- “Woman Sues Adidas After Fall She Blames on Sticky Shoes” [Lowering the Bar]
- Texas lawmakers file loser pays proposals [SE Tex Record] Actual scope of proposals hard to discern through funhouse lens of NYT reporting [PoL] Marie Gryphon testimony on loser-pays proposals in Arkansas [Manhattan Institute, related]
- Google awarded patent on changing of logo for special days [Engadget via Coyote]
- “Civil Gideon in Deadbeat Dad Cases Would Be ‘Massive’ Change, Lawyer Tells Justices” [Weiss, ABA Journal, Legal Ethics Forum]
- Amateur-hour crash-fakers in Bronx didn’t reckon on store surveillance camera [NY Post]
- “Plaintiffs’ Lawyers in Cobell Defend $223M Fee Request” [BLT]
- Show of harm not needed: FDA kicks another 500 or so legacy drugs off market, this time in the cold-and-cough area [WaPo]
- “Wal-Mart v. Dukes: Rough Justice Without Due Process” [Andrew Trask, WLF]
Posts Tagged ‘patent quality’
January 18 roundup
- What, no more monkeys or snakes? Starting March 15 new federal regulation will restrict definition of “service animals” to dogs alone [Central Kitsap Reporter, earlier, more]
- “Appeals court: SD prosecutor’s conduct denied man a fair trial” [San Diego Union-Tribune]
- A tale of local regulation: “A septic system at the crossroads” [Roland Toy, American Thinker]
- Firm sues Fark, Reddit, Yahoo, etc. etc. over 2002 patent on “structured news release generation and distribution,” draws rude reply from defendant TechCrunch;
- UK schools minister: “no touching pupils” policy keeps music teachers from doing their job [Telegraph]
- Legal ethicist Stephen Gillers hired at $950/hour to approve ethics of Ken Feinberg’s BP compensation fund work [two views: Andrew Perlman and Monroe Freedman; earlier, Byron Stier]. Per Ted at PoL, trial lawyers criticizing the arrangement “complain that BP is using the same tactic plaintiffs’ lawyers regularly use to prove their own ethics.”
- Is WordPress’s quirky “Hello Dolly” plugin a copyright infringement? [TechDirt]
- Congrats, you’re eligible for a job with the D.C. public school system [ten years ago on Overlawyered; more on criminal records and hiring, subject of a current EEOC crusade]
“Double-clicking patent takes on world”
Honestly, it was only a finger twitch, I wasn’t meaning to infringe: “Hopewell Culture & Design reckons it owns the act of double-clicking, and is suing Apple, Nokia, Samsung and just about everyone else for breaching its patent.” [The Register]
India: Colgate patented traditional remedy, opponents claim
“Indian activists claim that the patent [awarded to Colgate for a tooth powder] is bogus because the ingredients — including clove oil, camphor, black pepper and spearmint — have been used for the same purpose for hundreds, ‘if not thousands,’ of years on the subcontinent.” [Fox Orlando]
“I Think I Just Got Patented”
“When I look closely at these claims, I am appalled to discover this patent claims, as a novel invention, things that I’ve done regularly, with a mix of my brain and a computer, since at least 1999.” [Bradley M. Kuhn via Pete Warden]
December 21 roundup
- “CBO Stands By Its Report: Tort Reform Would Save Billions” [ShopFloor; our weekend post on what actually wound up in Reid bill]
- “Indianapolis Tacks on Steep Fines for Challenging Traffic Tickets” [Balko]
- “Fugitive Located Inside Homeland Security Dept. Office” [Lowering the Bar]
- Assumption of risk? New York courts field legal complaints over mosh dance injuries [Hochfelder]
- Company claiming patent on Ajax web technique is suing lots of defendants [W3C, ImVivo via @petewarden]
- Why Arizona voters still back Sheriff Joe [Conor Friedersdorf/Daily Dish, von Spakovsky/NRO (deploring “persecution” of Arpaio), Greenfield]
- “Are Breast Implants and Donated Organs Marital Assets?” [Carton, Legal Blog Watch]
- “Disbarment Looms for First Attorney Convicted Under N.J. Anti-Runner Law” [NJLJ]
June 25 roundup
- UK libel law still casting a chill on free speech around the world [Floyd Abrams, Index on Censorship via Ken at Popehat, Kirk Hartley]
- Much talked about Ramesh Ponnuru op-ed on Constitution and government consideration of race [NYT]
- “EFF Busts Bogus Internet Subdomain Patent” [Electronic Frontier Foundation]
- Why you can’t get low-cost health insurance, part LXVII: legal pressure on insurers to cover behavioral autism treatment [NLJ, Detroit Free Press]
- New Jersey disbars reparations lawyer Ed Fagan, New York having already done so [Black Star News, JTA, Newark Star-Ledger, NJLJ]
- Author Wendell Berry: force NAIS animal-tagging on every small farmer, and you’ll have to call the cops on me [Food Renegade; more on NAIS and small producers, Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund; earlier here, etc.]
- Indiana enacts what Gov. Mitch Daniels calls nation’s strongest law protecting teachers from lawsuits [WANE, WTHR]
- Town of Kenner, La. says it’s learned its lesson from being sued and will ticket drunken bicyclists even if they’re badly hurt in accidents [nine years ago on Overlawyered]
June 23 roundup
- In case you were waiting for it: update on “toxic-bra” litigation [OnPoint News, Kashmir Hill, Above the Law (noting that rashes can have many different causes); earlier]
- Parts 5 & 6 of White Coat’s malpractice-suit saga [opposition’s expert witness; emotional support]
- “Global Insurance Fraud by North Korea Outlined” [Washington Post]
- British cops aren’t saying which famous buildings you can be stopped/searched for photographing [BoingBoing]
- FBI said to probe whether construction-defect lawyers have improper ties to Nevada homeowner associations that give them business [Carter Wood at Point of Law]
- With junk science in even criminal prosecutions, is there hope of keeping it out of civil cases? [Coyote]
- “Remember when you could fight with a sibling and not face arrest?” [Obscure Store, 10-year-old Texas girl]
- Australian man obtains patent on “circular transportation facilitation device”, otherwise known as “the wheel”, to make point about ease of obtaining weak patents [eight years ago on Overlawyered]
Will your lunch violate intellectual property laws?
In Patent Application No. WO/2006/068863 (h/t The Browser), McDonald’s claims:
A method of making a sandwich composed of at least a bread component and sandwich garnish comprising: placing sandwich garnish material on a sandwich assembly tool, the sandwich assembly tool comprising a region for holding sandwich garnish material to be applied to a bread component of a sandwich, the member comprising at least one cavity; placing the bread component over and adjacent the cavity; and thereafter inverting the sandwich assembly tool and the bread component while the bread is adjacent and covering the cavity to cause the sandwich garnish to be deposited from the cavity to the bread component.
“Lawyer Sues To Get a Patent On Marketing”
Lawyer Scott Harris is appealing the Patent Office’s rejection of US Patent Application No. 09/387,823, in which he had hoped to obtain a patent on the concept of a “marketing company devoted to selling/marketing products produced by other companies in return for a share of their profits”. [Slashdot]