Geoff Manne, at TOTM, highlights a brilliant, funny, and sad story about the wikimortification practiced by Hill staffers on behalf of their bosses.
UPDATE: A Declan McCullah story here and a Wenger post at CoOp here.

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Rosa Brooks recently kicked up some fine discussion at LawCulture (with this post) about writing for law reviews, contrasting it with writing for other types of publishing outlets. Her post sparked reactions at PrawfsBlawg (from Ethan Leib, Paul Horwitz, and Mark Fenster) and Concurring Opinions (from Dan Solove). And she followed up with [...]

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On Monday, the Times of London carried this story about the Holy See’s decision to use Vatican copyright law to cover official papal statements and documents.
The story reports: “For the first time all papal documents, including encyclicals, will be governed by copyright invested in the official Vatican publishing house, the Libreria Editrice Vaticana.”
Interestingly, the new [...]

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My friend and colleague, Geoff Manne, has helped launch a new group business law blog, Truth on the Market. Check it out!

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Perhaps it’s appropriate, in light of our trademarky posts, to float some trial balloons here about possible new name for the AALS Section on Intellectual Property Law. At last week’s annual meeting, the question was raised, “Should we change our section name?”
I am content with the current name. At the same time, on [...]

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All I can say, looking at the “a” in the new Kodak logo is, “What the schwa?”

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Earlier today, the Supreme Court of the United States asked the Solicitor General to file a brief opining on the merits of a request for review in a patent case about the antidepressant drug known as Paxil. (This is known as a CVSG, or “call for the views of the Solicitor General,” in the [...]

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An interesting bit of news about Skype and Netgear’s soon-to-launch WiFi phone, from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas:
“Networking products maker Netgear and wireless calling provider Skype on Wednesday unveiled the first Wi-Fi phone designed to work on the internationally popular voice over IP service.
The so-called Wi-Fi phone, which will allow Skype users to [...]

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c|net reports the latest from Massachusetts:
“Massachusetts remains committed to using desktop software based on ‘open standards’ despite the departure of Peter Quinn, the state’s chief information officer and main architect of the policy. … The current technical blueprint, published in September, calls for the state to use OpenDocument-based productivity suites. OpenDocument is a standard created [...]

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Matt Bodie, at PrawfsBlawg, has kicked off a highly worthy project about peer-review law journals. According to Matt, he’ll “be taking a sample of such journals and exploring a bit more about who they are and what they do.”
As they say, read the whole thing. And send some 4-1-1 Matt’s way!

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Another story from the Star-Ledger, as I continue my New Jersey visit … This time, about a coffee blend created five years ago, for Judge Alito, called “Judge Alito’s Bold Justice Blend.” Seems that one of his law clerks, getting a birthday gift for the Judge, created the blend, and it stuck. The [...]

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I agree with Gordon’s Smith’s assessment, over at Conglomerate, that Intel’s new logo leaves quite a bit to be desired. (An ABC story has another version of the new logo.) The typeface is, as Gordon notes, a bit retro … and not in a good way. The rounding off of the letters [...]

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In the wake of the mid-December revelations of the NSA’s domestic surveillance program (and here’s the latest, reporting that Deputy Attorney General James Comey refused to approve certain aspects of the program), I have found Marty Lederman’s and Jack Balkin’s many posts at Balkinization to be especially illuminating and provocative.
In a more reflective post yesterday, [...]

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I’m visiting family in New Jersey. The local paper is the Star-Ledger, on line at nj.com. Yesterday, the paper carried two interesting stories about a New Jersey Supreme Court tradition about which I was unaware … namely, that no more than four of the seven justices of the court should be from the [...]

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I first encountered Language Log through the roll on this blog. I confess that, even for a lawprof, I have an above-average interest in language questions. Language is, of course, central to law, both generally (e.g., interpretation methods for texts as varied as contracts and constitutions) and in the i.p. realm (e.g., distinctiveness [...]

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Way to get things hopping again, Mike! Nothing like a post about “Hooters” to draw attention …
Teaching aesthetic functionality is one of my favorite bits of the IP Survey class. The concept fairly demands use of one of the most vivid and memorable examples in the whole class … the question of color [...]

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Today’s New York Times contains this engaging story about an antitrust suit against the leading bar review course provider, BAR/BRI. It’s worth a read.
UPDATE 1: Ethan Leib, at Prawfsblawg, makes an intriguing point about a possible upside of the dominance of BAR/BRI test prep materials – namely, that near-universal use of the materials [...]

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Some excellent interviewing advice for lawprof wannabes, over at Prof. Leiter’s law-related blog.

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The Supreme Court granted review today in the eBay v. MercExchange case. This case is a blockbuster, focused on the basic standards for injunctive relief, after a finding of infringement, in a patent case.
The question petitioner eBay framed is as follows: “Whether the Federal Circuit erred in setting forth a general rule in [...]

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An interesting story in this morning’s New York Times, discussing the Harvard University Library’s participation in Google Book Search. Library Director Sidney Verba features heavily in the piece, and he sees the project from a number of perspectives – library director, published author, and former board chairman at Harvard University Press.

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