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California dreamin' or California hoaxed?

By Lawrence B. Ebert, Esq.

Publicity for the book The Law Market by Erin O'Hara and Larry E. Ribstein begins:

Today, a California resident can incorporate her shipping business in Delaware, register her ships in Panama, hire her employees from Hong Kong, place her earnings in an asset-protection trust formed in the Cayman Islands, and enter into a same-sex marriage in Massachusetts or Canada--all the while enjoying the California sunshine and potentially avoiding many facets of the state's laws.

which emphasizes "how" a Californian can enjoy benefits from other jurisdictions.

A joke making the rounds begins:

Do you know what happened 158 years ago this past fall... back in 1850?

California became a state.
The people had no electricity.
The state had no money.
Almost everyone spoke Spanish.
There were gunfights in the streets.

Of course, now California has CIRM, whose burdens are imposed on California taxpayers. As voted on by Californians, CIRM had a limit on the number of employees and a seeming limit on "how" research would be funded. Well, by itself, CIRM is trying to create a loan program which will be staffed through outsourcing (ie, non-employees). So, while the above-noted sun-soaked Californian is enjoying all the non-California benefits, that Californian is being soaked with CIRM strain.

**from californiastemcellreport:

The stem cell agency states that its staff

"...does not have the internal expertise or capacity to manage all of the financial components of a loan program. CIRM therefore plans to externalize these tasks while maintaining ultimate control over the loan program. To ensure that CIRM obtains this expertise at the best value to California taxpayers, CIRM plans to issue a request for proposals to select two to three financial services providers/delegated underwriters. Because this is a start-up program, it is important to have at least two delegated underwriters at the outset. This would permit CIRM to learn from their different approaches and to refine our best practices. Furthermore, it would permit CIRM to transfer future transactions to another delegated underwriter if the relationship with one of the contractors is unsuccessful."

So, when Proposition 71 promoters told voters that the number of CIRM employees would be limited, they forgot to mention the part about externalizing tasks. Of course, the promoters also used the study of Baker at Stanford to suggest that IP royalties would be a benefit to California, another hoax.

****Separately, we have something that looks like peer-to-patent-->

John M. Simpson, stem cell project director of Consumer Watchdog of Santa Monica, Ca., reported on the action by CIRM directors on Tuesday. But he suggests an alternative that could serve CIRM's desire to reduce the number of applications on some grant rounds. Just open up the grant application process so that the public would know who is applying and hear the pros and cons on the applications. [from the calstemcellreport]

Simpson, back when Watchdog was FTCR, spearheaded the patent challenge to WARF's stem cell patents that was smoked at the USPTO. The references brought up by FTCR and PubPat were found not to be enabled, and the declarations of their experts conclusionary. Smoke and mirrors.

Full post as published by IPBiz on January 08, 2009 (boomark / email).