Denise Howell is a seasoned appellate and intellectual property litigator based in Los Angeles. Denise writes one of the first and most popular law-related blogs, Bag and Baggage, coined the term "blawg" and helped pioneer podcasting for lawyers. Microcontent obsessed since 2001, she is frequently quoted in the media on legal issues involving intellectual property and technology law. "Sound Policy" is Denise's show at IT Conversations, and it's also what she hopes results from the briefs she submits to court. Email Denise at dhowell@gmail.com.
Dennis Kennedy is a computer lawyer and legal technology expert based in St. Louis, Missouri. An award-winning author, a frequent speaker and a widely-read blogger, he has more than 300 publications on legal, technology and Internet topics, many of which are collected in his e-books. Dennis has been described as someone who knows almost every rock song in existence and, more importantly, how they apply to technology and law. Email Dennis at his gmail address.
Tom Mighell is Senior Counsel and Litigation Technology Support Coordinator at Cowles & Thompson in Dallas. He has published the Internet Legal Research Weekly newsletter since 2000 and blogged about the Internet and legal technology at Inter Alia since August of 2002. With Tom's singing, Ernie on guitar and Dennis' encylopedic knowledge of rock music, we may have the beginnings of a good band, if this whole blog thing doesn't work out. Email Tom at tmighell@swbell.net.
Marty Schwimmer left a partnership in the largest trademark practice in the world and founded Schwimmer Mitchell, a full-service IP micro-boutique in Westchester County, New York, where he represents owners of famous and not yet famous trademarks. He founded The Trademark Blog, the first IP law blog and the one with the most pictures. He is the first to come in and the last to leave in his firm. Email Marty at marty@schwimmerlegal.com.
Ernest Svenson practices law with a mid-sized law firm in New Orleans, specializing in business-related lawsuits. Most of his practice takes place in federal court, especially the Eastern District. He is best known for his weblog Ernie the Attorney, which he started as an experiment. Like many experiments it got out of control. Nevertheless, he continues to practice law and, occasionally,
to seek enlightenment. Email Ernest at esvenson@gmail.com.
About this blog
Between Lawyers provides just-in-time group commentary on the issues
raised when technology, culture and the law intersect. We take you
behind the firewalls and conference room doors to show you how
experienced lawyers deal with these issues and help you prepare for
the new challenges we all face. For more, see our introductory post.
So, in technology, Moore’s Law is alive and well. But technology does not operate in a vacuum. No business or government institution can change at 50 per cent a year. While stability and tradition are important, if a fundamental technology progresses far beyond society’s ability to absorb its impacts, a growing disconnection occurs. When, in the 19th century, technology proceeded at a rapid pace while social institutions did not, the results were upheavals and revolutions. Today, again, the key elements of the information economy are progressing at a scorching rate, while private and public institutions are lagging behind.
But, here's the money quote that lawyers those in the tech world should meditate on:
In businesses, competitive pressures lead to a speed-up of internal processes or companies fail. But for government the same is not true, even with globalisation. Courts can take years to resolve disputes. Regulators and legislators require years to establish rules. There is an entire industry out there, the main product of which is delay.
Some of the problems of these decision processes are inherent and based on the need to balance social objectives. But others could be remedied. In the US, the delay in courts could be alleviated by tripling the number of judges. Compared with the overall cost of government, judges are cheap. So are patent examiners. Streamlining administrative law, simplifying the appeals process or creating mandatory arbitration mechanisms should not be expensive. The economic benefits would be incalculable.
One needs focus not just on policy substance but also on its process – the small but constant frictions in the mechanism of government that grind down innovation and threaten to repeal Moore’s Law where physics could not.
Noam makes an interesting observation about patents and patent offices: "Patent offices everywhere are falling behind their workload. It may soon take more than five years to get a patent in the US."
Are we already seeing the symptoms of the increasing pace of the pace of change that Kurzweill has called the coming Singularity?
In other patent news, on Slashdot, ScuttleMonkey points to an article on The Register, based on research from a company that provides proofreading and other services, that says:
Almost every US patent contains at least one mistake, according to new research. The vast majority are trivial errors, most of them the fault of the USPTO; but two per cent of the patents examined were found to contain serious mistakes that weakened the core claims.
In the kind of story that fuels the general level of suspicion many people have about advice from huge consulting firms, I saw that CNET has an article called "Gartner's advice: Halt BlackBerry deployments" that makes the usual advice you get from lawyers seem clear and concise.
I can't resist quoting:
The research note advises enterprises to "stop or delay all mission-critical BlackBerry deployments and investments in the platform until RIM's legal position is clarified," because "U.S. BlackBerry users would lose messaging services...and international users would lose message service while traveling in the U.S."
However, Gartner expects the two companies to reach a settlement within three weeks because an agreement would be "in both companies' interests."
There is a possibility that RIM could bypass the patent dispute by deploying a workaround, but Gartner said this path could be "highly problematic."
"RIM claims its workaround is legally sound, but its history in the courts does not inspire confidence. Moreover, end-user validation and implementation would take time, resulting in a temporary loss of service," the research note said.
Gartner advises enterprises "not to sign any agreements that could involve them in the RIM-NTP dispute" and "demand that RIM discloses its workaround plans."
If RIM deployments are not mission-critical, Gartner said, enterprises could take no action for the moment but rather "assess the potential impact of operation outages of unknown duration."
I believe that advice covers every possible side of this issue and hedges every bet.
In fairness, I read only the article and not the full research report.
Perhaps this is the best summary of the report:
"If you read it closely, we're telling people to sort of take a break here and wait until this case settles within two to three weeks," Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney told Reuters.
Of course, if you expect the case to settle, as everyone seems to believe these days, why report that the sky is falling?
Doug Soroccounpacks the Microsoft/Apple/iPod interface patent hype: "[F]olks need to do their research and understand the issues. If the claims don't cover it - it doesn't infringe." Ahh, that's better!
Law student podcaster Darryl Fallin sent me the link to this story on Groklaw: Hey, This First To File Thing Is Scary. I'd love to see some commentary on this from the patent blawgers out there, like the folks at RethinkIP and Dennis Crouch. I understand there may be some misinformation about the "iPod interface" patent bubbling out from the coverage and commentary (see, er, hear TWiT#18 for more; by the way, Lulu sounds very cool), and I'd like to know more about the pending Patent Act of 2005 (conveniently enough, J. Matthew Buchanan has a post topic designed to help out in that regard).
If you know of anyone offering informed insights on the Microsoft/Apple/iPod story, and/or the proposed legislation, please comment and enlighten us.
Denise Howell
Dennis M. Kennedy
Tom Mighell
Marty Schwimmer
Ernest Svenson
