Science

  • Non-Sequiturs

    Non-Sequiturs: 12.29.15

    * The legalese in user agreements is no joke. Fortunately there’s a cartoon — yup, you heard right, a cartoon — to make sense of the iTunes agreement. [Slate]

    * Science says we should let go of our workplace grudges. I guess “science” never spent Christmas Eve redacting Excel spreadsheets so a production could be made by midnight. [Quartz]

    * The Tennessee judge who characterized the Supreme Court as wielding an “iron fist and limp wrist” over Obergefell… yeah, he got reprimanded. [Legal Profession Blog]

    * What the hell is going on at University of Louisville Law School. [Tax Prof Blog]

    * The bureaucratic bulls**t behind Obama’s inability to close the doors on Gitmo. [Huffington Post]

    * The best (worst?) of the right-wing blogosphere. Be sure to take your blood pressure medication before you click. [Village Voice]

    * The crime of being young, black and free. [The Root]

    * Congrats to Texas’s Tweeter Laureate, Justice Don Willett, on this latest positive press! [San Antonio Express-News]

  • Intellectual Property

    Federal Circuit Review - Nautilus, Limelight, and Alice (July 2014)

    Supreme Court Sets New Indefiniteness Standard In Nautilus, Inc. v. Biosig Instruments, Inc., Appeal No. 13-169, the Supreme Court vacated and remanded Federal Circuit’s reversal of summary judgment because the Federal Circuit’s definiteness standard was too lenient. Biosig filed a patent infringement suit claiming Nautilus’ exercise machines infringed its patent. Biosig’s patent claims a heart rate monitor that includes a “live” electrode and “common” electrode “mounted . . . in spaced relationship with each other.” The district court granted Nautilus’ motion for summary judgment on the basis the claim term “in spaced relationship with each other” failed the definiteness requirement of 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph. The Federal Circuit reversed and remanded, finding a patent claim meets the definiteness threshold so long as the claim is “amenable to construction” and the claim is not “insolubly ambiguous.” The Supreme Court held the Federal Circuit’s test does not satisfy the statute’s definiteness requirement and can leave courts without a reliable compass. The Court held a patent is invalid for indefiniteness if its claims, read in light of the specification and the prosecution history, fail to inform, with reasonable certainty, those skilled in the art about the scope of the invention. The Court emphasized this standard not only takes into account the inherent limitations of language, but also requires a patent must be precise enough to afford clear notice of what is claimed. The Court vacated and remanded to the Federal Circuit for reconsideration under the proper standard.
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  • 9th Circuit, Abortion, Barack Obama, Election Law, Federal Judges, Non-Sequiturs, Patents, SCOTUS, Supreme Court

    Non-Sequiturs: 05.22.13

    * In the Western District of Arkansas, judges have to forfeit judicial immunity to go to the bathroom. So if you want to sue a judge, you need to catch them when their pants are literally down. [Hercules and the Umpire] * Bowman v. Monsanto… in GIFs! [EffYeahSCOTUS] * Cooley boy makes good! President Obama nominated Christopher Thomas, a Cooley Law School grad and professor, to the Presidential Commission on Election Administration. [White House] * A judge threw out the fine against a New York artist as unconstitutionally harsh. The artist took an antenna from the trash and cops impounded his car and fined him $2,000. [Thompson Reuters News & Insight] * The Ninth Circuit struck down Arizona’s “Fetal Pain” Abortion Ban. Sounds like a viable decision. [PrawfsBlawg] * Work/life balance is when lawyers with kids throw their childless colleagues under a bus. [Slate] * If you’re reading transcripts of old trials and think the lawyers of yesteryear were smarter, you’re probably right. Western civilization has gotten dumber since the nineteenth century. The reason is summarized by the video after the jump….