IPcentral Weblog: January 2006 Archives

January 2006 Archives

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01.31.2006

Google & China

Pajamas Media has a roundup of commentary on Google and China.

It is safe to say that my view is in the minority.

posted by James DeLong @ 6:16 PM | International

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More Patent Wars

From Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed:

While the company hasn't announced this yet, the U.S. PTO shows a new patent (6,983,282) issued to Zoominfo for "Computer method and apparatus for collecting people and organization information from Web sites". To my quick non-lawyerly reading, this is a very broad patent, to the point of being surprisingly so, with the "people search" company being awarded title to processes covering a giant swath of extracting organizational and people information from unstructured website data. Let's just say this will certainly spark debate.

posted by James DeLong @ 5:58 PM | Patents

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Microsoft & Censorship

Microsoft announced a new censorship policy for MSN Spaces. It will:

• Remove access to blog content only when it receives a legally binding notice from the government indicating that the material violates local laws, or if the content violates MSN’s terms of use.

• Remove access to content only in the country issuing the order. This is a new capability Microsoft is implementing in the MSN Spaces infrastructure.

• Will, when local laws require the company to block access to certain content, ensure that users know why that content was blocked, by notifying them that access has been limited due to a government restriction.

Continue reading Microsoft & Censorship . . .

posted by James DeLong @ 4:36 PM | International

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More MercExchange & Patent Injunctions

From Patently-O:

A friend of mine who is also a senior patent counsel at a major technology corporation passed along his thoughts on the eBay appeal in an anonymous article entitled eBay v. MercExchange: Are YOUR Interests Represented?.
The article, published here on Patently-O, raises a particular issue—that of stays pending appeal. The article argues, inter alia, that the relatively short CAFC docket (~1 year) coupled with the high reversal rate indicate that injunctions should generally be stayed pending appeal.

A major point:

Continue reading More MercExchange & Patent Injunctions . . .

posted by James DeLong @ 4:17 PM | Patents

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Property Rights Alliance

The Property Rights Alliance will meet on Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2006, at 3:00 p.m. in Room 1334 of Longworth HOB.

To get on the agenda, contact Scott LaGanga, 202-390-6978 or slaganga@propertyrightsalliance.org.

posted by James DeLong @ 2:48 PM | Big Tent

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Google, China, Hayek and Knight

Jim's blog entry on his TCS piece defending Google and China doesn't really tell the whole story; you should read the TCS piece yourself. I've read it several times now. My first reaction was one of mild shock, a sense that Jim was promoting totalitarianism over democracy. Then I sensed a Kissingerian realpolitik emerging. But now, after a third read, I think I've come closer to Jim's muses on this piece -- F.A. Hayek and Frank Knight.

Continue reading Google, China, Hayek and Knight . . .

posted by Patrick Ross @ 2:24 PM | International

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Sense of the Senate on Patent Reform--Yikes!

Thanks to J. Matthew Buchanan of Promote the Progress for alerting me to this one. The Senate has issued a statement on patent reform, which includes the following "sense of" statement:

Finally, and perhaps most interesting, it suggests that "specific industries with specialized patent needs" should be treated differently by the patent laws.

Is this good policy? Or should patent law be technology neutral (as arguably required by treaty, but that I think is the least of the problems with this "sense of"). Is it really a good idea for the legislature to be crafting industry-specific patent rules? Isn't this a recipe for rent-seeking? Won't the rules always be backwards-looking, as economic conditions within industries are continuously changing? How would one accomodate new industries--before one knows even what their needs are? Is this just an excuse to avoid addressing the really thorny problems of how to improve the patent system overall?

posted by Solveig Singleton @ 2:07 PM | Academia , Big Tent , Biotech , Patents , Pharma , Software

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Google & China

At TCS Daily, two views of Google's decision to agree to allow censorship of search results in exchange for doing business in China: James DeLong shows considerable sympathy for Google and for the Chinese government in Google is Right ; Glenn Reynolds does not, in Judging Google.

My piece also argues that democracy in the U.S. is in serious long-term jeopardy, largely because our collective thinking about democracy has become simplistic:

Democracy in the U.S. was founded on a sophisticated interlayering of different types of governance in different situations, with the types appropriate to the decisions and interests involved. It is an irony of successful democracy that the whole must be subject to democratic control, but within this framework there must be many undemocratic decision processes, ranging from representative assemblies to market-driven businesses to law-bound adjudication.
The U.S. is increasingly in thrall to a kind of plebiscitary democracy, often by public opinion poll, a residue of the mindless 1960s, where every decision, right down to guilt or innocence in a criminal case, should be decided by vote.

posted by James DeLong @ 7:20 AM | International

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01.30.2006

MercExchange Briefs

Many amicus briefs have been filed in eBay v. MercExchange. Patently-O has links and thumbnail descriptions.

For the most part, the briefs agree that maybe there should be a presumption in favor of injunctions, but a district court should be allowed to take equitable principles into account. As put by the Bar Association of the City of NY:

[T]he Federal Circuit has improperly circumscribed district courts' jurisdiction under [the statute], to the detriment of the patent system and the public. The award of injunctive relief in patent cases should be governed by the same legal standards as govern the award of injunctive relief in federal cases generally.

However, now MercExchange and its supporters get their innings.

Argument is scheduled for Wednesday, March 29.

posted by James DeLong @ 5:10 PM | Patents

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Rewriting the Constitution

On Tuesday, Feb. 15, at Noon (Lunch to follow) Prof. Richard Epstein will speak at Cato on his new book, How Progressives Rewrote the Constitution:

The Constitution was written and ratified to secure liberty through limited government. Central to its design were two principles: federalism and economic liberty. But at the beginning of the 20th century, Progressives began a frontal assault on those principles. Drawing on the new social sciences and a primitive understanding of economic relationships, their efforts reached fruition during the New Deal when the Constitution was essentially rewritten, without benefit of amendment. In a new Cato book, Richard Epstein traces this history, showing how Progressives replaced competitive markets with government-created cartels and monopolies.

RSVP to events@cato.org.

posted by James DeLong @ 4:57 PM | General

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01.30.2006

Panic Attack

posted by James DeLong @ 4:47 PM | General

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