From the monthly archives:

September 2008

Chief Judge Paul R. Michel, United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit:

September 26, 2008

. . . the Supreme Court can only decide a couple of patent cases even in a banner year. And, many important patent issues may be so obscure as to discourage its generalist judges from addressing them. The rest, necessarily, are left to us. We have the expertise and the will to resolve doctrinal problems.

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New Massachusetts Rules on Data Security a Game Changer

September 25, 2008

The department of consumer affairs and business regulation shall adopt regulations relative to any person that owns or licenses personal information about a resident of the commonwealth. Such regulations shall be designed to safeguard the personal information of residents of the commonwealth … M.G.L. Chapter 93H: Section 2 _____________________________ Here is a link to the

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Hey, It's Not Like President Bush Isn't Doing Anything Important These Days! or, Fresh Evidence That the True Course of Civilization is Upward

September 24, 2008

Here is the text of new Federal Rule of Evidence 502, eliminating waiver resulting from inadvertent disclosures of attorney-client privileged or work-product materials in federal litigation: Federal Rule of Evidence 502 (signed into law September 19, 2008) The following provisions apply, in the circumstances set out, to disclosure of a communication or information covered by

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The Laugh Test

September 22, 2008

[Update: decision denying Blockshopper's Motion to Dismiss] [Update: Jones Days' Opposition to Blockshopper's Motion to Dismiss] Blockshopper.com is one of many small web sites that have sprung up to follow local residential real estate markets. So far, the site highlights purchases in upscale neighborhoods in Chicago, St. Louis, South Florida and Las Vegas. The site

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The Google Chrome Comic Book

September 15, 2008

The release of the Google Chrome web browser on September 2nd attracted a huge amount of publicity. The release of the browser was accompanied by a 38 page comic book, featuring cartoon figures of real-life Google employees, and explaining some of the features and technology associated with the browser. The comic book was illustrated by

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White on White

September 9, 2008

Meta tags consist of words and phrases that are intended to describe the contents of a website. These descriptions are embedded within the website’s computer code. Although websites do not display their meta tags to visitors, Internet search engines utilize meta tags in various ways. First, when a computer user enters particular terms into an

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EdTX Judge Says: Litigate Future Royalties as Part of Trial

September 4, 2008

We’ve been following the lower courts’ interpretation and application of eBay v. MercExchange since the case was decided by the Supreme Court in May 2006. In eBay the Court held that post-judgment injunctions were not “automatic” for successful patent plaintiffs, but rather that the trial court had to apply the traditional equitable test to determine

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Cloud Computing – The "Next Big Thing"?

September 4, 2008

Here is a link to the slides used by Dr. Irving Wladawsky-Berger (Chairman Emeritus of the IBM Academy of Technology) in his talk entitled Cloud Computing and the Coming IT Cambrian Explosion. This was presented at Xconomy’s Cloud Computing event in Cambridge in June. While there is no audio, I think the slides communicate the

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Judge Young on Employee Breach of Fiduciary Duty Claims, Interference With Contract and Pleading

September 3, 2008

U.S. District Court Judge William Young’s recent decision in Talentburst, Inc. v. Collabera, Inc. is worth study. Talentburst is the former employer of Raj Pallerla. While employed by Talentburst, Pallerla signed a noncompete agreement with Talentburst. He then resigned and went to work for Collabera, Inc. For ease of reading I’ll refer to these three

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