Jonathan Adler points out that this is an issue that will be fought over, both in the courts and in the legislature, for some time[^fn1].
[^fn1]: Unless, of course, it gets repealed.
Category: Law
I ended up buying a lot of ebooks because of these price increases. It looks like I might have had that extra cost refunded if I actually had bought them.
I am impressed that Carolina decided to join in with this. I think exposing law students to practice management software like this while they are in law school is a positive development.
Just a FYI for now, since I have only started to look into this. It will be interesting to see how things are reported concerning this, and how those reports differ from what any filings actually say.
Dennis Crouch, writing on *Pantently-O*, points out one of the questions the court intends to address in an upcoming *en banc* review:
> What test should the court adopt to determine whether a computer-implemented invention is a patent ineligible “abstract idea”; and when, if ever, does the presence of a computer in a claim lend patent eligibility to an otherwise patent-ineligible idea?
The case is *CLS Bank Int’l. v. Alice Corp.* if you want to follow along at home.
[Cowboys.com](http://cowboys.com) has launched as a gay dating site. You think Jerry Jones wishes he had just paid the $275,000 originally?
Celebrate Constitution Day by reading something in the definitive guide to America’s most document.
Categories
I Worry About the Same Thing
Dave Caolo:
> Every day, I scan hundreds of RSS feeds, articles, tweets, emails and blog posts. Literally hundreds. It’s a skill I’m proud to have refined, but at the same time, I’m worried that I’m losing the patience to slow down and read a long article from start to finish
I have the same fear. I have started to try and take 20-30 minutes a day to take a break from flood of information and actually read something longer than 50 words. It is much harder than I imagined it would be.
Categories
Why Lawyers So Smart
> Intensive study for the Law School Admission Test reinforces circuits in the brain and can bridge the gap between the right and left hemispheres, according to neuroscientists at the University of California, Berkeley, in findings reported last week in the online journal Frontiers in Neuroanatomy.
> Those changes can improve reasoning ability and may increase a person’s IQ score, the researchers said.
File this post under “self-serving.”
Some bad advice from the *Legal Productivity* blog:
> *2) Close Your Apps.*
> Apps will stay open unless you explicitly close them, even if you restart your phone. That means they’re running in the background, consuming computing resources even though you’re not aware they’re running. And “consuming computing resources” is engineering-speak for “using the battery”.
> To close unused apps, tap the home button twice, which will bring up a row of open apps across the bottom of your screen. Locate the app or apps you wish to close, then press on one of them for a couple of seconds until it starts to wiggle and shows a red ‘X’ in the upper-right hand corner. Hit the ‘X’ and the app is closed.
I still have no idea where this “advice” comes from. Even my father mentioned it to me the other day. As an effort to combat disinformation, I refer you to [John Gruber](http://daringfireball.net/2012/01/ios_multitasking):
> Bottom line: the iOS multitasking bar is not like the command tab switcher on Mac or Windows. It is not a list of currently “running” applications. It is simply a list of your most recently used applications, whether they’re running in the background, suspended in memory, or completely inactive. Notice, for example, that if you turn an iOS device off and on, completely restarting the device, the multitasking tray still shows the same apps. It’s like your browser history.
and, for the most succinct response, [Fraser Speirs](http://speirs.org/blog/2012/1/2/misconceptions-about-ios-multitasking.html):
> Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. There are caveats to this but anyone dispensing the advice above is clearly uninformed enough that they will certainly not be aware of these subtleties.
Got it? You **do not** have to manually close your apps in iOS. Unfortunately, it seems like this “advice” simply will not die.
I wish they supported North Carolina.
(via [Lawyerist](http://lawyerist.com/get-federal-rules-for-ipad-free-today/))
As someone who is always striving to improve my writing, I still find these tips helpful.
The intersection of the law and photography: Can a wedding photographer refuse to photograph a wedding of a gay couple or is that a violation of New Mexico’s statutory ban on sexual orientation discrimination?
Categories
Florian Mueller a paid Consultant for Oracle
Nilay Patel on [The Verge](http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/17/3250148/oracle-tells-court-patent-blogger-florian-mueller-is-a-consultant):
> [Florian Mueller] regularly quoted in a huge variety of outlets, including Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times, as a “patent expert” or “patent consultant,” but almost never as “paid Oracle consultant” or “paid Microsoft consultant.” That’s simply misleading, and presumably the sort of under-the-table influence Judge Alsup intended to flush out with his order. We’ll see how the media — and Mueller — react.
Mr. Mueller is frequently held out as the *the* expert on patents in the tech space. That has always been strange to me since, though patent law is not really my practice, I have heard some in the area talk about him “less than positively”[^nice].
[^nice]: That is about the nicest way I can say it.
An example[^fn1] of where technology will force a careful reexamination of current legal precedent with respect to privacy and “searches”[^fn2].
[^fn1]: Another such area if [unmanned drones](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/04/look-to-the-skies-is-it-time-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-drone/)
[^fn2]: I use the term to mean all types of legal searches from what is commonly thought of as a “search” to various “stop and frisk” type proceedings and everything else related to the concept. I will not try to explain each one and its intricacies since that area of the law is far outside my comfort zone. I suggest anything Orin Kerr writes over at [Volokh Conspiracy](http://www.volokh.com) if you want to read more about the intersection of technology and legal “searches”.
From the [EFF](http://eff.org):
> Nevertheless, it was important for craigslist to remove the provision because claiming an exclusive license to the user’s posts–to the exclusion of everyone, including the original poster–would have harmed both innovation and users’ rights, and would have set a terrible precedent. We met with craigslist to discuss this recently and are pleased about their prompt action.
Kudos all around for getting this changed so quickly. Now to figure out what to do about [Craiglist’s aggressive moves to prevent aggregation of their listings](http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2012/08/craigslists_lat.htm)[^act].
[^act]: I have not decided where I come down on this issue. I understand that Craigslist may be concerned about losing its dominant position in the add space. I think, however, they could evolve into the entry point that everyone goes to in order to enter ads that show up on other sites. An example business model for this would be charging access to an API that gets the ads for a specific category. An end user who is selling both her old car and her old computer could go to Craigslist to place both ads, but potential buyers for each product might see the products on specific car or computer marketplace sites that pay Craigslist for API access.
TV Streaming Service [Aereo](https://aereo.com/plans) has updated its pricing structure. If I understand correctly, Aereo takes over-the-air feeds of various networks and broadcast them over the Internet. I’m fascinated by the copyright issues involved in this case[^note].
[^note]: *Note to self – I should write what those issues are.*
First, I approve of using the SHIELD acronym. Second, I have not read the actual legislation yet, so I cannot give detailed comments. That being said, it sounds interesting:
> The idea behind the SHIELD Act is simple: if you sue someone, you better have a reasonable and good-faith belief that you are entitled to relief. In other words, a plaintiff needs to believe that a defendant actually infringes a valid patent before it sues. If it doesn’t, that plaintiff could be on the hook for the costs of litigation and for the winning party’s attorneys’ fees (which can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in some cases).
And, probably most importantly:
> This bill is also important because it would only apply to software and computer hardware patents.
I am going to have to dig deeper into this one.
Categories
Craigslist wants the Copyright for your Ads
Since they cannot claim copyright to the facts in the ads, they’re trying to claim copyright to the ads as a whole. Neither post[^ff] seems to go into a real analysis of what creativity actually goes into to the ad or whether Craigslist might have an issue with a de minimis argument.[^note]
[^ff]: *See also,* [Ars Technica](http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/index/~3/sVLkQfJDbSU/)
[^note]: *Note to self: I should write that post.*
Categories
Bankruptcy and the Dark Knight
> There are, of course, some problems with this. One of the characters makes a passing suggestion that there might be something that could be done because the transactions were obviously fraudulent, but that it would take too much time. Why is never explained. Indeed, why trading did not instantly cease the second it became apparent that someone was actually storming the trading floor was never explained. The fact that someone had access to the trading desk explains how the put options could have been created in the first place, but it doesn’t explain why anyone thought for one second that they were real. An actual attack on the trading floor might well close the market for a day or two while damage is repaired and additional security installed.
I think I’ve been asked to explain the law around this about 3 or 4 times. I’m glad I can now just point people to this [Law and the Multiverse](http://lawandthemultiverse.com) article.