The University of Akron School of Law Center for Intellectual Property Law and Technology will host a lecture by Jacqueline Lipton, professor of law at Case Western Reserve University. The lecture, which is free and open to the public, is titled “Mapping Online Privacy” and will be held Wednesday, Nov. 18 at 5 p.m. in Room 152 at The University of Akron School of Law, 150 University Ave., Akron, Ohio. A reception will immediately follow the lecture.
Lipton’s lecture will address the difficulties in applying existing concepts of personal privacy to the maturing Internet. With Web 2.0 technologies, more people have more opportunities to post information about themselves and others online, often with scant regard for individual privacy. Shifting notions of “reasonable expectations of privacy” in the context of blogs, wikis, and online social networks create challenges for privacy regulation. Courts and commentators struggle with Web 2.0 privacy incursions without the benefit of a clear regulatory framework.
A couple of weeks ago I blogged about the pending criminal trial of former Bear Stearns executives Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin on charges they defrauded investors in connection with the failure of their hedge funds. While I did not agree with those who characterized the case as one of "spin versus fraud", I did believe the prosecution would have a hard time proving criminal intent. Apparently, the jury concurred because Cioffi and Tannin were acquitted this past Tuesday by a "jury of mostly working class Americans." Now, the question becomes how much steam the government has left to pursue criminal convictions against other executives tied to the financial crisis–like some of those at AIG and Lehman. Sorting that out will involve determining how much of what went wrong for the prosecution in this case is limited to its particular facts. Here's a short list of possible explanations for why the jury sided with the defense: [click to continue…]
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Cioffi
A research team at Harvard Medical School estimates 2,266 U.S. military veterans under the age of 65 died last year because they lacked health insurance and thus had reduced access to care. That figure is more than 14 times the number of deaths (155) suffered by U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2008, and more than twice as many as have died (911 as of Oct. 31) since the war began in 2001.
Just passing this story along.
The following post comes from Prof. Jay Dratler, Jr.:
The case of Bilski v. Kappos, argued yesterday before the Supreme Court, 2009 Term, No. 08-964, addresses a question vital to the survival of our free enterprise system. (Number citations are to pages and lines of the oral argument transcript.)
Can anyone with a new and nonobvious business idea (or business “model,” in current parlance) patent it and exclude competition for twenty years from the patent’s application date? Twenty years are an eternity in many innovative businesses today, so the “limited Time” of the patent grant has limited practical effect.
Since Parliament adopted the Statute of Monopolies in 1623, England’s and others’ free-market economies have answered that question “no.” In 1998, a panel of our own Federal Circuit—our primary patent appeals court—answered it “yes.” See State Street Bank & Trust Co. v. Signature Financial Group, Inc., 149 F.3d 1368 (Fed. Cir. 1998). See generally, Jay Dratler, Jr., Does Lord Darcy Yet Live? The Case Against Software and Business-Method Patents, 43 Santa Clara L. Rev. 823 (2003).
Now the patentee-petitioner in Bilski wants the same “yes” answer for slightly different facts. Yet this time the en banc Federal Circuit said “no,” in a limited way. Our Deputy Solicitor General supported the Federal Circuit’s ruling in his oral argument. [click to continue…]
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Bilski
Questions:
- In the last 50 years or so, how many U.S. Supreme Court cases dealt with Fifth Amendment self-incrimination?
- Of the four Court eras covered by the database (Warren, Burger, Rehnquist and Roberts), which court era had the most number of liberal decisions?
- How many cases from Ohio made it to the U.S. Supreme Court?
Answering these types of questions just got easier. Released this week, the Supreme Court Database allows anyone to search, pull up cases, and perform simple analyses. This new database has created quite a stir on the legal blogs. [click to continue…]
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analysis,
supreme court
