An interesting dimension of Robert Merges' piece on Supreme Court patent cases is that it was published not in the learned journals where the distinguished Professor Merges usually hangs out but on a blog.

Now, Patently-O is a distinguished blog (if that is not oxymoronic), but it is not the Harvard Law Review. On the other hand, if something is published in Harv L. Rev., it will take months if not years for it to become available, and any responses and comments will be on the same leisurely schedule. Merges wants to get his thoughts out quickly, in a form which encourages reaction, and reaction is already happening. Merges piece posted on Sunday, and drew many comments. Dennis Crouch. proprietor of Patently-O, posted some follow-on thoughts yesterday, and no doubt more gurus will pile in soon.

It is a new style of academic literature, and, one must say, a very welcome development. The law review style, where 50 pages and 500 footnotes is regarded as "short," is intolerable. No one has time to read it, and anything new is buried in the obligatory proofs that the author has read everything in the field.

So, increasingly, material of immediate legal and policy relevance will appear on blogs such as Patently-O, I/P Updates, and even IPCentral.info. And the world will be a better place.

posted by James DeLong @ 1:20 PM | Academia

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