Like the Darwin Awards, the Stupid Patent of the Month began as a way to point out the idiots in the human experiment. Stupid patents, like stupid people, got what was coming to them. Following their stories, we laughed; we cried; they died. Now it seems there was also some science to it all. Those stupid patents came from flawed DNA – problems in the PTO. Here are three of them:...
When Cristina Cruz left the Philippines to come to the United States, she thought she was getting a great opportunity. A friend told her that she could work for Nilda Maypa, a World Bank employee. So Cruz got the job and came to the United States. Her employment contract seemed solid: $6.50 an hour, 35 to 40 hours a week, plus medical insurance. What she got was entirely different. Maypa paid her $250 a month – that’s a little over $8 a day – required her to work 17 to 18 hours a day, seven days a week, cook, clean, take care of the kids, clean the pool, mow the lawn … and on and on....
FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the Internet. Here we are, Christmas Eve. Family is home for the holidays. Festive lights shine bright. Ornaments are on the tree. And soon, stockings will be stuffed and presents will arrive. What do I want this year? Well, assuming I have been nice and not naughty, I of course want to spend time with loved ones and I wish for health, happiness and peace....
The long-running legal spat between Barbie and Bratz finally has a resolution. A judge recently announced a jury verdict that says Mattel Inc., owner of Barbie, does not own ideas for Bratz dolls, owned by MGA Entertainment. Ownership of the Bratz designs has been the subject of a bitter three-month long trial and a decade-old dispute between the two toy companies, the Wall Street Journal reports. The verdict that MGA officially owns the rights to Bratz – overturns a $100 million decision in 2008 that Mattel was her true owner, the Los Angeles Times reports....
Although the billable hour still seems to be the gold standard when it comes to legal billing, businesses and individual clients that have been paying billable hour rates are starting to realize that the gold standard died long ago. While litigators may need to keep track of their time if an attorney fee motion is even remotely plausible, law firms moving away from charging clients by the hour might want to start thinking about how they measure individual attorneys’ productivity....
For the most part, new technology is good. But like every good thing, bad actors will try to exploit it. And with how easily accessible and cheap technology is these days, more and more people go from paranoid to felon simply as a result of downloading an app. But we’re not talking about any old app, or any one app in particular, but rather the narrow category of covert surveillance apps....
CES: the Consumer Electronics Show. After Hanukah, and Christmas, and Kwanza, and New Year’s Day, comes an even bigger holiday for geeks: the biggest tech gadget trade show of the year. Tablets. Smartphones. PCs. TVs. Car stereos. Pardon the drool, but this is announcement day for much of the year’s biggest tech toys. Of course, not every announcement will be met with glee. Here are some of the things we couldn’t care less about:...
US v. Weekes, 07-2209, concerned a challenge to a conviction of defendant for being a felon in possession of a firearm and a 15-year sentence under the Armed Career Criminal Act. In affirming the conviction and the sentence, the court held that the juror selection plan in effect at the time of defendant’s trial complied with the Sixth Amendment. The court rejected defendant’s challenges to several evidentiary rulings. Also, the court held that the district court did not commit plain error in concluding that defendant’s two prior drug convictions were serious drug offenses under the ACCA, and that defendant’s prior conviction for resisting arrest was a violent felony under the statute....
In an action alleging nonpayment for shipments of sweetener, the district court’s denial of defendant’s motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction is affirmed where defendant “transacted business” in Georgia, under Georgia law, because it sent purchase orders to plaintiff in Georgia, requested delivery by “customer pickup” at plaintiff’s plant in Georgia, directed third parties to accept delivery of the goods in Georgia, took legal title to the goods in Georgia, and promised to pay money into Georgia on the two transactions in question....
With technovations occurring every day, disability law may never be the same. Take Douglas Wakefield, for example. As a blind child, he needed certain accommodations to succeed in school. But as an adult, now he can do things he couldn’t dream of as a student. He credits technology for opening a new world to him. Smart Devices When he wakes up, Wakefield listens to the weather on his Apple Watch. Then he gets the news from his iPhone....
We’ve done a few posts on law firm websites, and tried to cover all the basics from branding, website design and content, and even covered the basics of search engine optimization. For some, following easy steps is enough. Others need to see a list of what not to do. While some may warn your website is designed to fail, we’re going to list for you some big don’ts of law firm website design – if you follow enough of these, you’ll have a “do” law firm website on your hands....
Last month, we talked MOOCs: Massive Online Open Courses. Yale announced that it would offer a Constitutional Law course for free through Coursera and it piqued our interest, as it seems like a good way for John Q. Public to brush up on his rights, and for pre-law folks to sample legal curriculum before dropping six figures on a JD. (Sidebar: The early reviews, by the way, are the course is good, but the professor is dry....
Let’s give credit where credit is due. A few months ago, President Barack Obama addressed the ongoing NSA privacy issues and proposed what we politely called “mild reforms,” including instructing intelligence officials to find a way to preserve the NSA’s program of bulk collection of cell phone metadata by March 28. With only a few days left until the deadline (not coincidentally, the date the court order authorizing the program expires), it seems the White House’s strategy has shifted, and the legislative proposal sounds almost … constitutional....
Paul Ceglia’s Facebook lawsuit might finally be nearing its end. It appears that new evidence has surfaced which may demolish any chances that Ceglia’s claims are true. It seems that Ceglia might be lacking in a crucial area of his case: evidence. Ceglia’s suit alleges that he owns half of Facebook. Since the company is now valued at over $50 billion, the stakes are quite high. Ceglia says that he hired Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in 2003....
A.A. v. Needville Indep. Sch. Dist., No. 09-20091, involved an action by a Native American boy and his parents challenging a school district’s requirement that he wear his long hair in a bun on top of his head or in a braid tucked into his shirt. The court of appeals affirmed judgment for plaintiff, holding that the restriction violated the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act because plaintiff demonstrated a sincere religious belief in wearing his hair uncovered and visibly long....
Scooters are hitting some expensive road blocks, this time for allegedly violating disability laws. A disability rights group has sued e-scooter companies, including Bird and Lime, in San Diego. The lawsuit claims the vehicles are dangerous to people with physical disabilities. The companies are already facing class-actions for accidents and injuries to everybody else. It was only a matter of time before the scooters tripped over disability liability. Disability Liability In Montoya v....
Let’s face it, attorneys are not the most popular people in the world. That’s why there are so many jokes about us. So when it comes time to list your home office address for the state bar or on your business website, is it a good idea for an attorney to list his real address? The lawyerly answer of “it depends” applies to this question as well. There are some obvious benefits to listing your real address....
One of the world’s largest law firms has stopped performance reviews, at the same time leading the way against evaluations that have disfavored women in the past. Allen & Overy, a London-based firm with more than 2,800 attorneys worldwide, piloted a program last October to dialogue with employees rather than formally appraise them. It started at offices in London, Singapore, and the Middle East, but the firm will expand the program to more offices this year....
FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the internet. Social networking on the Internet no doubt is the current and perhaps future Big Thing. But how confident are social networkers that their privacy is protected? Not so much, according to a recent Marist Poll. Indeed, the poll indicates that 23% are “very concerned” and another 27% are “concerned” about their social networking privacy....
Aaron Swartz, a famous Internet activist and computer programmer, committed suicide Friday. He was 26. In Silicon Valley, it seems that everyone has a story about how Aaron influenced one of their projects. But while Aaron will be remembered for developing the RSS standard and his contributions to Reddit, he also left his mark on the legal world. But Aaron didn’t limit his efforts to break through web-based paywalls to federal case law....
