Patents

Morning Docket: 09.24.12

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‘I never look at those rankings.’

* Hey, “regular students” with “regular backgrounds,” you may be able to get a job as a SCOTUS clerk, because Justice Clarence Thomas is the Supreme Court’s honey badger in that he doesn’t give a sh*t about rankings. [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]

* Because $1.05 bill wasn’t quite enough, Apple is asking for additional damages in its patent war lawsuit against Samsung. Ohh, come on, Judge Koh, it’s just an extra $535 million. Everyone else is doing it, come on. Just give us the money. [Bloomberg]

* The D.C. Circuit suit about White House visitor logs is kind of like a recurring issue we see with law schools, in that transparency here means “[w]e will disclose what records we want you to see.” [National Law Journal]

* Skadden is teaming up with local legal aid groups to start a pro bono initiative in D.C. We hear they’ll be handing out gift cards as a show of appreciation to those who sign up. [Capital Business / Washington Post]

* Sumner Redstone recently donated $18M to BU Law. Will his successor be as charitable? From Columbia Law to Shearman & Sterling to media mogul: meet Philippe Dauman, CEO of Viacom. [New York Times]

* “The employment statistics really are the collective impact of individual choices.” And one of them was attending law school anyway, despite all of the negative media attention they’ve received. [Cincinnati Enquirer]

* Remember the Harvard Law student who ran for Student Government President and pledged to resign after rewriting the organization’s constitution? Well, he graduated, but at least he got a draft in. [Harvard Crimson]

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Thanks to Cool New Crowd-Sourcing Website, Now You Can Help Prevent Bogus Patents

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Change is in the air! And it’s not just pollen. On the heels of an explosion of popular interest in (and subsequent boredom with) intellectual property, stemming from the Apple v. Samsung case, as well as new IP regulatory changes, the time is right to take IP reform to the streets! Let’s burn this mother down… or crowd-source it, at least.

A new partnership between the U.S. Patent Office, Google, and popular tech website Stack Exchange, will recruit average Americans to help end the patent wars. Take that, rounded corners!

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Is Apple’s iPhone 5 A Sign of the IP Apocalypse?

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The iPhone 5 in all its glory.

OMGGGG the new iPhone 5 was announced this morning! It’s the lightest, thinnest, bestest, fastest iPhone ever. It’s got a bigger screen, it fights crime, and it even picks up after your dog! Woooooo, Steve Jobs, you will never die in our hearts and minds and souls. <3333

OK, now that that’s out of the way, why do all you lawyers give a damn?

The intellectual property arms race, that’s why. As a Google VP mentioned in an interview earlier this week, Steve Jobs had warned us years ago about the possibility of thermonuclear IP war. Well, with the release of the new iPhone coming hot off the heels of Apple’s billion-dollar victory against Samsung, the bombs may be falling.

Or, in the words of Willem Dafoe, “There was a fire patent fight!”

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Quote of the Day: How Has Google Managed to Be Asleep For So Long?

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David Lawee

We actually didn’t invest in the patent ecosystem. We weren’t patenting stuff as aggressively as we should have been. We didn’t really believe “rounded corners” were patentable. We just didn’t buy into that notion of protecting your IP, and it was a wake-up call.

– Google Vice President for Corporate Development David Lawee, discussing the effects of the Apple v. Samsung case on Bloomberg TV.

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Non-Sequiturs: 08.31.12

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Oh my god, he’s got a gun!

* Interim SLU Law Dean Tom Keefe said he’s nobody’s “butt boy.” Will that change if Father Lawrence Biondi succeeds in eliminating tenure? Your move, Keefe. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch]

* Defending one’s right to carry an AK-47 around a park is kind of like defending your right to drink milkshakes and eat waffle fries until your heart explodes. There’s no f**king point, other than really wanting to show you can. Except that milkshakes are delicious. Guns, not so much. [FindLaw]

* A penny saved is a penny earned grounds for a huge lawsuit. [Daily Business Review]

* Japan said Samsung didn’t infringe on Apple’s patents. Woooo. Three different Apple v. Samsung cases down, 10 million more countries to go. [Ars Technica]

* The TSA should seriously come out and say they just want to see us naked. Then at least we’d all be on the same page. [Threat Level / Wired]

* Ms. Spanjer, yeeeah, we’re sorry but you’re going to have to change your son’s name. As you’re probably aware, he’s deaf. I know, so sad. He’s a wonderful child, but when he signs his name, it looks like a gun. And, obviously, we have no tolerance for violence at this pre-school. [Jonathan Turley]

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These Lawyers ‘Patented Sex’ and It’s Pretty Damn Funny

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Last year, we published a music video from a group of recent American University – Washington College of Law graduates rapping about when happens when — god forbid — you fail the MPRE. Well, the guys are at it again with a new, incredibly “informative” song about the patent system in America.

They’ve stepped up the production value, they have a celebrity cameo from the Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, and it all fits nicely into a rap song, you guessed it, about patenting sex. So yeah, click through for some serious flow….

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Apple v. Samsung: Where Do We Go Now?

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On Friday afternoon, after just under three days of deliberation, the Apple v. Samsung jury came back with a tidy little verdict awarding just over $1 billion to Apple. Meanwhile, Samsung got nothing on its counterclaims.

It was a big win for Apple, and it came surprisingly quickly. As Elie pointed out, it would take many smart people more than three days to even understand all the the terms within the 109 pages of jury instructions. Aside from the jury itself, it seemed no one was ready for the verdict. One attorney for Apple even showed up in a polo shirt.

Let’s have a post-mortem run through of the case (and a quick-and-dirty look at the massive attorneys’ fees incurred by both sides)….

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Morning Docket: 08.27.12

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* Unhappy with eleventy billion dollars in damages due to Apple, Samsung will begin its appeals, perhaps even to the Supreme Court (because you know that SCOTUS wants a bite at the proverbial literal patent apple). [Wall Street Journal]

* And speaking of that jury award, jury foreman Velvin Hogan had this to say about it: “We wanted to make sure it was sufficiently high to be painful, but not unreasonable.” Yeah, because a billion dollars in damages isn’t unreasonable at all. [Reuters]

* Do judges with lawyerly license plates avoid traffic infractions instead of getting tickets? The New York Commission on Judicial Conduct is investigating this issue of epic importance. [New York Law Journal]

* If bill collectors are threatening to sue you over your credit-card debts, you better pray that your case lands on Judge Noach Dear’s docket, because in his courtroom, “it’s dismiss, dismiss, dismiss.” [New York Post]

* Hippies can file lawsuits, too: Burning Man starts today, but the event’s organizers claim that its Nevada venue is pursuing a new theme in view of a “drastic increase in fees” — burning money. [All Things Digital]

* Protestors should be allowed to act however they want when carrying prohibited machetes in Republican National Convention event zones. This was the first, and definitely the coolest, RNC arrest made. [ABC News]

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The Apple Samsung Verdict Is In

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Well, that was quick. After weeks of trial and a multitude of jury instructions, we have a verdict in the Apple v. Samsung case.

The jury took just two three days — or 21 hours, to be more precise. They’ve been asked to answer more than 700 questions, but they’ve deliberated for just three days! Bored much?

We’re reading The Verge’s live feed from the courtroom. Let’s learn the future of intellectual property (for now)…

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Strange Vendetta of the Day: ‘Legos Lied to Me as a Kid’

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How many of our readers loved playing with Legos as kids? Everyone? Cool, that was easy. Because, I mean, seriously. Nobody doesn’t like Legos.

Based on that obvious premise, you would think a company accused of infringing Lego’s intellectual property would have done so out of love or admiration for the toys.

Well, you’d be totally wrong. The chief executive of Best-Lock, a Canadian and Hong Kong-based company that Lego has sued for intellectual property violations, has wanted to compete with Legos ever since, as a child, the company allegedly destroyed his innocence.

In newspaper interviews after litigation began, Torsten Geller unveiled some deep-seated psychological s**t that led Lego to unsuccessfully attempt to add him as a defendant for defamation. The international toy building block company lost the attempt, but a federal judge still felt compelled to informally suggest Geller should maybe see a psychologist….

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