Tag Archive for 'US'

Lessig finally wins a case!

Published on 5 September 2007 in copyright. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Geeklawyer is a great admirer of Professor Lessig, particularly after his battering in the Eldred case when he was, manifestly, right. Unfortunately courts are occasionally wrong on the facts the law the policy, or even all three.

So it was nice to see the 10th Circuit ruling for him for once and against the US Government. He contended that the US implementation of the Uraguay Round of GATT allowed works in the public domain to be brought back into copyright protection. Along with a change to an opt-in copyright system (used almost everywhere else in the World) the changes changed the contours of US copyright law and thus triggered a First Amendment review.

Previously the public could do anything they pleased with the unprotected work. The court said that the infringement defence of Fair Use
and the doctrine of the Idea/Expression dichotomy did not do anything to address the loss of rights of use.

Sadly, like many US decisions, this one is unlikely to find much traction in UK cases as persuasive precedent and our public domain is also under attack.

There’s a doings over at the USPTO

Published on 24 July 2007 in Intellectual Property, patents, trademarks and wage slaves. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

And about frigging time too.

Frank Schilling on his blog reveals that three patent lawyers are suing the US Department of Commerce over their appointment of Margaret Peterlin who is, they say, ‘unqualified’ to be the head of the USPTO.

For geeks like Geeklawyer this sorta matters. US IP policy is a controversial area and its competence is questionable. If it were confined to the US it wouldn’t matter a whole lot (actually it would), but with IP assuming a greater role in US global commercial policy and with neo-con willingness to impose democracy on the disobedient lesser nations, it matters a lot. A whole bunch of matters a lot.

The USPTO has significant problems. It has a staff turnover that would alarm MacDonalds, the place is a sweatshop and the staff demoralised. They can’t seem to recruit people, recruit the right people, hang on to them when they do nor provide a workable IT infrastructure. The pressure is on the hamsters to deal with vast swathes of patents by spinning the cage wheel at ever higher speeds.

As a consequence the quality of US patents is poorer than a $1000 Chinese Rolls-Royce knock-off. To be blunt: it’s a clusterfuck.

According to the piece:

Congress amended the Patent Act in 1999 to require that the Director and Deputy Director of the USPTO each have “professional experience and background in patent or trademark law”.

The suit was filed by Greg Aharonian, David Lentini, Steve Morsa and David Pressman. (Geeklawyer wonders if this is the same David Pressman who wrote a book called ‘How to File your Own Patent’? He has used this to draft a number of his US patent applications for clients. Profitable, but not what the author intended :lol: )

The broad allegation is that the huge problems at the USPTO stem from poor senior & mid level management and her appointment will, at the very least, not improve this. Geeklawyer has no idea if this is true or not but it would seem conceivable.

Peterlins background seems to be as a policy wonk to Congress on issues including IP but she doesn’t appear to be an IP lawyer as such. So it would seem the merits will hinge on whether policy experience qualifies as suitable professional experience under the Act. Geeklawyer guesses that it will. But anything that improves quality will be more than welcome. It’ll be quite welcome.

Geeklawyer in the Evil Empire

Published on 30 April 2007 in geeklawyer and this site. 25 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Geeklawyer is sitting in a small airport in the US. Bangor. It has three cows and a duck outside the main area. He is waiting for his Chauffeur to pick him up for a 5 hour drive. And where, having watched ‘Deliverance’, he expects to be required to perform oral services on the local rednecks. Fuck: where’s Ruthie when you really need her?

Still: at least he has a mobile phone + N800 whereby he can post blog entries. so if Geeklawyer screams in panic just tell the police to come to GPS coordinates:4580q2v oj ^*&V *&^O.

Oh. Fuck

brevity

Published on 29 March 2007 in litigation. 5 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Shortest decision ever! here it is in full:

Third District Court of Appeal
State of Florida, January Term, A.D. 2007

Opinion filed February 28, 2007.
Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.

________________

No. 3D06-2000
Lower Tribunal No. 99–20601
________________

Albert Russell Francis,
Petitioner,

vs.

The State of Florida,
Respondent.

An case of Original Jurisdiction – Ineffective Assistance of Appellate
Counsel.

Albert Russell Francis, in proper person.

Bill McCollum, Attorney General, and Angel L. Fleming, Assistant
Attorney General, for respondent.

Before RAMIREZ, ROTHENBERG, and LAGOA, JJ.

PER CURIAM.
Deny.

Indirectly via the Minor Wisdom blog.

477 GBP

Published on 4 March 2007 in Uncategorized. 2 Comments Tags: , , , .

No, not an example of this site’s latest upgraded spam protection system, nor a new password system to keep undesirables off the site and give it celebrity cache, but a random sum of money that Ruthie won at her last Rotary club meeting. (Ruthie would have written <pound sign> 477, but this computer was purchased in the States, where no currency other than the dollar is recognised.)

Ruthie is the first and only female member of her Rotary club, having joined to upset them, and stayed to be a continuing irritation, by not only being a woman, but also winning the raffle.

But Ruthie, being at heart a generous soul, has pledged the money to charity. If she can come up with a suitable international project, Rotary international will match the money from their fund. Ruthie is casting around for some bright ideas that will fire the interest of the 30 middle aged men that form the rest of her club, and wondered if any readers had any suggestions. 

Spam ICANN and private international law

Published on 11 October 2006 in crime and domains. 10 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Geeklawyer has a spammer for a client. For non-Geek lawyers to get the context: this is a bit like saying that one specialises in, and prefers, defending child molesters. Uncool.

The spammer in question is actually a rather decent chap and definitely at the uttermost bottom level of egregiousness: that is, he likes rubbing up against little girls on the bus but does no more — to labour the metaphor. Geeklawyer like the rest of us reviles spammers but understands the base motivation and qualifications of spamming. He would nonetheless slit the throats of nearly all of them so long as no witnesses were around.

Spamhaus is probably one of the more important Internet organisations today. It maintains a database of known spammers and allows subscribing ISPs to junk email based on where it originated from: that is the ISP asks the question ‘is the originator of this email on the Spamhaus spammer database’? If so the email gets junked before it hits your inbox. Given that it is estimated that 80–90% of email sent is spam Spamhaus represents a major impediment to the activities of Spammers. It is not on their Xmas card list. Indeed organised attempts to kill it range from technical denial of service attacks to legal attacks. Continue reading ‘Spam ICANN and private international law’

International Relations

Published on 3 September 2006 in waaaaay off-topic. 3 Comments Tags: , .

Ruthie is busy entertaining an American guest who is staying in her home all this week. This brave and hardy traveller has never previously been out of the US. (I’m sure the world would suffer far less bloodshed if Americans got out more.) Never before has Marmite, Branston Pickle and egg custard tarts generated so much fascination. If only Ruthie’s English friends were so easily entertained.

But Ruthie has a question for any American readers. Why is it that in the land of the free everyone dresses identically in khaki pants, T shirts and white sneakers and socks?

ego puffing VII

Published on 24 July 2006 in this site. 3 Comments Tags: , , , .

Despite all her bluster Ruthie has, deep down, always worried that she is simply on the blog to give Geeklawyer a legitimate reason to post a picture of a blonde bird in leathers. Doomed forever to be the froth to his cappuccino, the John Prescott to his Tony Blair, Ruthie is grateful for the chance to make herself useful by spotting a bit of spam or correcting a few typos.

How delighted she was then to get a mention along with the master himself on the US blog Ed’s world. The downside of course is that she is now publicly associated with Geeklawyer forever.

Extradition: Do not pass go do not collect 100 pounds

Published on 24 July 2006 in crime. 5 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .

Time was when Ruthie used to do some extradition. This was before the Extradition Act 2003 removed all discretion from the court. It’s now hardly worth the effort of picking up a pen such is the influence that a lawyer now has on the proceedings.

Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the current extradition arrangement we now have with the US. Pre 2003 Act the extraditing country was required to produce prima facie evidence, now the Americans merely have to provide details of the alleged crime and punishment, details of the offender and Bob’s your uncle (or maybe your co-conspirator in a multi-million dollar fraud).

A treaty arrangement created ostensibly to deal with terrorists in fact does not permit extradition of US citizens to the UK for “politically motivated crimes”. This is because the treaty has not been ratified by a US Senate mindful of the powerful Irish-American lobby.

To summarise: the US can extradite from the UK without producing prima facie evidence and unaffected by any “politically motivated” exemption. The UK faces a far higher evidential test to extradite from the US, and if the US courts deem the case to be politically motivated they can block extradition completely.

It may be regarded as somewhat ironic that a treaty created to deal with terrorists prevents extradition from the US for politically motivated crimes.

These issues have come to a head with the recent extradition of the Natwest 3 (or Enron 3 depending on your inclination — but do please remember they are innocent until proven guilty). It appears that the City has been somewhat rattled by the sight of three jolly good chaps being hauled off to Alcatraz in leg irons. Perhaps now some pressure might be brought to remedy this bizarre situation before some more hapless citizens get caught up in leglislation supposedly designed to protect us from terrorists.

Unfortunately it seems that the law designed to protect us from Them, is being used against Us.

BPI chasing UK filesharers

Published on 11 July 2006 in copyright, filesharing and licenses. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

As is usually the case, what happens first in the US eventually winds up coming across the Big Pond. So it was with suing filesharers and so it is with the record companies targeting the ISP. the BPI is saying to Bulldog and Tiscali that they should enforce their own T&Cs by cutting off Internet use to filesharers.

Geeklawyer agrees that filesharing is to some degree wrong but then it’s unlikely that any significant damage is suffered by the music industry. Indeed it isn’t at all clear it doesn’t help them by promoting artists and films. Some studies have indicated this while some, quoted by the music industry natch, say it damages them. Whatever.

Geeklawyer would say to the likes of Bulldog & Tiscali don’t put these provisions into your T&Cs!!! Let the BPI chase your clients. In any event there’s usually no proof that the customer is doing the filesharing rather than another resident in the household: a child relative flatmate etc.