Legal Commentary

Airport Full Body X-Ray Scanner Technology Makes Normal Worries About Privacy Invasion Seem Rather Banal and Mocks the Puritan Ethic

Posted on August 26, 2010
You worry about Google Street View as an invasion of privacy?  Image by Getty Images via @daylife Remember all those comic book superheroes who had X-ray vision and could see through things? Well, that technology is as good as here as you can read at Techdirt in Airport Scanner Technology Mounted On US Gov't Vans To Scan What's In Nearby Vehicles ...

EU Patent System Faces Legal Setback at the European Court of Justice Advocates General

Posted on August 26, 2010
We posted about this before, but the expanded informative value of this article is good and worth reading, since it gives a bit of the history of the entire matter.Through Jennifer Baker of the IDG News Service\Brussels Bureau the New York Times has picked up on the story that Creation of Common EU Patent System Faces Legal Setback, writing:"The court's Advocate General believes that a centralized patent is 'incompatible with the treaties' that created the E...

Joint Patent Office Venture of Federal Service for Intellectual Property, Patents and Trademarks of the Russian Federation and the USA's USPTO

Posted on August 26, 2010
An interesting joint patent venture between the patent offices of the USA (USPTO) and Russia (Federal Service for Intellectual Property, Patents and Trademarks of the Russian Federation, "Rospatent") begins on September 1, 2010. As Jenna Greene reports at The BLT (The Blog of LegalTimes) in U...

Copyright Trolling is a New Intellectual Property Business as Company Sues Multiple Websites and Blogs for Posting Copyrighted Materials from a Newspaper

Posted on August 26, 2010
David Kravets of Wired.com at Threat Level writes in Newspaper Chain?s New Business Plan that a Las-Vegas based company named Righthaven has purchased copyrights to newspaper content solely for the purpose of bringing lawsuits against websites and blogs who repost copyrighted materials...

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No Copyright Law: Was That The Real Reason for Germany's Industrial Expansion? Frank Thadeusz Reports at Spiegel Online International

Posted on August 26, 2010
Frank Thadeusz has a provoking article at Spiegel Online International on No Copyright Law: The Real Reason for Germany's Industrial Expansion?Also interesting in the article is the comparison of the German copyright situation with the exclusive publishing monopolies that existed at the same time in England, where books were published primarily only for the wealthy and were so expensive that only a small percentage of the population could avail of them...

EU Advocates General of the European Court of Justice Find Proposed European Patent Court System Incompatible with EU Treaties

Posted on August 26, 2010
This is a bit late but the original opinion was in French and only released in English translation a few days ago. The Council of the European Union requested an opinion from the Advocates General of the European Court of Justice (ECJ, CURIA) on the Compatibility of the Proposed European Patent Court System with EU Treaties...

Proposed German Law Would Limit Employer Use of Social Media Information about Prospective Employees

Posted on August 26, 2010
Image via WikipediaDavid Lolly at the New York Times reports in German Law Would Limit Facebook?s Use in Hiring on a proposed German law which would limit the use of information on social media websites by employers when recruiting and hiring The idea that companies could not use publicly available information about a prospective employee seems to this observer to be absurd, largely unenforceable and removed from reality...

Law and the Politics of Sexuality: Did Someone Say Nudity? The Puritan Ethic in America Caught Between the Realities of Modern Life and Technological Advance

Posted on August 26, 2010
The law and politics of sexuality in the USA is something that is hard for outsiders to understand. Many Europeans often shake their heads in puzzlement at what many regard to be immature attitudes in America toward sexuality, accompanied by double standards exercised with regard to things that are regarded in Europe to be a part of normal life...

Groupon: Buy at Discount in Groups: The Fastest Growing Company Ever?

Posted on August 26, 2010
President Barack Obama has moved a bit of the focus of America to Chicago and the American Midwest, so it is fitting that the new startup company Groupon is headquartered in a former Montgomery Ward warehouse in the River North neighborhood of the Windy City...

FDA Draft Guidelines on Calorie Labeling for Chain Restaurants and Vending Machines Released for Comment

Posted on August 25, 2010
The USA has gone to counting calories to deal with the national obesity problem. The FDA has released draft Calorie Guidelines requiring calorie labeling of foods for chain restaurants and vending machine operators pursuant to healthcare legislation previously enacted...

Will the Congressionally Abetted Plundering of America Continue? Paul Krugman Rightly Observes "Now That's Rich"

Posted on August 24, 2010
Paul Krugman in Now That?s Rich at the New York Times rightly roasts Congress for even considering an extension of the disastrous Bush tax cuts past 2010. As Krugman rightly observes, the same politicians who are pinching pennies for the mass of Americans: "[A]re eager to cut checks averaging $3 million each to the richest 120,000 people in the country...

Legal Education: It's Real Value According to a Law School Dean

Posted on August 24, 2010
John Farmer Jr., Dean of the Rutgers School of Law-Newark, has a take as a guest columnist at the NJ Star-Ledger on The real value of a legal education.

Anonymous Online Commenters and Critics Who Are Careless About Facts Are Increasingly Risking Lawsuits and Can Easily Be Tracked Down Once Sued

Posted on August 24, 2010
"A false sense of Internet security can mean legal quagmires for critics who are careless about facts" is the subtitle of Blogger beware: Postings can lead to lawsuits, an August 23, 2010 article in the Los Angeles Times by David G. Savage of the Tribune Washington Bureau...

Private Texting by Employees on the Job: What are Your Rights? In City of Ontario v. Quon U.S. Supreme Court sets Reasonableness Standard

Posted on August 24, 2010
The dangers of private texting and use of social media for private purposes by employees at work are discussed at Lexology by Alia S. Wynne of Fisher & Phillips LLP in her article Texting on the job can be costly, which first appeared in the August 2, 2010 edition of the Houston Chronicle and which refers to a reasonableness standard followed recently by the U...

Privacy Invasion Discussion about Google Street View in Germany and the EU Ignores the Fact that the Government Already Spies on Citizens from the Air

Posted on August 24, 2010
The Google Street View privacy invasion discussion in Germany and the European Union is in some cases being conducted in a vacuum of facts. We think that most commentators would be more moderate in their opinions about Google Street View in the EU if they knew what photographic and GSP material was ALREADY available about every location, prior to Google...

Where y'at`? Students and the Provisions of the Credit Card Act, with a Small Reference to 10,001 Chalmations and Yatspeak thanks to Ylan Q. Mui

Posted on August 23, 2010
Yatspeak? Where Y'at? Awrite! except in N'Awlins which rhymes with Kaulins. How does the Credit Card Act apply to students? See Michelle Singletary at the Washington Post and The Color of Money: Basic lessons on credit cards for students in light of the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009...

Intellectual Property in Fashion? Counterfeit Sneakers and the Knockoff Shoe Industry

Posted on August 23, 2010
At the New York Times, Nicholas Schmidle has a thought-provoking article Inside the Knockoff-Tennis-Shoe Factory in Putian, China. Given that we have written about Sneakerheads before at LawPundit in Limited-Edition Design Sneakers are the Status Symbols of Choice : CNN : Sneakerheads pay big bucks for rare kicks : Shoes and More, here is our take on Schmidle's article: Sam Solomon (name changed for the sake of privacy), who had been in the shoe business all of his life and who was a well-known sneakerhead, looked at my new Nike Frees and said, "Your sneakers are not real, they're fake"...

Has the Bursting of the Real Estate Bubble Taken Homes and Housing Out of the Wealth Equation? Zillow.com and Globrix.com Show Some Astoundingly High Prices Yet

Posted on August 23, 2010
We greatly enjoy looking at homes and housing and world real estate prices at superb property sites such as Zillow.com in the USA or Globrix.com in the UK. Anyone who scans housing prices in the USA or the UK from coast to coast at those sites should quickly realize -- even after the housing bubble burst, that in some locations many home and housing prices are still totally out of whack when compared with what people actually earn and when compared with the price of a home 20 years ago...

Latvian Tenor Israel Feigelson Sings Verdi's La Traviata with Riga Opera Soprano Elfrida Pakule (1956)

Posted on August 23, 2010
This is the LawPundit's personal family connection to opera. YouTube - TENOR ISRAEL FEIGELSON SINGS VERDI (the video was uploaded to YouTube by fenterp to whom we are thankful) Latvian tenor Israel Feigelson (1921-1991) in live excerpts from Verdi's "La Traviata" with Elfrida Pakule (6 February 1912 -- 31 December 1991), in 1956 singer and soloist of the Latvian Opera in Riga (coloratura soprano), plus a recital performance of the Count's Song from "Rigoletto" in 1977...

Ex-Model Sues YouTube to Reveal Identities of Anonymous Posters

Posted on August 22, 2010
At the AOL News Surge Desk, Carl Franzen reports that Ex-Model Sues YouTube: The Beginning of the End of Anonymous Comments? LawPundit previously posted about this very serious modern problem at: Pogue Interviews Palfrey at NY Times: Internet Cyberbullies and Anonymity: The Megan Meier Cyberbullying Act Anonymous Heinous Postings Directed at Two Female Yale Law School Students Lead to Revelation of Poster Identities : Free Speech Law in Need of Change The proper legal standard to be applied here in our opinion is simple: anonymous posters can not be accorded "privacy" rights that result in the denial of "privacy" rights to victims...

Final Stage of New U.S. Credit Card Rules under the Credit Card Act now goes into effect August 22, 2010: What You Need to Know

Posted on August 22, 2010
At the New York Times, Jennifer Saranow Schultz reported earlier this year on What the Credit Card Act Means for You. Candice Choi of the Associated Press at MSNBC.com now reports that: "The final stage of consumer protections signed into law earlier this year go into effect Aug...

Judge Rules that Genetically Altered Biotechnology Sugar Beets Not Kosher Until Thorough Environmental Review by the Government

Posted on August 22, 2010
Michael Liedtke, AP Business Writer, in his August 15, 2010 article Judge's Ruling Uproots Use of Biotechnology Beets reported that Federal U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey S. White of the Northern District of California has invalidated government approval of genetically modified biotech sugar beets and has barred all future planting pending a full environmental impact review by the government (see the order in Case3:08-cv-00484-JSW Document570 Filed 08/13/10, in Center for Food Safety v...

Federal Circuit Judge Dyk in Intervet v. Merial Dissent Questions Whether Isolated DNA is Patentable Subject Matter: Relevant to Myriad Case Appeal

Posted on August 22, 2010
At the Genomics Law Report from Robinson Bradshaw & Hinson in Swine Still Soaring: Federal Circuit Judge Expresses Sympathy for Myriad Analysis, John Conley and Allison Williams Dobson report that Federal Circuit Judge Timothy B. Dyk in his Intervet v...

Is Copying Actually GOOD? Copycats vs. Copyrights - Protection from Knockoffs for the Fashion Industry in the U.S.A.

Posted on August 22, 2010
Ezra Klein at Newsweek in Copycats vs. Copyrights: Does it make sense to legally protect the fashion industry from knockoffs? asks:"What if copying, despite what your teacher always told you, is ... good?...'Intellectual property is legalized monopoly,' says James Boyle, a professor at Duke Law School...

Germany's 2nd Quarter 2010 Economic Growth Largest on Record

Posted on August 21, 2010
German Missions in the United States - Second Quarter Growth"Germany?s economy in the second quarter grew by the largest margin ever recorded in reunified Germany...."

Speaking of Mouse Trap Economics, What About that Yarn that Patents Stimulate Invention: Les Earnest Testifies Before the USPTO

Posted on August 21, 2010
This posting is a continuation of a previous LawPundit posting on Mouse Trap Economics. About those "Stimulating Patents" LES EARNEST testified before the USPTO more than 15 years ago (January 7, 1994) MR. EARNEST: Les Earnest, speaking for myself...

Mouse Trap Economics: Give us a Billion Dollars Says the Judge on Behalf of the USPTO : Did Bilski Kill Sensible Patent Reform?

Posted on August 20, 2010
Beware of the consequences of Bilski. Has Bilski killed patent reform? Rick Merritt at The EE Times in Support for patent office rises as reform bill wanes reports on a story which has for all practical purposes been going on for 55 years now, namely the lack of any type of patent reform by U...

U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) Review of State Court Decisions, by Jason Mazzone at Balkinization

Posted on August 19, 2010
Jason Mazzone posts at Balkinization on The Roberts Court and the State Courts.

Education? Stripper Says Degree from the Goldman Sachs part-owned Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale Not Worth It

Posted on August 18, 2010
So-called for-profit schools are currently under fire and in this vein Bloomberg has this video about a student who earned a degree at the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, part-owned by the Goldman Sachs Group Inc., could not find a job thereafter and is now working as a stripper at a topless club...

New U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) Justice Elena Kagan Hires Her Law Clerks and Goes With Experience: Is This a Clue to Her Future Judging?

Posted on August 17, 2010
Tony Mauro at The National Law Journal via Law.com reports that new U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) Justice Elena Kagan -- by her second workday in office -- had already hired four experienced law clerks. See Kagan Hires Her Law Clerks. U.S. Supreme Court clerks are very important...

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