by Lee Gesmer | Nov 2, 2008 | Patents
Those who take an interest in patents — inventors, litigants, lawyers, judges, pundits, trolls, and on and on — have been waiting with bated breath for the CAFC’s decision in In re Bilski. Is it a game changer for much-maligned “business method” patents? How far does it go in narrowing the patentability of business method processes? How will the courts apply it? How does it affect pending or contemplated cases? Is the Supreme Court likely to accept an appeal?
It seems that almost every patent lawyer in the country feels compelled to write about this decision. Tens of thousands of words will be written. Indeed, I would swear that some lawyers pulled all-nighters on Thursday night so they would be the first to write about this case by Friday morning, and get a jump on the competition.
To sort through the noise, my recommendation is that you go to the Patently-O blog. Start here, then search Patently-O for “Bilski”. I’m confident that this blog will collect most of the commentary on this case you are likely to need.
See also: The Most Anticipated Patent Case Ever
by Lee Gesmer | Oct 31, 2008 | Copyright
As expected, the proposed Google Book Search settlement has led to a lot of scrutiny, criticism and questions. Here is a link to the 125 page Settlement Agreement(without attachments; pdf). Here is a link to the page that holds the full agreement which, with attachments, is over 300 pages long).
Both Larry Lessig (“IMHO, this is a good deal that could be the basis for something really fantastic”) and Wade Roush(“Book Search settlement contains some major disappointments”) have taken a first crack at trying to decipher this settlement (Roush – “exhaustive, labyrinthine”) and figure out who, amongst the many stakeholders, are the winners and losers.
Here is a particularly interesting paragraph from Wade Roush’s article:
. . . [T]he devil . . . is in the details. If you read the agreement, you’ll see that it restricts each public library to exactly one Google terminal. Tens of millions of books online—but at any given moment, no more than 16,543 people are allowed to read them without paying. (That’s how many public libraries and branches there are in the United States, according to the American Library Association—one for every 18,500 Americans.)
So, America’s librarians will be hearing these words for generations to come: “Excuse me, where is the Google Terminal?” Or perhaps the librarians will receive phone calls asking: “Hi, how long is the line for the Google Terminal?”
Much more to follow.
[n.b. It appears that Harvard is unhappy with the terms of the proposed agreement, and is withdrawing in-part from its participation in the scanning project]
by Lee Gesmer | Oct 31, 2008 | Readings and Novelties, Technology
Wade Roush (technology journalist and chief correspondent at Xconomy) wrote an extraordinary article in the MIT Technology Review in 2007 which I’ve had in my “must re-read” pile for a while. Recently I picked it up and noticed that the article is accessible in full on the Technology Review web site (free registration required).
Here is a brief excerpt from the article, modestly entitled Second Earth:
[w]ithin 10 to 20 years–roughly the same time it took for the Web to become what it is now–something much bigger than either of these alternatives [Second Earth or Google Earth] may emerge: a true Metaverse. In Neal Stephenson’s 1992 novel Snow Crash, a classic of the dystopian “cyberpunk” genre, the Metaverse was a planet-size virtual city that could hold up to 120 million avatars, each representing someone in search of entertainment, trade, or social contact. The Metaverse that’s really on the way, some experts believe, will resemble Stephenson’s vision, but with many alterations. It will look like the real earth, and it will support even more users than the Snow Crash cyberworld, functioning as the agora, laboratory, and gateway for almost every type of information-based pursuit. It will be accessible both in its immersive, virtual-reality form and through peepholes like the screen of your cell phone as you make your way through the real world. And like the Web today, it will become “the standard way in which we think of life online,” to quote from the Metaverse Roadmap, a forecast published this spring by an informal group of entrepreneurs, media producers, academics, and analysts.
This is extraordinary, futuristic stuff, but it reads like a valid prediction of the future. Click here to read the uncut article (which is over 7,000 words). If you have trouble accessing this page (perhaps because you need to register), start here to register and navigate to it.
by Lee Gesmer | Oct 30, 2008 | Courts
Chief Justice Margaret Marshall
Thank you, President McIntyre for the honor, and great pleasure, of addressing this annual meeting.
Fair and independent courts need dedicated lawyers. The rule of law needs both. That is why, among so many reasons, I am delighted to be here: to thank this Bar Association, to thank each of you, for partnering in justice with our courts.
This has been a turbulent year. In politics. In terms of climate change. And now, a financial crisis of unparalleled dimensions. The cataclysm on Wall Street reverberates on Beacon Street. Revenue sources for state government are fast declining, and predicted to decline further. … Continue Reading
by Lee Gesmer | Oct 30, 2008 | Readings and Novelties, What Were They Thinking
I’ve heard this quote attributed to Alan Abelson of Barron’s, but who knows, it may be from Kansas. Maybe Abelson used to listen to Kansas.
In any event, it came to mind when I heard that the Maestro, a Master of the Universe if there ever was one, spoke thus before Congress last week:
REP. WAXMAN: You found a flaw in the reality —
MR. GREENSPAN: Flaw in the model that I perceived as the critical functioning structure that defines how the world works, so to speak.
REP. WAXMAN: In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology was not right. It was not working.
MR. GREENSPAN: Precisely. That’s precisely the reason I was shocked, because I had been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well.
