A few interesting posts (here and here) on social networks at David Bollier’s On the Commons blog.

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Below, Mike posted On Designing the Network, which referred favorably to Susan Crawford’s post, Network neutrality v. platform competition. I want to respond, mainly to Susan’s post and I am not sure a comment would suffice.

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The Supreme Court granted review today in LabCorp v. Metabolite. The case turns on the scope of what processes are patentable, and what processes are not, under section 101 of the Patent Act. Dennis Crouch has already put up a thorough post about the case at the Patently-O blog, one of my daily [...]

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Today’s mail brings offprints and a cover letter from Paul Heald (Georgia). I quote the letter, in its entirety:
“Please find enclosed two recent publications guaranteed to change your life forever!”

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Yesterday, Larry Ribstein offered a fascinating analysis of numerous of Judge Samuel Alito’s opinions in business law cases. Dave Hoffman, from his new berth at Concurring Opinions, has already followed up with some additional analysis of one of the securities cases Larry describes.
Intrigued by Larry’s method, I searched for Judge Alito’s opinions in intellectual [...]

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Susan Crawford has a typically insightful post about the role of competition in communications law, and how competition policy may be more important than norms of network design (end-to-end, for example) in the policy battles to come.
As I’ve written before, who-gets-to-design-the-network is the grand theme that links contemporary telecomm and other information law debates. It’s [...]

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The Google Print cases pique my interest, not least because I study and teach i.p. law. Mike, Siva, and others have offered sharp insights and comments about Google Print and the cases. Mike’s two posts, one on the common law method and one on narrating Plamegate, helped crystallize a few of my thoughts [...]

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My son looked up from the newspaper the other day and asked me to explain the indictment of the Vice President’s chief of staff. As I narrated the connection between the war in Iraq, Joseph Wilson, and the Bush Administration, I couldn’t help but conclude that I was reciting a version of Jonathan [...]

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Beth Noveck posts some interesting reflections on reading Fred Schauer’s recent piece, The Failure of the Common Law (36 Ariz. St. L.J. 765 (2004)). Schauer argues, descriptively, that the common law really isn’t so superior after all, since it relies on faith in a certain set of customary social patterns, and the growing particularization [...]

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Greetings to Madisonian Theory regulars! I’m honored to join Mike and Brett, making the transition from loyal reader to novice contributor.

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Below, I promised a more thoughtful response to Siva Vaidhyanathan’s recent posting about the virtues and vices of relying on Google to represent fair use in the context of Google Print.
Siva is suspicious of allowing Google to carry the fair use banner, when an authentic Library (capital L!) would be far, far better. Stripped [...]

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Jennifer Granick has a nice piece, Don’t Let Fear Kill Muni Wi-Fi , arguing that we should not let fear kill municipal provision of low-cost or free wireless internet access. Like Jennifer , I agree that the time has come to think of internet access as a public infrastructure that in some cases [...]

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Brett and I are delighted to note that Joe Miller, who teaches intellectual property law at Lewis & Clark Law School, is joining us as a regular member of the blog. Joe is coming off a recent stint as a guest blogger at Conglomerate.
Joe’s primary academic interest is patent law, and he’s written [...]

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Joe Liu asks whether casebooks will die and be replaced by a purely electronic casebook, and in the comments, Matt Bodie refers to an article he wrote on the topic — the article is forthcoming in the Journal of Legal Education and is available online. I agree with Matt and Dan that a [...]

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Siva has this teaser of a post on Google and Google Print:
Please remember that this company is unaccountable to everyone but its shareholders. It depends on things like DRM, trade secrets, proprietary code, vague privacy pledges, and non-disclosure agreements to make this project happen. How can I cheer this on?
Look, the more fair-use friendly [...]

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A bibliography of selected electronic works about Google Print that are freely available on the Internet.

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When the Copyright Clearance Center/Blackboard deal was announced recently, I posted a glib, cynical observation about what it means for fair use. Tarleton Gillespie has gone me one better, with a succinct explanation in Inside Higher Ed of why this is a bad deal for copyright.
First, it’s a bad deal because it reduces copyright [...]

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Last Friday, I was the designated “legal implications” speaker at a University of Pittsburgh conference on Technology and Aging. The conference kicked off with a keynote by Eric Dishman of Intel, who gave a rousing talk about the coming move from the “mainframe model” of health care delivery (for all your health care needs, [...]

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Under the sponsorship of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, known as RSA, a group of high-profile academicians and activists recently released something called the “Adelphi Charter on creativity, innovation and intellectual property.”
From the Charter’s homepage:
The Charter sets out new principles for copyrights and patents, and calls on governments to [...]

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The Yale Law Journal now supplements its print edition with an online Pocket Part. What a nice idea! The Pocket Part provides a shortened version of YLJ articles along with commentary and the capacity for readers to post comments and develop a dialogue. This takes advantage of the Internet medium in a [...]

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