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Everyone, it seems, has an opinion on patent reform. A White House task force chimed in with anti-trolling proposals. The House of Representatives passed a reform-minded bill late last year. Federal Circuit Chief Judge Randall Rader continues to argue on behalf of fixing fee-shifting. And the Supreme Court has two cases on its docket that may grant him his wish. So maybe, 2014 will be the year of patent reform. Out of all of the proposals floating around, what changes would we like to see?...

The ABA’s Section of Intellectual Property Law just released an interesting white paper, one that every Internet Law geek should read: “A Call For Action in Online Piracy and Counterfeiting Legislation.” It’s an exhaustive 133-page PDF file that delves into everything from taking action against individuals and predatory foreign websites, to legislation meant to aid in the defense of intellectual property against online piracy. Personally, I’m especially curious about what the ABA has to say about controversial legislative proposals, such as the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which was protested against by pretty much the entire Internet....

At the end of February, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in American Express v. Italian Colors Restaurant. The decision, when it’s finally released, will probably be overlooked by most media outlets, but the outcome will affect businesses nationwide. If you deal with arbitration agreements, you should care about this case. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has mulled the American Express litigation for years. The appellate court has reviewed the case three times, so far....

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the internet. Once upon a time, and without a federal law in place, more than half of the states enacted their own laws to address the pervasive problem of unsolicited commercial email, affectionately known as “spam.” Then in 2003 Congress stepped up to the plate and enacted the CAN-SPAM Act. This federal statute imposes certain requirements and restrictions on a nationwide basis with respect to the sending of unsolicited commercial email....

Cell phone location data: Every time your phone pings the nearest tower, there is a record. Ever see a movie where they track a person using their cell phone? This is that, and no GPS chip is required. Sure, it’s not as accurate, but it does say the defendant was in the general area of the crime. That’s what happened to Quartavious Davis. The government used a court order under the Stored Communications Act to get his cell-phone records, which requires a lower showing than probable cause under the Fourth Amendment....

Eight years ago, there was a serial killer at large in our hometown. The first thing we learned about serial killers is that everyone is an expert on serial killers. We know that serial killers are usually white, male, and between the ages of 20 and 40. We know that they prefer victims of the same race. We know this because we learned it watching Silence of the Lambs. Thank you Dr....

The tech world was set abuzz last week when news spread that Microsoft was acquiring VoIP provider Skype for $8.5 billion. VoIP can offer communication solutions that are cheaper than traditional phone systems - and arguably just as reliable. Worried about billable hours and your bottom line? VoIP could be just the money-saving vehicle your firm has been looking for. Mobile phone applications: Skype, one of the most popular VoIPs, offers a free mobile phone application....

District court’s imposition of personal liability on defendant for payroll withholding taxes owed by a company, where he owned a one-third interest and served as its corporate officer and director and conducted various business transactions on its behalf, is affirmed where: 1) defendant’s own admissions demonstrate, as a matter of law, that he was a responsible person under 26 U.S.C. section 6672 during the relevant tax periods; and 2) the record demonstrates that the company generated several million dollars in gross receipts after the relevant period and paid rent and food vendors with those funds instead of paying the IRS, and thus, by preferring its other creditors to the IRS, defendant willfully failed to remit the company’s payroll taxes for the fourth quarter of 1998 and the first three quarters of 1999....

Over the past several weeks, we’ve published weekly blog posts delving into the etymology of some widely used legal terms. The feedback has been fantastic, and if there are other legal terms you’d like us to research and write about, feel free to let us know on Twitter or Facebook. And just in case you may have missed one of the prior installments in this series, you can easily catch up as we’ve compiled the first five below....

The word asylum has origins dating back to ancient Greece, seizing merchant ships to cover losses, and protecting accidental murders. Though today the term has a few common meanings that are used liberally in various contexts, in immigration law, asylum is rather specific. Interestingly, the legal sense of the term that we know of today may have actually come into existence before the Grecians invented the word. Curiously, the practice of asylum is posited to come from the ancient Israelites....

4chan users posted graphic rape porn in the comments section of Jezebel, a feminist blog. You won’t believe what legal issues arose next! And what happens when an attorney develops a meth addiction? When a prosecutor breaks bad, can be make it back? Folks, if clickbait titles make you want to punch your monitor, the Upworthy Generator might be the best parody you’ll read all day. And if you want to read some of the best recent posts from the blawgosphere, keep reading....

Stand-up comedians say they are killing it when audiences laugh; lawyers just want to kill in their arena. It’s the nature of the beast, the law of the jungle. Lawyers are trained to attack, but laughter could be their most potent weapon. At the U.S. Supreme Court, for example, the Justices kill off attorneys with snark and sarcasm. That’s why they call laughter a blood sport of the court. “A Blood Sport” Law professors Tonja Jacobi and Matthew Sag studied the role of laughter in Supreme Court arguments....

Based on a recent ruling out of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, one seemingly rogue attorney, Austin Burdick, has failed in his quest for revenge against five Supreme Court Justices, specifically: Justices Kennedy, Breyer, Ginsberg, Sotomayor, and Kagan. Burdick was claiming, and you may need to read this twice, that: As it might be expected, Burdick’s implausible appeal of the sua sponte dismissal of his case was denied. The district court judge relied on Burdick’s lack of standing to pursue the matter, in addition to the lack of a plausible claim....

As any family law lawyer will tell you, divorce law can be one of the most challenging of practices. Just ask the Florida lawyer who witnessed a “surreal,” savage attack on his client in a judge’s chambers. An ex-Marine viciously attacked his wife during a final divorce hearing in a judge’s chambers last Friday and had to be subdued with a stun gun. Paul Henry Gonzalez Jr., 28, of Fort Lauderdale, left Catherine Scott-Gonzalez, 23, with two black eyes, broken facial bones and split lips....

Lawyers, scholars, designers, and coders are coming together to create a new app that will make hate crime reporting easier. The ABA’s Center for Innovation will hold a day-long design event in Boston later this month focused on creating an app for victims of hate crimes, providing information on victims’ rights, hate crime reporting, and where to turn for help. The hackathon comes as reports of hate crimes are on the rise, with threats called in to Jewish community centers, two Indian engineers shot at a bar in Kansas, and, last Friday, a Seattle-area Sikh man shot in his driveway by an assailant telling him to “go back to your own country....

Legal tech is now firmly rooted in the legal landscape. Younger attorneys who are more fluent in technology may take to legal tech like fish to water. But older and tech-phobic attorneys may not be so lucky. If you’re job hunting, you may have noticed that a lot of the job requirements ask for a certain level of fluency in case-management or trial prep software. But who’s responsible for staying current with legal tech?...

Remember those first days in law school when terms like “adverse possession,” “charitable trust,” and “rules against perpetuities” were so foreign? Well that’s the problem with the Nolo Law Dictionary app. The program is great for novices, especially those that aren’t too familiar with certain legal terms. But you’re a lawyer now – so you’re not much of a legal newbie. So the real question is – is the app useful for attorneys?...

For in-house counsel, and employees across the legal industry, while competitive pay is important, some benefits, like telecommute, flextime, and a solid vacation policy, can make all the difference when it comes to retaining top talent. Perhaps two of the biggest ways companies can give employees more without shelling out more money involves creating a culture employees want to be a part of, and respecting the time of their most coveted, and hard to replace, talent....

In US v. Miller, No. 08-11186, the court of appeals affirmed dismissal of defendant’s petition for audita querela challenging a restitution order resulting from his conviction for conducting a monetary transaction with criminally-derived funds and evading income tax. As the court wrote: “On August 1, 2003, defendant-appellant, Frederick Charles Miller (Miller), pleaded guilty to one count of conducting a monetary transaction with criminally-derived funds and one count of evading income tax....

Some things are true even if you can’t explain them. It’s true of a sixth sense and, apparently, the ability to predict recidivism. According to researchers, random people can predict a defendant’s likelihood of reoffending better than a computer. It’s another confirmation that people really do have brains and that computers don’t. Who’d have thought? So-So Software Published in Science Advances, the study found that people who took an online survey accurately predicted recidivism at least 67 percent of the time....