Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Posts Tagged ‘technology’

“How the patent trolls won in Congress”

Sen. Harry Reid seems to have been central:

“We felt really good the last couple of days,” said the tech lobbyist. “It was a good deal—one we could live with. Then the trial lawyers and pharma went to Senator Reid late this morning and said that’s it. Enough with the children playing in the playground—go kill it.”…

Trial lawyers are heavy donors to Democratic politicians, including Reid. … The long history of the divide over other kinds of legal tort reform loomed over the bill, which was dubbed the Innovation Act in the House. The fact that it was the trial lawyers’ lobby that reportedly delivered the death blow suggests that the rift only got wider as debate dragged on.

Key Litigation Lobby allies like Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) spoke out against the legislation on the Senate floor. [Joe Mullin, ArsTechnica]

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SCOTUS to consider software patents

More clarity, or even deeper confusion? The Supreme Court has agreed to revisit software patents in the case of Alice Corp. v. CLS International. “A system of property rights is flawed if no one can know what’s protected. That’s what happens when the government grants 20-year patents for vague software ideas in exchange for making the innovation public.” [Gordon Crovitz, WSJ, quoted at Marginal Revolution; Daniel Fisher, Forbes]

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Tech roundup

  • Far-reaching, little-discussed new regulation: Stewart Baker on NIST rules mandating cybersecurity at private enterprises [Volokh; first, second, third, fourth posts]
  • “Ominous Developments on the Internet Governance Front” [David Post]
  • “The Exaggeration Of The Cyberbullying Problem Is Harming Anti-Bullying Efforts” [Tim Cushing, TechDirt]
  • “Will California’s New Data Breach Notification Duty Stimulate Class Action Litigation?” [Glenn Lammi, WLF]
  • Some thoughts on how the law should treat domestic drones, public and private [Kenneth Anderson]
  • Privacy lawsuit against Gmail could do a lot of damage [Mike Masnick, TechDirt; Matt Powers, CEI “Open Market”, parts one, two]
  • Warning: more efforts ahead from legal academia to come up with stringent liability schemes for software makers [New Republic and Lawfare]

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“Bitcoin Foundation Receives Cease And Desist Order From California”

“California’s Department of Financial Institutions [has] decided to issue a cease and desist warning to … Bitcoin Foundation for allegedly engaging in the business of money transmission without a license or proper authorization…. As a nonprofit, [the Foundation’s] mission is to standardize and promote the open source Bitcoin protocol … One activity that the foundation does not engage in is the owning, controlling, or conducting of money transmission business.” [Jon Matonis, Forbes]

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3-D printing: the legal dimension

The remarkable recent advances in make-it-yourself technology are opening up all sorts of new possibilities for users, but also have the potential to freak out the CPSC, FDA, trade agencies and intellectual property lawyers, as well as gun-control advocates. When products extruded from local printers are inevitably involved in injuries, which distant parties can be sued? [Bloomberg]

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