil is in the details...
Government and corporate employees engage in an "epidemic" of snooping into databasesBoing Boing
Posted on February 25, 2008The Associated Press reports on an "epidemic" of snooping into corporate and government databases by unscrupulous employees and contractors. The governments and corporations of the world keep on blithely amassing these gigantic, toxic, immortal databases of our personal lives, and then treating them as though they required no more security than any other file on their hard drive...
Ed Stross - Michigan Mural Case UpdateThe Legal Satyricon
Posted on February 25, 2008I posted on the Ed Stross mural case last night, but hadn?t yet located the decision. Now that I have reviewed it, here is my full analysis. In 2005, artist Ed Stross painted a mural on the outside of his studio that has been described as ?a take on Michelangelo?s ?Creation of Man...
Unfriendly Shores? Recent Developments in U.S. Law May Trouble Foreign Trademark OwnersThe TTABlog
Posted on February 25, 2008by John L. Welch and Ann Lamport HammitteLowrie, Lando & Anastasi, LLPForeign trademark owners who seek registration in the United States may be troubled by several recent developments in American trademark law. The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board?s current fraud jurisprudence holds an applicant or registrant strictly responsible for false statements made to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) regarding use of its mark on the goods and services involved, with very little room for error or innocence...
Podcast 49: Follow up on illegal downloading with Dr Peter Grovescharon-podcasts « WordPress.com Tag Feed
Posted on February 24, 2008A follow up to the podcast with Ed Vaizey MP, Shadow Minister for Culture on the problem of illegal downloading and the duration of copyright protection with Dr Peter Groves, Solicitor and consultant with Bircham Dyson Bell LLP. *** Listen to Podcast 49: Dr Peter Groves, Solicitor on the control of illegal downloading
CopyrightHistory.org: Copyright Before 1900The Electronic Frontier Foundation | Blog Posts
Posted on February 24, 2008Tech Law Advisor noting that Blawgr is back. This time reskinned as ?the online community of legal bloggers (powered by Pligg).? Unless I?m mistaken, Pligg is an open source knock-off of Digg (http://digg.com/), making Blawgr essentially Digg for Lawyers...
When is a Party a Prevailing Party?The Patry Copyright Blog
Posted on February 24, 2008When is a party a prevailing party in a copyright infringement action for purposes of awarding attorney's fees? Attorneys? fees in copyright cases may be (but need not be) awarded to the prevailing party, a concept that has some grey areas. The Seventh Circuit, in an opinion by Chief Judge Easterbrook, just cleared one such area up: where plaintiff moves to dismiss a case without prejudice but the district judge dismisses with prejudice...
Top Ten Cyberlaw TrendsChicago IP Litigation Blog
Posted on February 23, 2008Sight, Sound and Meaning: Teaching Intellectual Property with Audiovisual Materials, 52 St. Louis U. L.J. -- (2007). This short article addresses my experience using audiovisual materials from the Georgetown Intellectual Property Teaching Resources database...
Follow the MoneyPatent Prospector
Posted on February 23, 2008If you wonder why, for the Patent Reform Act, Senator Leahy is so hot to trot, it's that he got paid and bought. Of the $2.4 million packed into Leahy's political piggy bank in the past five years, $3/4 million came from "lawyers and lobbyists;" not surprising, given that Leahy is Senate Judiciary Committee chairman...
Blawgr is back. Think Blawg meet Digg.The Invent Blog®
Posted on February 23, 2008Tech Law Advisor noting that Blawgr is back. This time reskinned as ?the online community of legal bloggers (powered by Pligg).? Unless I?m mistaken, Pligg is an open source knock-off of Digg (http://digg.com/), making Blawgr essentially Digg for Lawyers...
Patently-O Bits and Bytes No. 15: Law Professor EditionPatent Law Blog (Patently-O)
Posted on February 22, 2008Rankings: Professor Jay Brown recently ranked the most cited law professor blogs. (i.e., law review citation count). Patently-O ranks No. 6 with 73 citations since 2005. [LINK] Professor Paul Caron ranked the most frequently visited law professor blogs and ranked Patently-O as No...
Ed Felten Causing UnrestFurdLog
Posted on February 22, 2008Just keeping folks on their toes! Researchers Find Way to Steal Encrypted Data The move, which cannot be carried out remotely, exploits a little-known vulnerability of the dynamic random access, or DRAM, chip. Those chips temporarily hold data, including the keys to modern data-scrambling algorithms...
Martin Redish on Commercial SpeechMedia Law Prof Blog
Posted on February 22, 2008\nJust keeping folks on their toes! Researchers Find Way to Steal Encrypted Data\n\n\nThe move, which cannot be carried out remotely, exploits a little-known vulnerability of the dynamic random access, or DRAM, chip. Those chips temporarily hold data, including the keys to modern data-scrambling algorithms...
Are IP addresses personal?Google Public Policy Blog
Posted on February 22, 2008Posted by Alma Whitten, Software Engineer To protect privacy, you first have to identify what data is personal. That?s why there has been a lot of discussion in recent months around the world to try to define ?personal data? (as it is referred to in Europe), or ?personally identifiable information? (as it?s called in the U...
Republicans Block FISA TalksThe Electronic Frontier Foundation | Blog Posts
Posted on February 22, 2008Posted by Alma Whitten, Software Engineer To protect privacy, you first have to identify what data is personal. That?s why there has been a lot of discussion in recent months around the world to try to define ?personal data? (as it is referred to in Europe), or ?personally identifiable information? (as it?s called in the U...
Steve Fishman's Public Domain BookThe Patry Copyright Blog
Posted on February 22, 2008One result of the radical expansion of copyright is increased focus on the public domain. In the last 30 years we have seen the elimination of the renewal and notice requirements which had done yeoman's work, and the exponential expansion in term, which created tens of millions of orphans...
Techthrob claims Digg linked to copied postChilling Effects Clearinghouse Notices
Posted on February 22, 2008One result of the radical expansion of copyright is increased focus on the public domain. In the last 30 years we have seen the elimination of the renewal and notice requirements which had done yeoman\'s work, and the exponential expansion in term, which created tens of millions of orphans...
Ginsburg on Copyright-Dependent Technology EntrepreneursLegal Theory Blog
Posted on February 22, 2008Jane C. Ginsburg (Columbia Law School) has posted Separating the Sony Sheep from the Grokster Goats: Reckoning the Future Business Plans of Copyright-Dependent Technology Entrepreneurs on SSRN. Here is the abstract:U.S. and many other national copyright systems have by statute or caselaw (or both) established rules engaging or excusing liability for facilitating (or, in commonwealth countries, "authorizing") copyright infringement...
San Antonio: Byline Blog: On Build-A-Bear, Privacy, and Protecting Children and Your CompanyKevin Heller's Friends' Facebook Posts
Posted on February 22, 2008New article on teaching IP with AV43(B)log
Posted on February 22, 2008Sight, Sound and Meaning: Teaching Intellectual Property with Audiovisual Materials, 52 St. Louis U. L.J. -- (2007). This short article addresses my experience using audiovisual materials from the Georgetown Intellectual Property Teaching Resources database...
Ted Frank on Patent ReformPatent Troll Tracker
Posted on February 22, 2008Sight, Sound and Meaning: Teaching Intellectual Property with Audiovisual Materials, 52 St. Louis U. L.J. -- (2007). This short article addresses my experience using audiovisual materials from the Georgetown Intellectual Property Teaching Resources database...
RIAA Reminds Me of The Mafia, says MusicianTorrentFreak
Posted on February 22, 2008Former Dead Kennedys vocalist Jello Biafra has torn into the RIAA, likening them to the mafia, threatening to leave a horse?s head in the beds of old women and children alike, whilst destroying the education of student file-sharers. Don?t even get him started on the media: ?Goebbels would be proud? he said...
Cyberlawyer Gives Up Attempt To Register Cyberlaw As A TrademarkTechdirt
Posted on February 22, 2008Telecom immunity videoBoing Boing
Posted on February 21, 2008This video from People For the American Way and the Electronic Frontier Foundation features photos and interviews of people who don't want the telecoms to be immune from prosecution for illegally wiretapping US citizens. Americans speak out against telecom immunity, urging Congress to stand up to the Bush administration and stop the spying...
Are you a Blawgr?:: Tech Law Advisor :: Reloaded ::
Posted on February 21, 2008Come check out the new site and decide if you?re Blawgr material. Help build an online legal community that takes the time to discuss and debate important and interesting issues. Join us at Blawgr.com.
RIAA To Prosecutors: Use Piracy Charges To Round Up Drug Dealers And TerroristsTechdirt
Posted on February 21, 2008\\nAs Facebook (and the rest of us) quickly found out, the whole applications system combined with the infamous Facebook feeds quickly became very spam-like in application publishers? efforts to get more users on board. The result has been a steady release of regulations being piled onto the application developers, which has had a bit of a push-pull effect in that some application creators will still seek out craft ways in which to circumvent the regulations that Facebook has laid out...
Review of Copyright Royalty Judges Determination: NoticeU.S. Copyright Office: Federal Register Notices
Posted on February 21, 2008\\\\nAs Facebook (and the rest of us) quickly found out, the whole applications system combined with the infamous Facebook feeds quickly became very spam-like in application publishers? efforts to get more users on board. The result has been a steady release of regulations being piled onto the application developers, which has had a bit of a push-pull effect in that some application creators will still seek out craft ways in which to circumvent the regulations that Facebook has laid out...
"Stifling Online Speech"How Appealing
Posted on February 21, 2008Design Patent Law: The House Subcommittee on IP held hearings on amendments to the design patent laws. The two primary specific issues on the table are (1) whether to eliminate design patents covering replacement automobile parts and (2) whether to extend IP protection to fashion designs...
Republicans Shun Wiretap and Telecom Amnesty Compromise MeetingWired: Threat Level
Posted on February 21, 2008Congressional Republicans boycotted a meeting Thursday that was supposed to begin negotiations over how to reconcile differences between the House and Senate version of bills expanding the government's powers to wiretap inside the United States without court orders...
Is the Pledge merely Ceremonial Deism?PrawfsBlawg
Posted on February 20, 2008Last week in my law & religion seminar, we went over the Newdow case -- the infamous 9th circuit case holding that the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance violate the Establishment Clause. The Supreme Court mostly didn't reach the constitutional issue, ruling that Newdow didn't have standing, but Justice O'Connor did present a lengthy concurring opinion concluding that the phrase was part of our country's acceptable "ceremonial deism," like having "In God We Trust" on our coins -- a phrase coined by Justice Brennan in 1984...
Wikileaks Site Has a Friend in SwedenBits
Posted on February 20, 2008"Invoking the metaphor is a shield against thinking," William Patry, the chief copyright counsel for Google, wrote on his blog a couple of years ago. The topic was "technical protection measures," but he's argued that bad metaphors are also behind the entertainment industry\'s rhetoric that unauthorized downloaders are thieves...
Another Look At The 'Does File Sharing Equal Stealing?' QuestionTechdirt
Posted on February 20, 2008"Invoking the metaphor is a shield against thinking," William Patry, the chief copyright counsel for Google, wrote on his blog a couple of years ago. The topic was "technical protection measures," but he's argued that bad metaphors are also behind the entertainment industry\\\'s rhetoric that unauthorized downloaders are thieves...
AIG Execs Entitled to Lawyers? Documents, Appeals Court RulesABA Journal Daily News
Posted on February 20, 2008\nToday I had the rare honor of not only attending a Supreme Court argument, but also spending an hour and a half with Justice Scalia, the Court?s second most senior Associate Justice.\nThose of you who are familiar with American jurisprudence are probably familiar with Justice Scalia?s reputation as an extremely conservative justice who is a strict originalist when it comes to constitutional interpretation...
In Free Speech Flap, Calif. Judge Orders Web Site to ShutterWSJ.com: Law Blog - WSJ.com
Posted on February 20, 2008The Law Blog loves the Orwellian nature of a good free speech spat, particularly when the First Amendment clashes with mass media. And a real doozie of a case out in California came to a head on Friday. Wikileaks.org, a site we?re sad we didn?t know existed until today, was developed as an Internet forum for posting leaked materials...
Facebook?s Most Helpful Set of App Regulations to DateMashable!
Posted on February 20, 2008As Facebook (and the rest of us) quickly found out, the whole applications system combined with the infamous Facebook feeds quickly became very spam-like in application publishers? efforts to get more users on board. The result has been a steady release of regulations being piled onto the application developers, which has had a bit of a push-pull effect in that some application creators will still seek out craft ways in which to circumvent the regulations that Facebook has laid out...
Lawsuit: Comcast is a 'totalitarian' businessZDNet Blogs
Posted on February 20, 2008\nAs Facebook (and the rest of us) quickly found out, the whole applications system combined with the infamous Facebook feeds quickly became very spam-like in application publishers? efforts to get more users on board. The result has been a steady release of regulations being piled onto the application developers, which has had a bit of a push-pull effect in that some application creators will still seek out craft ways in which to circumvent the regulations that Facebook has laid out...
Patently-O Bits and Bytes No. 14Patent Law Blog (Patently-O)
Posted on February 20, 2008Design Patent Law: The House Subcommittee on IP held hearings on amendments to the design patent laws. The two primary specific issues on the table are (1) whether to eliminate design patents covering replacement automobile parts and (2) whether to extend IP protection to fashion designs...
Washington Fashion Week 2: The Design Piracy Prohibition ActCounterfeit Chic
Posted on February 19, 2008Looking for pligg users and blawgrs to beta test new online community. Send me email if you?re interested in helping out. \n\n\n
McKenna on Trademark Use in CommerceTechnology & Marketing Law Blog
Posted on February 19, 2008Looking for pligg users and blawgrs to beta test new online community. Send me email if you?re interested in helping out. \\n\\n\\n
Wikileaks Archive (Torrent, 2,000 files, 400MB)Cryptome
Posted on February 19, 2008Looking for pligg users and blawgrs to beta test new online community. Send me email if you?re interested in helping out. \\\\\\\\n\\\\\\\\n\\\\\\\\n
Supremes Won't Hear Warrantless Wiretapping CaseWired: Threat Level
Posted on February 19, 2008The Supreme Court turned down Tuesday a request to take up a challenge to the Bush Administration's warrantless wiretapping program, adding to the Administration's string of legal victories in challenges to the controversial, five-year-long program...
TWiL 12: Draft Lessigthis WEEK in LAW
Posted on February 19, 2008The Supreme Court turned down Tuesday a request to take up a challenge to the Bush Administration's warrantless wiretapping program, adding to the Administration's string of legal victories in challenges to the controversial, five-year-long program...
Justice Scalia?s Opinion of Recent Video Game LegislationLaws of Play
Posted on February 19, 2008Today I had the rare honor of not only attending a Supreme Court argument, but also spending an hour and a half with Justice Scalia, the Court?s second most senior Associate Justice. Those of you who are familiar with American jurisprudence are probably familiar with Justice Scalia?s reputation as an extremely conservative justice who is a strict originalist when it comes to constitutional interpretation...
"Anonymous Blogging and Defamation: Balancing Interests of the Internet."How Appealing
Posted on February 19, 2008\\nToday I had the rare honor of not only attending a Supreme Court argument, but also spending an hour and a half with Justice Scalia, the Court?s second most senior Associate Justice.\\nThose of you who are familiar with American jurisprudence are probably familiar with Justice Scalia?s reputation as an extremely conservative justice who is a strict originalist when it comes to constitutional interpretation...
This Site Full Of Leaked Documents Is So Good, The Government Just Broke The Constitution To Shut It Down [Censored]Gawker
Posted on February 18, 2008Looking for pligg users and blawgrs to beta test new online community. Send me email if you?re interested in helping out. \\\\n\\\\n\\\\n
Lawyers representing gold farmers threaten MMO bloggerWaxy.org Links
Posted on February 18, 2008Looking for pligg users and blawgrs to beta test new online community. Send me email if you?re interested in helping out. \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\n\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\n\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\n
Highlights from the Legal Guide: Deciding Whether and How to be AnonymousCitizen Media Law Project -
Posted on February 18, 2008Looking for pligg users and blawgrs to beta test new online community. Send me email if you?re interested in helping out. \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\n\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\n\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\n
Fraud and PreemptionThe Patry Copyright Blog
Posted on February 18, 2008Issues involving when state laws are preempted are both frequent and vexing. A recent, marvelous opinion by Chief Judge Curtis L. Collier of the Eastern District of Tennesse is important for its insights into this difficult area. The case is Shuptrine v...
A Paper on Net Neutrality and Consumer Access To ContentMedia Law Prof Blog
Posted on February 18, 2008The transcript of yesterday?s in-world discussion of Second Life intellectual property issues with attorney Frank Taney is now available at SLOG. I?m on the road right now and I couldn?t make it to the event ?live,? but it looks like it was a great session...
Inadvertent FilesharingMedia Law Prof Blog
Posted on February 18, 2008The transcript of yesterday?s in-world discussion of Second Life intellectual property issues with attorney Frank Taney is now available at SLOG. I?m on the road right now and I couldn?t make it to the event ?live,? but it looks like it was a great session...
Patently-O Bits and Bytes No. 13Patent Law Blog (Patently-O)
Posted on February 18, 2008The Budgetary Cost of Patent Reform: The CBO has released its cost estimates for the Patent Reform Act of 2007. A net loss of $1.4 Billion. Almost all of the additional cost is easily classified as ?pork.? The vast majority of the additional money would be to pay for takings claims created by the neutering of DataTreasury?s Check21 patents...
Copyright history conference announcement43(B)log
Posted on February 18, 2008By way of Lionel Bently: AHRC Primary Sources on Copyright History Project:The conference will be Wednesday 19th and Thursday 20th March 2008 at Stationers' Hall, London; it's a comparative examination of copyright history. The conference is the culmination of a research project involving the creation of a digital resource concerning the history of copyright in five key jurisdictions; France, Germany, Italy, the UK and the US, for the period before 1900...
File "sharing" or "stealing"?Bit Player
Posted on February 18, 2008"Invoking the metaphor is a shield against thinking," William Patry, the chief copyright counsel for Google, wrote on his blog a couple of years ago. The topic was "technical protection measures," but he's argued that bad metaphors are also behind the entertainment industry's rhetoric that unauthorized downloaders are thieves...
When to Hold ?em and When to Fold ?emThe Legal Satyricon
Posted on February 16, 2008Should you press forward when the respondent surrenders in a UDRP proceeding? At least one UDRP panelist thinks you shouldn?t. In Laerdal Medical v. Lee, WIPO Case No. D2007-1672 (Jan. 21, 2008), the panelist devoted a lot of ink to scolding the complainant for its arbitration tactics...
Transcript of Q&A Regarding Second Life Intellectual Property with Attorney Frank Taney PostedVirtually Blind | Virtual Law
Posted on February 16, 2008The transcript of yesterday?s in-world discussion of Second Life intellectual property issues with attorney Frank Taney is now available at SLOG. I?m on the road right now and I couldn?t make it to the event ?live,? but it looks like it was a great session...
Yesterday's Design Hearing in the HouseThe Patry Copyright Blog
Posted on February 15, 2008There was a hearing yesterday in the U.S. Congress, in the House IP Subcommittee on H.R. 2033, the "Design Piracy Prohibition Act." The title of the hearing was "Are Special Provisions Needed to Protect Unique Industries?" The title reminded me of looking at the absolute worst efforts by first year law students to draft questions for certiorari, something like: "Does it violate Due Process for an evil serial killer of innocent children to die for his sins?" (It should be noted that the subcommittee chair is not a sponsor of the legislation)...
Virtual Trademarksmadisonian.net
Posted on February 15, 2008In the past year, there have been some interesting developments in trademark law and virtual worlds, including the Eros lawsuits in Second Life and increased attention from legal practitioners (e.g., see this from WIPO). So, when I was recently invited by the Santa Clara Computer and High Technology Law Journal to write about user-generated content and virtual worlds for a very interesting Symposium, I decided to write a short overview of the topic of Virtual Trademarks with Candy Dougherty...
Recent reading: pastiche over parody43(B)log
Posted on February 15, 2008Zahr Said Stauffer, ?Po-mo Karaoke? or Postcolonial Pastiche? What Fair Use Analysis Could Draw from Literary Criticism, 31 Colum. J.L. & Arts 43 (2007): Stauffer argues that rather than using the ill-fitting parody/satire distinction, courts should look at pastiche ? ?a genre composed of a number of mismatched or unusually combined elements, styles, or modes? ? to assess transformativeness...
Beta Testing:: Tech Law Advisor :: Reloaded ::
Posted on February 15, 2008Looking for pligg users and blawgrs to beta test new online community. Send me email if you?re interested in helping out.
McKenna on Trademark UseLegal Theory Blog
Posted on February 15, 2008Mark P. McKenna (Saint Louis University - School of Law; Notre Dame Law School) has posted Trademark Use and the Problem of Source in Trademark Law on SSRN. Here is the abstract:This paper mediates a scholarly debate regarding the existence and desirability of a trademark use doctrine...
SFLC launches legal primer for FOSS projectsIMPACT®
Posted on February 15, 2008The Software Freedom Law Centre has today issued detailed legal guidance on free software/open source ("FOSS"). Aimed at those involved in FOSS projects, the 'Legal Issues Primer' seeks to deal with all key legal issues including: Choosing a licence Enforcing a licence (if you have an infringement problem, and polite requests can't solve it, maybe you can hire the Software Freedom Law Centre!) Structural/corporate issues Dealing with patent infringement claims Choosing and using a trade mark Whilst written from a US law perspective, much of the guidance will be relevant in other jurisdictions...
Second Life Intellectual Property Discussion Friday February 15 at 3:00 PM SLT (Pacific Time)Virtually Blind | Virtual Law
Posted on February 15, 2008Today (Friday, February 15) at 3:00 PM SLT (Pacific) attorney Frank Taney, will hold an in-world discussion of intellectual property rights in Second Life. Taney represented plaintiffs in two separate real-life lawsuits stemming from virtual world activity last year...
Patry on Copyright:: Tech Law Advisor :: Reloaded ::
Posted on February 15, 2008Title: The Rhetoric of the Copyright Debates [pdf] Date: March 11, 2008 Location: Copyright Society Event at Woodcock Washburn LLP Description: The use of rhetoric in copyright debates seems to have reached new levels. Although copyright debates always have been freighted with metaphors, moral panics, and folk devils, the rhetoric seems to have increased over the years as the focus of the discussions turned towards a very public medium ? the Internet...
Naked Cowboy?s Lawsuit Drives M&M Outta DodgeWSJ.com: Law Blog - WSJ.com
Posted on February 15, 2008For all its faults, our legal system lets cowboys forego violence to vindicate their honor. ?They took down the video two days ago. Everyone?s telling me it?s an open-and-closed case,? the Naked Cowboy told the NY Post. The 37 year-old Naked Cowboy, whose real name is Robert Burck, was referring to his $6 million trademark-infringement lawsuit against M&M?s manufacturer Mars Inc...
Patently-O Bits and Bytes No. 12Patent Law Blog (Patently-O)
Posted on February 15, 2008Anti-DataTreasury Provision: Although DataTreasury is not named in the Patent Reform Act of 2007, it is clear that Section 14 of the Senate Bill is primarily directed at that single patent holder. The bill would excuse ?financial institutions? from charges that their check imaging methods constitute patent infringement...
Blockbuster Fires Blogger for 'Divulging Confidential Information'Hacking NetFlix
Posted on February 15, 2008Blogger Earnest Pettie was terminated for "divulging confidential information" in the following post about the Blockbuster price increase: Blockbuster Total Access?What went wrong?. Here's a selection from the post: To make matters worse, Blockbuster bungled Total Access further by changing the Total Access program prices and benefits and failing to effectively notify the customers of the changes...
Leading pornographer lecturing Google & Yahoo about cleaning up online pornThe Progress & Freedom Foundation Blog
Posted on February 15, 2008So here we have one of the world?s leading pornographers lecturing Google & Yahoo about doing more to protect kids for online porn. Just bizarre. Next thing you know, Larry Flynt and Hugh Hefner will be lecturing pay TV operators for not doing enough to stop people from viewing adult VOD channels! But before Mr...
Conference in London on Copyright HistoryThe Patry Copyright Blog
Posted on February 14, 2008Primary Sources on Copyright 1450-1900 is to launch in March. The online resource will revolutionize the way historical research into copyright is done, and is the brainchild of Professors Ronan Deazley, Oren Bracha and others. To celebrate the launch, on March 19-20, there will be an important in its own right two day seminar at Stationer's Hall...
minilinks for 2008-02-13The Electronic Frontier Foundation | Blog Posts
Posted on February 14, 2008For all its faults, our legal system lets cowboys forego violence to vindicate their honor. \n?They took down the video two days ago. Everyone?s telling me it?s an open-and-closed case,? the Naked Cowboy told the NY Post. The 37 year-old Naked Cowboy, whose real name is Robert Burck, was referring to his $6 million trademark-infringement lawsuit against M&M?s manufacturer Mars Inc...
Congressional Committee Asks Web Site for Information on Anonymous Posters:The Volokh Conspiracy
Posted on February 14, 2008For all its faults, our legal system lets cowboys forego violence to vindicate their honor. \\n?They took down the video two days ago. Everyone?s telling me it?s an open-and-closed case,? the Naked Cowboy told the NY Post. The 37 year-old Naked Cowboy, whose real name is Robert Burck, was referring to his $6 million trademark-infringement lawsuit against M&M?s manufacturer Mars Inc...
CNN Producer Says He Was Fired for BloggingCity Room
Posted on February 14, 2008For all its faults, our legal system lets cowboys forego violence to vindicate their honor. \\\\n?They took down the video two days ago. Everyone?s telling me it?s an open-and-closed case,? the Naked Cowboy told the NY Post. The 37 year-old Naked Cowboy, whose real name is Robert Burck, was referring to his $6 million trademark-infringement lawsuit against M&M?s manufacturer Mars Inc...
Ben Edelman targets C-NetMediaZDNet Blogs
Posted on February 14, 2008For all its faults, our legal system lets cowboys forego violence to vindicate their honor. \\\\\\\\n?They took down the video two days ago. Everyone?s telling me it?s an open-and-closed case,? the Naked Cowboy told the NY Post. The 37 year-old Naked Cowboy, whose real name is Robert Burck, was referring to his $6 million trademark-infringement lawsuit against M&M?s manufacturer Mars Inc...
Surveillance vote in house imminent, EFF's call for actionBoing Boing
Posted on February 14, 2008The EFF's Tim Jones says, On Tuesday, the US Senate approved a bill that would grant retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that illegally spied on millions of Americans' private communications. The fight is not over yet; the bill must be ratified by the House before it becomes law...
Five ways for bloggers to minimize risk in use of copyrighted materialsReal Lawyers Have Blogs
Posted on February 14, 2008Looking for pligg users and blawgrs to beta test new online community. Send me email if you?re interested in helping out. \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\n\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\n\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\n
Rep. Markey's net neutrality legislationGoogle Public Policy Blog
Posted on February 13, 2008Posted by Derek Slater, Policy AnalystToday, Rep. Ed Markey and Chip Pickering introduced bipartisan legislation to help preserve Internet freedom and explicitly make "net neutrality" a guiding principle of U.S. broadband policy. The bill would affirm that the Internet should remain an open platform for innovation, competition, and social discourse, free from unreasonable discriminatory practices by network operators...
Bush Administration Spending More Taxpayer Money On Intellectual Property ProsecutionsTechdirt
Posted on February 12, 2008Scholarly Journals and Open AccessThe Patry Copyright Blog
Posted on February 12, 2008An article on page E1 of the New York Times Arts section today discusses a vote today by the Harvard Arts and Sciences faculty on whether to implement a new opt-out policy that would provide open, free Internet access to professors' finished articles...
H.R. 4137 Passes House with Section 494 attached.Copywrite
Posted on February 12, 2008HR 4137, the College Opportunity and Affordability Act, passed the house. It seeks to reduce higher education costs, increases Pell Grants, and . . . seeks to elimitate peer-to-peer file sharing on college campuses. Yes, just what higher ed has been clamboring for, more money for students and an unfunded mandate to police their computer networks...
Drop Kick Me Jesus Through the Goalposts of CopyrightThe Patry Copyright Blog
Posted on February 11, 2008In 1976, country and western singer Bobby Bare a song written by Paul Craft called ?Drop Kick Me Jesus Through The Goal Posts of Life.? The song appeared on his album ?Winners and Other Losers.? Here are the first two verses:Drop kick me Jesus through the goal posts of lifeEnd over end neither left nor to rightStraight through the heart of them righteous uprightsDrop kick me Jesus through the goal posts of life...
Big news in the free law departmentLessig Blog
Posted on February 11, 2008As announced at public.resource.org, CC and public.resource.org have announced the first release of material to support our free law project. After raising a large chunk of change from great and generous sorts like David Boies, John Gilmore, the Omidyar Network and the Elbaz Foundation, we've purchased a database of a substantial part of all federal cases...
How not to get sued for bloggersReal Lawyers Have Blogs
Posted on February 10, 2008Kimberlee G. Weatherall (The University of Queensland - T.C. Beirne School of Law) has posted Of Copyright Bureaucracies and Incoherence: Stepping Back from Australia\'s Recent Copyright Reforms (Melbourne University Law Review, Vol. 31, No. 2, 2007) on SSRN...
Blawg Review #146The Invent Blog®
Posted on February 10, 2008Welcome to Blawg Review #146. This is actually my second time hosting Blawg Review?I was party to the infamous Blawg Review #48 (hosted by the group blawg RethinkIP (with Matt and Doug ). Note to self, not everyone appreciates it when you try to ?Rethink? Blawg Review...
Technology and (Mis)appropriation of DataInfo 205 - Spring 2008: Information Law and Policy (Three Day Delay)
Posted on February 10, 2008webcast@media.berkeley.edutag:google.com,2005:reader/feed/http://webcast.berkeley.edu/rss/course-archive.php?seriesid=1906978514
dhowell: Discussion links for next week's TWiL here: http://del.icio.us/thisweekinlaw/12 Suggest away! http://del.icio.us/for/thisweekinlawTwitter / dhowell with friends
Posted on February 09, 2008Columbia Law School, Fair Use Symposium Keynote Speaker: Paul Goldstein Fair Use in Context Fair use is notoriously tricky. Beebe counts 2.4 fair use articles for every court opinion over 1990-2005. There?s a fatal attraction to general theories of fair use...
Weatherall on Australian Copyright ReformLegal Theory Blog
Posted on February 08, 2008Kimberlee G. Weatherall (The University of Queensland - T.C. Beirne School of Law) has posted Of Copyright Bureaucracies and Incoherence: Stepping Back from Australia's Recent Copyright Reforms (Melbourne University Law Review, Vol. 31, No. 2, 2007) on SSRN...
Paul Goldstein on copyright in context43(B)log
Posted on February 08, 2008Columbia Law School, Fair Use Symposium Keynote Speaker: Paul Goldstein Fair Use in Context Fair use is notoriously tricky. Beebe counts 2.4 fair use articles for every court opinion over 1990-2005. There?s a fatal attraction to general theories of fair use...
Knockoff News 77Counterfeit Chic
Posted on February 08, 2008Columbia Law School, Fair Use Symposium Keynote Speaker: Paul Goldstein Fair Use in Context Fair use is notoriously tricky. Beebe counts 2.4 fair use articles for every court opinion over 1990-2005. There?s a fatal attraction to general theories of fair use...
Copyright in LettersThe Patry Copyright Blog
Posted on February 08, 2008Awhile back, I had a posting about misuse in the manner in which a cease and desist letter was being used (link here). This turned out to be a web-wide controversy, which I won?t re-enter; recently though the author of the letter put out a press release touting a recent decision by a magistrate judge on the copyrightability of such letters...
All versions of MPEP now available on USPTO websiteFilewrapper®
Posted on February 08, 2008As announced at public.resource.org, CC and public.resource.org have announced the first release of material to support our free law project. After raising a large chunk of change from great and generous sorts like David Boies, John Gilmore, the Omidyar Network and the Elbaz Foundation, we\'ve purchased a database of a substantial part of all federal cases...
Summary of today's summary judgment hearing in the claim and continuation rule casesFilewrapper®
Posted on February 08, 2008As announced at public.resource.org, CC and public.resource.org have announced the first release of material to support our free law project. After raising a large chunk of change from great and generous sorts like David Boies, John Gilmore, the Omidyar Network and the Elbaz Foundation, we\\\'ve purchased a database of a substantial part of all federal cases...
The Crime of Selling Abandoned CopiesThe Patry Copyright Blog
Posted on February 07, 2008The Crime of Selling Abandoned CopiesIf you came across a trash can filled with lawfully made compact discs and DVDs that the copyright owner had authorized to be put in that trash can and then thrown away because it didn?t want to pay the postage to have them returned, do you think you could be criminally prosecuted for selling those copies, and would you think that the copyright owners would be entitled to restitution under the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act? If you answered no to these questions, you would be wrong according to the Eighth Circuit...
Second Circuit Against The Rest Of The Country re: Keywords As Use In CommerceThe Trademark Blog
Posted on February 07, 2008Prof. Goldman: Kentucky Court Votes Keyword Ads = TM Use In Commerce: Either way, this case reinforces the pattern that Second Circuit-controlled courts aren't finding trademark use in commerce from keyword triggering and all other courts are. In that respect, this ruling is reminiscent of the American Airlines v...
State and Local Tax Assessment MapsThe Patry Copyright Blog
Posted on February 06, 2008Section 105 of title 17 USC prohibits copyright in works of the United States government, but does not bar works of state and local governments. Under case law, state court decisions and statutes have been held not protectible, but the rationales for these decisions do not apply to other material, like maps...
RIAA opposes EFF motion for leave to file amicus brief, cites "Recording Industry vs. The People"Recording Industry vs The People
Posted on February 06, 2008In Arista v. Does 1-21, the case in which the RIAA is targeting Boston University students, it has filed a brief opposing the Electronic Frontier's Foundation request for leave to file an amicus curiae brief.The 'opposition' brief inaccurately refers to Ray Beckerman as an EFF attorney, even though Richard Gabriel -- the brief's author -- knows that Ray Beckerman is a private practitioner who is a partner at Vandenberg & Feliu, LLP, in Manhattan...
Presidential Hopefuls Positions on IP:: Tech Law Advisor :: Reloaded ::
Posted on February 05, 2008Intellectual Property Watch: US Presidential Candidates Reveal Positions On Some IP Issues Technology Voters? Guide: John McCain Technology Voters? Guide: Hillary Clinton Technology Voters? Guide: Barack Obama CNet Election 2008: Campaign coverage for the digerati
Copyright Protection for Fact WorksMedia Law Prof Blog
Posted on February 05, 2008\nIntellectual Property Watch: US Presidential Candidates Reveal Positions On Some IP Issues\n Technology Voters? Guide: John McCain\nTechnology Voters? Guide: Hillary Clinton \nTechnology Voters? Guide: Barack Obama\nCNet Election 2008: Campaign coverage for the digerati\n
Expert weighs in on liability for bloggersBlogHer - Law
Posted on February 05, 2008\\nIntellectual Property Watch: US Presidential Candidates Reveal Positions On Some IP Issues\\n Technology Voters? Guide: John McCain\\nTechnology Voters? Guide: Hillary Clinton \\nTechnology Voters? Guide: Barack Obama\\nCNet Election 2008: Campaign coverage for the digerati\\n
ICANN Wants $61,000,000 of Your MoneyInternet Pro Radio | icann.Blog
Posted on February 05, 2008\\\\nIntellectual Property Watch: US Presidential Candidates Reveal Positions On Some IP Issues\\\\n Technology Voters? Guide: John McCain\\\\nTechnology Voters? Guide: Hillary Clinton \\\\nTechnology Voters? Guide: Barack Obama\\\\nCNet Election 2008: Campaign coverage for the digerati\\\\n
'Text-Only' Web Obscenity Case Attracts National AttentionLaw.com - Newswire
Posted on February 05, 2008\\\\\\\\nIntellectual Property Watch: US Presidential Candidates Reveal Positions On Some IP Issues\\\\\\\\n Technology Voters? Guide: John McCain\\\\\\\\nTechnology Voters? Guide: Hillary Clinton \\\\\\\\nTechnology Voters? Guide: Barack Obama\\\\\\\\nCNet Election 2008: Campaign coverage for the digerati\\\\\\\\n
Photographs and Derivative WorksThe Patry Copyright Blog
Posted on February 05, 2008The concept of what constitutes a derivative work seems to elude far too many courts, particularly in the photography context. In Ets-Hokin v. Skky Spirits, Inc., 225 F.3d 1068 (9th Cir. 2000), a photograph of a vodka bottle was taken for use in an advertisement...
Patent Office on Patent ReformPatent Prospector
Posted on February 05, 2008USPTO management posted on its internal agency website a position statement concerning changes in pending patent law. The patent office strongly opposes damages apportionment, while supporting the new post-grant opposition regime. The posting - Understanding Patent Modernization Legislation - ( 02/04/2008) What Does it All Mean? A Brief Summary Legislation has been introduced in both houses of Congress that proposes significant changes to the U...
Technology Plays Key Role in Obama Success StoryMichael Geist Blog
Posted on February 05, 2008webcast@media.berkeley.edutag:google.com,2005:reader/feed/http://webcast.berkeley.edu/rss/course-archive.php?seriesid=1906978514
Tech Donations: Microsoft Loves Clinton; Google, Yahoo Go for ObamaWired: Top Stories
Posted on February 05, 2008webcast@media.berkeley.edutag:google.com,2005:reader/feed/http://webcast.berkeley.edu/rss/course-archive.php?seriesid=1906978514
eBay Bans Negative Feedback For Buyers; Everyone Be Good NowTechdirt
Posted on February 05, 2008webcast@media.berkeley.edutag:google.com,2005:reader/feed/http://webcast.berkeley.edu/rss/course-archive.php?seriesid=1906978514
Pirating the 2008 Oscars, Part 2Waxy.org
Posted on February 05, 2008webcast@media.berkeley.edutag:google.com,2005:reader/feed/http://webcast.berkeley.edu/rss/course-archive.php?seriesid=1906978514
Wikipedia Refuses To Remove Pictures of Mohammed from Entry,The Volokh Conspiracy
Posted on February 05, 2008webcast@media.berkeley.edutag:google.com,2005:reader/feed/http://webcast.berkeley.edu/rss/course-archive.php?seriesid=1906978514
Who doesn?t love Yale sluts?The Legal Satyricon
Posted on February 05, 2008The Yale Daily News reports: Members of the Yale Women?s Center board threatened to initiate legal action Sunday after discovering a photograph posted on Facebook.com depicting 12 Yale students affiliated with the Zeta Psi fraternity posing in front of the Center with a sign reading ?We Love Yale Sluts...
Groups Submit Paper Opposing Higher Copyright DamagesPublic Knowledge - Blogging, Events, and Action Alerts
Posted on February 05, 2008The Yale Daily News reports:\nMembers of the Yale Women?s Center board threatened to initiate legal action Sunday after discovering a photograph posted on Facebook.com depicting 12 Yale students affiliated with the Zeta Psi fraternity posing in front of the Center with a sign reading ?We Love Yale Sluts...
More on the Super Bowl and Public PerformancesPublic Knowledge - Blogging, Events, and Action Alerts
Posted on February 05, 2008The Yale Daily News reports:\\nMembers of the Yale Women?s Center board threatened to initiate legal action Sunday after discovering a photograph posted on Facebook.com depicting 12 Yale students affiliated with the Zeta Psi fraternity posing in front of the Center with a sign reading ?We Love Yale Sluts...
Initial Speaker Line-Up: Internet Video Policy SynposiumIP&Democracy
Posted on February 05, 2008The Yale Daily News reports:\\\\nMembers of the Yale Women?s Center board threatened to initiate legal action Sunday after discovering a photograph posted on Facebook.com depicting 12 Yale students affiliated with the Zeta Psi fraternity posing in front of the Center with a sign reading ?We Love Yale Sluts...
Pirated by iTunes, Artist Turns to BitTorrentTorrentFreak
Posted on February 05, 2008The Flashbulb, aka Benn Jordan, became so outraged when he discovered that iTunes was effectively pirating his music, that he uploaded copies of his latest album to BitTorrent. TorrentFreak caught up with Benn to learn more about the decision to stop distributors and ?coked-up label reps? from getting all the cash...
The Patent MemeBlawg IT-Internet Patent, Trademark and Copyright Issues with Attorney Brett Trout
Posted on February 05, 2008When I first started writing my patent law blog in 2003, there were maybe only one or two other blogs writing about patents. I know, it sounds crazy. Patent attorneys are the epitome of sex appeal. There had to thousands of bloggers fawning over patents and the like...
Bush Administration To Patent Office: Hey, Hold Up There Mister On That There Reasonable Royalty RatePatent Baristas
Posted on February 04, 2008The Department of Commerce sent a letter to Sen. Patrick J. Leahy Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary, on the views of the current Administration on S. 1145, the Patent Reform Act of 2007. The letter basically outlines the Administration?s big beef with the bill, that is, with Section 4, Right of the Inventor to Obtain Damages, in response to the committee?s report...
EFF Asks U.S. Senate To Protect Reexamination Proceedings (and the Patent Busting Project)The Electronic Frontier Foundation | Blog Posts
Posted on February 04, 2008The Department of Commerce sent a letter to Sen. Patrick J. Leahy Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary, on the views of the current Administration on S. 1145, the Patent Reform Act of 2007. The letter basically outlines the Administration?s big beef with the bill, that is, with Section 4, Right of the Inventor to Obtain Damages, in response to the committee?s report...
$5K DePaul Student Award Honors Slain IP LawyerABA Journal Daily News
Posted on February 04, 2008The Department of Commerce sent a letter to Sen. Patrick J. Leahy Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary, on the views of the current Administration on S. 1145, the Patent Reform Act of 2007. The letter basically outlines the Administration?s big beef with the bill, that is, with Section 4, Right of the Inventor to Obtain Damages, in response to the committee?s report...
"'Text-Only' Web Obscenity Case Attracts National Attention; Motions to dismiss said obscenity laws should not be applied to text where no pictures were involved"How Appealing
Posted on February 04, 2008The Department of Commerce sent a letter to Sen. Patrick J. Leahy Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary, on the views of the current Administration on S. 1145, the Patent Reform Act of 2007. The letter basically outlines the Administration?s big beef with the bill, that is, with Section 4, Right of the Inventor to Obtain Damages, in response to the committee?s report...
A Fan Writes (and I Reply)Discourse.net
Posted on February 04, 2008A fan, presumably cross about this, writes: Aren?t you a little embarrassed to be connected to an organization that is defending CAIR?You?ve got to be. You?re a smart man.If you are afraid to speak up about the Islamic influence on our society, then you have submitted and are already a Muslim...
Patently-O Bits and Bytes No. 9Patent Law Blog (Patently-O)
Posted on February 04, 2008Bush Administration Opposes Aspects of Patent Reform: [LINK] (But will support an amended version) Additional Senate Comments on Patent Reform: [LINK (836 KB)] Senator Kyl: Congress should eliminate business method patents because they create monopoly costs without any new beneficial technology...
Northern District Cyberlaw TrendsChicago IP Litigation Blog
Posted on February 04, 2008\nThe\nElectronic Frontier Foundation is a \nself-appointed busybody for relieving owners of their intellectual property \nwhenever possible. Their Patent \nBusting Project aims at "illegitimate" computer-related patents. EFF modus \noperandus is filing reexamination requests on "particularly egregious patents;" \nnamely, those where the owner raises an enforcement stink, and EFF thinks it has \ndug some decent prior art...
Boston University student files supplemental brief, notes that Massachusetts state police have issued "cease and desist" letter to MediaSentryRecording Industry vs The People
Posted on February 04, 2008In Arista v. Does 1-21, the case seeking the identities of Boston University students, the student "John Doe" has filed a supplemental brief, mentioning a number of factors about the weakness of the RIAA's case and the impropriety of its methods.Among other things, the brief mentions that the Massachusetts state police have issued a "cease and desist" letter to MediaSentry, directing it to cease and desist from conducting investigations without a license...
Microsoft General Council Rebuts Google Officer?s Anti-Trust CommentaryMashable!
Posted on February 03, 2008Google Senior VP and Chief Legal Officer David Drummond took some time this fine Super Bowl Sunday morning to blog in passive-aggressive opposition to the Microshoo! maneuver, revealed to the public Friday. (He rhetorically claimed that Microsoft could exert inappropriate and and illegal influence over the Internet, rather than would exert inappropriate?...
EFF Takes Case To Defend Digg, CNET, NYT, eBaums, WaPo Against Patent TrollMashable!
Posted on February 03, 2008Like to game on the Web? If so, great. But there?s a good chance that you aren?t too thrilled about patent trolls. Nasty vermin. The come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes they?re behemoth corporations. At others they?re lowly, money-grubbing individuals looking to score easy hits in court...
Listening Post: Want Better Music? Don't Stiff the SongwritersWired: Top Stories
Posted on February 03, 2008\nLike to game on the Web? If so, great.\nBut there?s a good chance that you aren?t too thrilled about patent trolls. Nasty vermin. The come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes they?re behemoth corporations. At others they?re lowly, money-grubbing individuals looking to score easy hits in court...
BustedPatent Prospector
Posted on February 03, 2008The Electronic Frontier Foundation is a self-appointed busybody for relieving owners of their intellectual property whenever possible. Their Patent Busting Project aims at "illegitimate" computer-related patents. EFF modus operandus is filing reexamination requests on "particularly egregious patents;" namely, those where the owner raises an enforcement stink, and EFF thinks it has dug some decent prior art...
Well, You Get Three Years To File A Statement Of Use on That 19-0 ApplicationThe Trademark Blog
Posted on February 03, 2008Giants 17, Patriots 14.
Copyright Protection as Applied to Compilations of DataInfo 205 - Spring 2008: Information Law and Policy (Three Day Delay)
Posted on February 03, 2008webcast@media.berkeley.edutag:google.com,2005:reader/feed/http://webcast.berkeley.edu/rss/course-archive.php?seriesid=1906978514
Microsoft Misleads on Copyright ReformMichael Geist Blog
Posted on February 03, 2008webcast@media.berkeley.edutag:google.com,2005:reader/feed/http://webcast.berkeley.edu/rss/course-archive.php?seriesid=1906978514
Ex-PTO Commisioners Weigh in on Patent ReformPeter Zura's 271 Patent Blog
Posted on February 01, 2008Former Commissioners Gerald Mossinghoff & Stephen Kunin are preparing a position paper on various parts of the Patent Reform Act of 2007. In general, they support many of the provisions of the Act, while expressing their reservations on other provisions...
Sedler on Property & SpeechLegal Theory Blog
Posted on February 01, 2008Robert A. Sedler (Wayne State University Law School) has posted Property and Speech (Washington University Journal of Law and Policy, Vol. 21) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:This article was part of a Symposium on The Rehnquist Court and the First Amendment, sponsored by the Washington University Journal of Law and Policy...
Letters to U.S. Senate Opposing the Proposed Patent Reform.Anticipate This!? | Patent and Trademark Law Blog
Posted on February 01, 2008A number of letters from companies, patent holders, and universities opposing the present Patent Reform Act of 2007 were sent to members of the U.S. Senate this week. Links to individual letters are found below, provided by the Innovation Alliance. Letter to Senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker from 14 Tennessee manufacturers opposing patent reform...
TTAB Posts February 2008 Hearing ScheduleThe TTABlog
Posted on February 01, 2008The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board has scheduled six hearings for the month of February, as listed below. The hearings will be held in the East Wing of the Madison Building. [The hearing schedule and other details regarding attendance may be found at the TTAB website (lower right-hand corner)]...
Separation of Church and FootballThe Trademark Blog
Posted on February 01, 2008ChristianPost.com: "Churches Wary of NFL Policy Sack Super Bowl Parties": After the National Football League gave warning last year to an Indianapolis church not to hold a Super Bowl viewing party, churches across the country are canceling their annual Super Bowl fellowships in fear of getting flagged for copyright violations...
PatentScrounger Visual Patent SearchingI/P Updates
Posted on February 01, 2008The PatentScrounger visual patent searching website is available here at no charge.
Pennsylvania Sues Woman For Selling Goods On eBay Without A LicenseTechdirt
Posted on February 01, 2008Gimado Music Search: Next to Get Sued by Warner?Mashable!
Posted on February 01, 2008Gimado is the latest to launch a music search engine, very similar in function to SeeqPod. Crawling the web for mp3s, your search query will return a list of results for songs that can be played and downloaded. I played around on the site for a while, and it looks that most of the content available on Gimado is coming directly from eSnips...
Amazon's anti-DRM teeBoing Boing
Posted on February 01, 2008This kick-ass "DRM: Don't Restrict Me" was apparently given to Amazon employees to coincide with the launch of the DRM-free Amazon MP3 store. Link (Thanks, Terence!) See also: Amazon buys Audible, promises to kill DRM if we complain
Anorexic? Your Insurance Company Could Subpeona Your Writings On MySpace And Facebook [Privacy]Consumerist
Posted on February 01, 2008\n \n This kick-ass \"DRM: Don\'t Restrict Me\" was apparently given to Amazon employees to coincide with the launch of the DRM-free Amazon MP3 store.\n \n Link\n \n (Thanks, Terence!)\n \n See also: Amazon buys Audible, promises to kill DRM if we complain\n \n \n \n\n \n \n \n\n\n \n
Lawyer Defends ?Fake Bomb? as Free SpeechABA Journal Daily News
Posted on February 01, 2008\\n \\n This kick-ass \\\"DRM: Don\\\'t Restrict Me\\\" was apparently given to Amazon employees to coincide with the launch of the DRM-free Amazon MP3 store.\\n \\n Link\\n \\n (Thanks, Terence!)\\n \\n See also: Amazon buys Audible, promises to kill DRM if we complain\\n \\n \\n \\n\\n \\n \\n \\n\\n\\n \\n
Public Knowledge Throws the Flag on NFL for Unsportsmanlike ConductPublic Knowledge - Blogging, Events, and Action Alerts
Posted on February 01, 2008\\\\n \\\\n This kick-ass \\\\\\\"DRM: Don\\\\\\\'t Restrict Me\\\\\\\" was apparently given to Amazon employees to coincide with the launch of the DRM-free Amazon MP3 store.\\\\n \\\\n Link\\\\n \\\\n (Thanks, Terence!)\\\\n \\\\n See also: Amazon buys Audible, promises to kill DRM if we complain\\\\n \\\\n \\\\n \\\\n\\\\n \\\\n \\\\n \\\\n\\\\n\\\\n \\\\n
Copying as transformation43(B)log
Posted on February 01, 2008Henry Lowood, Found Technology: Players as Innovators in the Making of Machinima, in Digital Youth, Innovation, and the Unexpected (Tara McPherson ed., 2008) (The John D. and Catherine T.MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning)Given that courts have occasionally suggested that, for fair use purposes, the line between transformative and nontransformative uses is whether an unauthorized use brings out and emphasizes or exaggerates some characteristic that was already in the original text, I was especially interested in Lowood?s description of a machinima movie set in World of Warcraft that told a Romeo-and-Juliet story about the love between a troll and a human...
TiVo Wins on Appeal: Permanent Injunction against EchoStar to be ReinstatedPatent Law Blog (Patently-O)
Posted on January 31, 2008TiVo v. EchoStar (Fed. Cir. 2008) Around the turn of the century, TiVo?s time shifting DVR television technology took the world by storm and has since become immensely popular. In 2004, TiVo sued EchoStar and others in the Eastern District of Texas for infringement of its patent claims directed at the DVR hardware and software...
Seeking a speaker for 2/19 event. Is it you?Internet Cases
Posted on January 31, 2008I?m the vice-chair of the Chicago Bar Association?s Cyberlaw and Data Privacy Committee, and we have a meeting coming up at noon on Tuesday, February 19, 2008. Problem is, our speaker prospects are falling through. If you can be in Chicago on 2/19 and would like to address a group of about 20-30 technology savvy attorneys on a topic of interest to you about law and technology, drop me a line [internetcases -at- gmail dot com]...
"Family Friendly" Movie Censors Were Running Porn Business [Pervs]Consumerist
Posted on January 31, 2008I?m the vice-chair of the Chicago Bar Association?s Cyberlaw and Data Privacy Committee, and we have a meeting coming up at noon on Tuesday, February 19, 2008. Problem is, our speaker prospects are falling through.\n If you can be in Chicago on 2/19 and would like to address a group of about 20-30 technology savvy attorneys on a topic of interest to you about law and technology, drop me a line [internetcases -at- gmail dot com]...
Amazon buys Audible, promises to kill DRM if we complainBoing Boing
Posted on January 31, 2008Amazon's just bought audiobook provider Audible, the exclusive provider of audiobooks to iTunes, Amazon's rival for audio downloads. Even though Apple says it prefers that its suppliers deliver non-DRM media (and even though Audible's DRM does nothing to prevent piracy), Audible has a mandatory DRM policy for the books it sells...
Top US general says: let my soldiers blog.Boing Boing
Posted on January 31, 2008Noah Shachtman at Wired's Danger Room blog writes. A leading general is pleading with the armed services to let troops blog and post to YouTube. Too bad the video site is banned on military nets, and Army rules squeeze military bloggers, hard. Link Previously on Boing Boing: Army's new regulations may restrict soldiers' blogs (NPR Xeni Tech) US Army: reporters are "threat," just like Al Qaeda; milblogs = "therapy" Army audits show official sites breach security, not milblogs Under fire, soldiers kill blogs: Pentagon milblog crackdown Pentagon Sued Over Milblog-Monitoring
Subpoenas Allowed in AutoAdmit SuitWSJ.com: Law Blog - WSJ.com
Posted on January 30, 2008For all you AutoAdmit junkies out there, there?s a development in the lawsuit filed against 39 anonymous Web users who allegedly posted defamatory remarks about female law students on the popular, sometimes-raunchy law-school discussion board. A federal judge in Connecticut is allowing the plaintiffs, two Yale law students, to subpoena the Internet service-providers responsible for the posters? IP addresses in order to identify them...
Enforce Technology-Use Policies to Manage Employees' Privacy ExpectationsLaw.com - Newswire
Posted on January 30, 2008For all you AutoAdmit junkies out there, there?s a development in the lawsuit filed against 39 anonymous Web users who allegedly posted defamatory remarks about female law students on the popular, sometimes-raunchy law-school discussion board.\nA federal judge in Connecticut is allowing the plaintiffs, two Yale law students, to subpoena the Internet service-providers responsible for the posters? IP addresses in order to identify them...
E.U. Court: Downloaders Can Stay PrivateNYT > Technology
Posted on January 30, 2008Jay Leno, NBC, and others (Rita Rudner, Jimmy Brogan, Diane Nichols, Sue Pascoe, Kathleen Madigan and Bob Ettinger) against comedy author Judy Brown and her publishers for the unauthorized publishing thousands of their jokes in 19 books over 10 years, entitled ?The Funny Pages, Squeaky Clean Comedy, Funny You Should Know That, Getting Old Is a Joke and Joke Stew...
The First Amendment and Information Gathering:The Volokh Conspiracy
Posted on January 30, 2008I?m the vice-chair of the Chicago Bar Association?s Cyberlaw and Data Privacy Committee, and we have a meeting coming up at noon on Tuesday, February 19, 2008. Problem is, our speaker prospects are falling through.\\n If you can be in Chicago on 2/19 and would like to address a group of about 20-30 technology savvy attorneys on a topic of interest to you about law and technology, drop me a line [internetcases -at- gmail dot com]...
How Could MySpace.co.uk Have Been 'Abusively' Registered Six Years Before MySpace Existed?Techdirt
Posted on January 30, 2008I?m the vice-chair of the Chicago Bar Association?s Cyberlaw and Data Privacy Committee, and we have a meeting coming up at noon on Tuesday, February 19, 2008. Problem is, our speaker prospects are falling through.\\\\n If you can be in Chicago on 2/19 and would like to address a group of about 20-30 technology savvy attorneys on a topic of interest to you about law and technology, drop me a line [internetcases -at- gmail dot com]...
Want To Make Your Documents Available To Others?Patent Baristas
Posted on January 30, 2008If you?re like most people, you come across a lot of documents in your life. Many go into the trash ? and deservedly so ? but many just can?t seem to find a home. You want to keep them for reference or for sharing but you don?t know where to put them...
Student government flunks First Amendment test; shuts down school newspaperBlogHer - Law
Posted on January 30, 2008\nIf you?re like most people, you come across a lot of documents in your life. Many go into the trash ? and deservedly so ? but many just can?t seem to find a home. You want to keep them for reference or for sharing but you don?t know where to put them...
There the RIAA goes againThe Patry Copyright Blog
Posted on January 30, 2008In a 1980 debate with then President Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, remarked, "There You Go Again." In a 1989 interview with Reagan by Jim Lehrer, Reagan explained "it just seemed to be the thing to say in what he was saying up there, because it was to me it felt kind of repetitious, something we had heard before...
Patently-O Bits and Bytes No. 8Patent Law Blog (Patently-O)
Posted on January 30, 2008Upcoming Events: Web Seminar on the implications of Nuijten and Comiskey on Business Method Patenting on Feb 14, 2008 hosted by the World Research Group (WRG) [Link] Patently-O readers receive a 20% discount with code NGD759. (Regularly $299). Web Seminar on Tafas v...
ABA Quietly Considers Anti-Consumer Proposals to Impede Keyword AdvertisingThe Electronic Frontier Foundation | Blog Posts
Posted on January 29, 2008For all you AutoAdmit junkies out there, there?s a development in the lawsuit filed against 39 anonymous Web users who allegedly posted defamatory remarks about female law students on the popular, sometimes-raunchy law-school discussion board.\\\\nA federal judge in Connecticut is allowing the plaintiffs, two Yale law students, to subpoena the Internet service-providers responsible for the posters? IP addresses in order to identify them...
I'm Being HackedPatent Troll Tracker
Posted on January 29, 2008For all you AutoAdmit junkies out there, there?s a development in the lawsuit filed against 39 anonymous Web users who allegedly posted defamatory remarks about female law students on the popular, sometimes-raunchy law-school discussion board.\\\\\\\\nA federal judge in Connecticut is allowing the plaintiffs, two Yale law students, to subpoena the Internet service-providers responsible for the posters? IP addresses in order to identify them...
Update on Pro-IP Act: DC Roundtable on Statutory DamagesThe Electronic Frontier Foundation | Blog Posts
Posted on January 29, 2008For all you AutoAdmit junkies out there, there?s a development in the lawsuit filed against 39 anonymous Web users who allegedly posted defamatory remarks about female law students on the popular, sometimes-raunchy law-school discussion board.\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\nA federal judge in Connecticut is allowing the plaintiffs, two Yale law students, to subpoena the Internet service-providers responsible for the posters? IP addresses in order to identify them...
Jokes and CopyrightThe Patry Copyright Blog
Posted on January 29, 2008Jay Leno, NBC, and others (Rita Rudner, Jimmy Brogan, Diane Nichols, Sue Pascoe, Kathleen Madigan and Bob Ettinger) against comedy author Judy Brown and her publishers for the unauthorized publishing thousands of their jokes in 19 books over 10 years, entitled ?The Funny Pages, Squeaky Clean Comedy, Funny You Should Know That, Getting Old Is a Joke and Joke Stew...
Copycense Clippings (Jan. 22, 2008 to Jan. 28, 2008)CopyCense
Posted on January 29, 2008Some readers have informed us they appreciate Clippings? incisive, retrospective commentary about the week in copyright and digital media, but have suggested that we break out some of our longer passages into distinct entries. Doing so, they have argued, will make certain longer entries easier to read, and will ensure that our readers can link to the longer entries without losing them within a broader Clippings publication...
"'Choose Life' license plate ruled free speech"How Appealing
Posted on January 29, 2008So this Thursday, January 31, at 1:00pm, at Memorial Auditorium on the Stanford Campus (directions) (map), I will be giving my last lecture about \"Free Culture.\" The event is a bit staged (literally), as it is being sponsored by an entity making a film about these issues, and they want the lecture to use in the film...
In commentary available online at FindLawHow Appealing
Posted on January 29, 2008So this Thursday, January 31, at 1:00pm, at Memorial Auditorium on the Stanford Campus (directions) (map), I will be giving my last lecture about \\\"Free Culture.\\\" The event is a bit staged (literally), as it is being sponsored by an entity making a film about these issues, and they want the lecture to use in the film...
Application for Copyright Registration Creates Subject Matter JurisdictionChicago IP Litigation Blog
Posted on January 29, 2008So this Thursday, January 31, at 1:00pm, at Memorial Auditorium on the Stanford Campus (directions) (map), I will be giving my last lecture about \\\\\\\"Free Culture.\\\\\\\" The event is a bit staged (literally), as it is being sponsored by an entity making a film about these issues, and they want the lecture to use in the film...
The Barely Nude Shots The FCC Spanked Hard [Nsfw]Gawker
Posted on January 29, 2008So this Thursday, January 31, at 1:00pm, at Memorial Auditorium on the Stanford Campus (directions) (map), I will be giving my last lecture about \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"Free Culture.\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\" The event is a bit staged (literally), as it is being sponsored by an entity making a film about these issues, and they want the lecture to use in the film...
Rapidshare To Be Forced to Shut Down Following Court Defeat?TorrentFreak
Posted on January 29, 2008Last week we reported on rumors that Rapidshare had, or was about to be, shut down, rumors that now look likely to resurface. The company, one of the world?s largest ?one-click? file hosting services, has lost a copyright infringement case against German performing rights outfit, GEMA...
What a copyright troll looks likePublic Knowledge - Blogging, Events, and Action Alerts
Posted on January 29, 2008Copyright Law and Cease-and-Desist Letters:The Volokh Conspiracy
Posted on January 28, 2008For all you AutoAdmit junkies out there, there?s a development in the lawsuit filed against 39 anonymous Web users who allegedly posted defamatory remarks about female law students on the popular, sometimes-raunchy law-school discussion board.\\nA federal judge in Connecticut is allowing the plaintiffs, two Yale law students, to subpoena the Internet service-providers responsible for the posters? IP addresses in order to identify them...
Last Free Culture lecture, first thought about what to do about political corruptionLessig Blog
Posted on January 28, 2008So this Thursday, January 31, at 1:00pm, at Memorial Auditorium on the Stanford Campus (directions) (map), I will be giving my last lecture about "Free Culture." The event is a bit staged (literally), as it is being sponsored by an entity making a film about these issues, and they want the lecture to use in the film...
Yes, You Should -- If At All Possible -- Seek Legal Advice When Served With a Cease and Desist LetterThe IP ADR Blog
Posted on January 28, 2008Last week we reported on rumors that Rapidshare had, or was about to be, shut down, rumors that now look likely to resurface. The company, one of the world?s largest ?one-click? file hosting services, has lost a copyright infringement case against German performing rights outfit, GEMA...
Denton on Copyright and Right vs. LeftMichael Geist Blog
Posted on January 28, 2008Last week we reported on rumors that Rapidshare had, or was about to be, shut down, rumors that now look likely to resurface. The company, one of the world?s largest ?one-click? file hosting services, has lost a copyright infringement case against German performing rights outfit, GEMA...
"Gag order lifted in part" against law blogHow Appealing
Posted on January 28, 2008Last week we reported on rumors that Rapidshare had, or was about to be, shut down, rumors that now look likely to resurface. The company, one of the world?s largest ?one-click? file hosting services, has lost a copyright infringement case against German performing rights outfit, GEMA...
Latest Test for DMCA Safe Harbors: Warner Sues SeeqPodThe Electronic Frontier Foundation | Blog Posts
Posted on January 24, 2008Last week we reported on rumors that Rapidshare had, or was about to be, shut down, rumors that now look likely to resurface. The company, one of the world?s largest ?one-click? file hosting services, has lost a copyright infringement case against German performing rights outfit, GEMA...
Alchemist Author Pirates His Own BooksTorrentFreak
Posted on January 24, 2008Coelho?s view is that letting people swap digital copies of his books for free increases sales. In a keynote speech (embedded below) at the Digital, Life, Design conference in Munich he talked about how uploading the Russian translation of ?The Alchemist? made his sales in Russia go from around 1,000 per year to 100,000, then a million and more...
Blawg Review #79Public Law No: 110-403
Posted on October 15, 2006Welcome to Blawg Review Live - a living breathing experiment in tagging the live web and sorting it into little categories for all of the Blawg Review Readers. The archived version is available at the permalink, but this page will continue to update itself...
Republish your feeds as HTMLPublic Law No: 110-403
Posted on June 08, 2006The reason why I think this is such a useful tool is because it makes syndicating and republishing feeds simple for even the newest blogger. Feedburner's BuzzBoost service allows you to republish your burned feed's content as go-anywhere HTML. I have used Buzz Boost, in combination with my del...
Blawg Review #58Public Law No: 110-403
Posted on May 21, 2006Please check out Tech Law Advisor's Blawg Review #58.
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The company I worked for forced me to quit instead of dealing with someone harassing me, what can I do?
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Do I have a case against my former employer?
Yes you have a case against them. Walmart just lost a case for several million d...
My job requires me to drive bank deposits up to two times a day using my own vehicle and gas. Although not too far, can should I be receiving compensation? One deposit run is required daily by company policy, but the man
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