- “Japanese landlords sue families of suicide victims” [Telegraph via Tyler Cowen]
- Best candidate you’ve never heard of: lawprof Jim Huffman runs for a U.S. Senate seat in Oregon [Weekly Standard]
- “Freedom of culinary expression: Chefs speak out on behalf of salt” [“My Food, My Choice” via Ponnuru, NRO]
- “In-House Counsel Expect More Regulatory Litigation, Survey Finds” [NLJ]
- “Oladiran’s ‘Motion of the Year’ Earns Him Sanctions” [AtL]
- Resisting a music-delivery-system claim: “Patent Trolls and Public Goods” [Julian Sanchez]
- More transparency for New Jersey lawyer/lawmakers? [Philly.com]
- “Ninth Circuit: marine mammals don’t have standing…yet” [six years ago on Overlawyered]
Posts Tagged ‘patent trolls’
“Rollover image on your website? That will be $80,000 (please)”
Using a patent acquired from the much–criticized Intellectual Ventures, a company called Webvention claims to control broad rights over many common website features such as mouse rollover previews. It has begun suing many well-known companies (in East Texas, naturally) for alleged infringement; its licensing come-on letter to one target warned that if the $80,000 fee was not forthcoming the sum would rise after 60 days to $160,000 and after 90 days to $300,000. [Ars Technica; Joe Mullin, Patent Litigation Weekly] More: Coyote (“I am just waiting for the patent on breathing or metabolizing food.”)
October 12 roundup
- Representing Prof. Michael Krauss, Ted Frank will file objection to Classmates.com class action settlement [CCAF]
- Not without condescension, Harvard historian/New Yorker writer Jill Lepore asks why Woodrow Wilson’s so disliked these days; Radley Balko offers some help [The Agitator, NYT “Room for Debate”]
- China needs true private property rights, according to Charter 08 document, which helped Liu Xiaobo win Nobel Peace Prize [Tyler Cowen]
- Axelrod “foreign funders under every rug” demagogy might be turned against his own allies [Stoll; New York Times refutes earlier Obama talking point; Atlantic Wire; Sullum]
- R.I.P. influential class actions and mass torts scholar Richard Nagareda [Vanderbilt Law School]
- “Web Seminar Makes Case for Patent Troll Lawsuit Targets to Fight Back” [Washington Legal Foundation Legal Pulse]
- Contrary to WSJ report, if Congressional staffers are profiting in stock trades by way of insider knowledge, they probably do face some risk of legal liability [Bainbridge; a not entirely unrelated inside-trading controversy]
- Underpublicized: “California’s Proposed ‘Green Chemistry’ Regulations Move Forward” [Wajert]
August 6 roundup
- “Vision Media Suit Over Criticism on 800Notes Dismissed” [Paul Alan Levy, Consumer Law & Policy, more; earlier here and here]
- “In Search Of a Definition for the term ‘Patent Troll'” [Gene Quinn, IP Watchdog]
- U.K.: “The end of ‘have-a-go’ litigation?” [Guardian, Telegraph]
- “Lessons in Blogging”: it won’t kill you to link to opposing views [Turkewitz]
- Briefing and fairness hearing in Volkswagen sunroof leak settlement [CCAF]
- Troublesome treaty signed by US on ADA anniversary: “Ratification of the Disabilities Convention Would Erode American Sovereignty” [Steven Groves, Heritage]
- Abolish summary judgment? Now hold on a minute [Ronald Miller]
- A strong liability-reform advocate on a Democratic national ticket? It happened when Gore slated Sen. Lieberman as VP pick [ten years ago on Overlawyered]
Slowing down the copyright trolls
How to respond to the emergence of assembly-line copyright-suit filers without undermining the right of content owners to stop unauthorized reprints that go beyond fair use? Max Kennerly raises the possibility of steering rights owners into agency complaints or arbitration as an alternative, or at least precondition, to court action. That might slow down the business model of groups like RightHaven, which has demanded in terrorem sums from mom-and-pop bloggers and other infringers and even asked courts to order seizure of the domains of otherwise legitimate target websites.
“Billion-Dollar Lawyer Desmarais Quits Firm to Troll for Patents”
Trend: patent lawyers emerge as their own parties in interest. [Bloomberg/BW via PoL] Earlier here and here.
February 12 roundup
- Patent trolls are thriving, one study finds [271 Patent Blog, The Prior Art, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, PDF]
- One plaintiff’s lawyer’s view: Did Rep. John Murtha Die From Medical Malpractice? [Turkewitz]
- “Rubber stamps for two [class action] settlements” [Ted Frank, Center for Class Action Fairness, AOL and Yahoo cases]
- Little League and baseball bats: “America’s favorite pastime collides with favorite pastime of personal injury lawyers” [Bob Dorigo Jones]
- States push home day-care providers into unions [Stossel]
- U.K.: “Cardiologist will fight libel case ‘to defend free speech’” [Times Online] More on British libel tourism: Frances Gibb, Times Online (“It’s official – London is the libel capital of the world” ), Citizen Media Law, Gordon Crovitz/WSJ, N.Y. Times.
- From a half-year back, but missed then: FBI says Miami lawyer bought stolen hospital records for purposes of soliciting patients [HIPAA Blog, Ambrogi/Legal Blog Watch]
- Would-be Green Police can be found in Cambridge, Mass., not just Super Bowl ads [Peter Wilson, American Thinker via Graham]
Venture capitalists vs. trolls
“Almost a third of our portfolio is under attack by patent trolls. Is it possible that one third of the engineering teams in our portfolio unethically misappropriated technology from someone else and then made that the basis of their web services? No! That’s not what is happening. … Our companies are being attacked by companies that were not even in the same market, very often by companies they did not even know existed.” [Brad Burnham, Union Square Ventures via Pete Warden]
December 7 roundup
- Woman jailed for “camcordering” after recording four minutes of sister’s birthday party in movie theater [BoingBoing]
- Senate hearing airs trial lawyer gripes against Iqbal [Jackson and earlier, PoL, Wajert, Beck & Herrmann (scroll)] Franken and other Senators sidestep substance, browbeat witness re: “study” terminology [Alison Frankel, AmLaw]
- Still time to cancel? “2009 is also the first year of global governance” — new EU president [Small Dead Animals]
- Miller-Jenkins battle: judge orders custody switch to law-abiding spouse [Box Turtle Bulletin, background]
- Speedy by government standards? 17 years ago DoT proposed Southeast high-speed rail on existing rights of way, ruling on environmental impact statement is expected next year [McArdle]
- “New York’s New DWI Bill: Compounding Stupidity” [Greenfield; felony to drive intoxicated with passenger 15 or younger]
- “Apple Told To Pay Patent Troll OPTi $21.7 Million” [Business Insider]
- This year’s ABA Blawg 100 listing left out some legal blogs that aren’t half bad [Turkewitz]
November 13 roundup
- “Jailed Inventor Reveals Details of Patent Troll Settlements” [AmLaw Daily, IP Law and Business]
- Sprinkler law inspired by Great White nightclub disaster could kill off small Seattle music venues [Nicole Brodeur, Seattle Times]
- Court tosses law student’s suit against lawyer who boasted on air he’d pay a million bucks if anyone could prove him wrong about his case [Hoffman, ConcurOp; earlier]
- Baseball-anthem case: “The Boston resident who saw his recent copyright claim against Bon Jovi dismissed is appealing the verdict.” [NME, earlier]
- Man who climbed Mount Rainier while drawing workers’ comp pleads not guilty to fraud charge [KOMO; more on Washington workers’ comp here, here and here]
- Senate committee intends to vote next week on OSHA nomination of David Michaels without holding a hearing to air critics’ concerns [Carter Wood, ShopFloor]
- Blawg Review #237 is at Christian Metcalfe’s U.K. Property Law Blog;
- Are you sure you want to open that high-end restaurant in San Francisco given the city’s regulatory climate? [Crispy on the Outside citing SF Weekly interview with Daniel Patterson]