Larry Lessig has actually written code, and has a very keen grasp of all of the broad contours of intellectual property law. He says the current patent law system is in need of an overhaul. On the other hand, Richard Epstein has a firm grasp of the law, but admits he has no technical skills. Epstein offers this sidenote in his rebuttal of Lessig's argument:
"I claim no technical expertise in the software that operates under the hood of my computer. But for these purposes ignorance is a kind of bliss, for it is quite evident as I sit working away on my OS X by Apple that it represents a major advance in convenience, versatility and power that could not have taken place if strong intellectual property rights had Balkanised the intellectual universe."
Okay, admittedly, you don't need to be an engineer to understand the need for a system that rewards innovation (i.e. a patent law system). But you don't need to be a big shot intellectual property lawyer to know that a system that awards patents on swings and recognizes "business method" patents is in need of overhaul, and not simply tweaking, as Epstein suggests.
Nevertheless, we're going to give Epstein style points for using a Macintosh with OSX. Sorry, no parting gifts, because of the budget tightening that inevitably precedes military invasion.
Need a site with nothing but information about blogging? Looking for a good book on blogging? Well then Blogging News is the ticket. RSS feed? But of course.
6:16:36 PM
New York Sun: "Walter Olson, a 48 year old senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, has spent most of his career examining, bemoaning, and wagging his finger at what he sees as our legal system’s greatest flaws." Indeed he has. And God bless him for it.
6:05:31 PM
Marty Schwimmer, trademark lawyer & consumate law blogger has a post entitled Slave to Google about the cat-and-mouse game between Google and those who seek to "game" Google in order to boost their rankings.
Here's another Google tidbit: what do you call the fervent obsession with boosting your Google rating? My friend Steve Covell has termed this fanaticism "greenlining" which comes from the little green bar that is in the Google toolbar. If you have the toolbar installed in your browser it will show you the Google ranking of the page that is currently displayed in your browser. Not surprisingly, Google tends to like blogs.
Democracy is a great thing (how's that for a powerful opening platitude?), but lately some people have started to wonder if it isn't suffering from iron-poor blood. Perhaps we need to rethink our framework. Joi Ito's post about Emergent Democracy was one effort to jump-start a discussion about this topic. And now we have Adam Greenfield with a weighty sounding proposal: The minimal compact: on open source constitution for post-national states.
While Adam offers a lengthy document with a lofty name, he doesn't pretend to be preaching from the pulpit. Instead he is hoping to ignite a discussion, or as he puts it:
Go 'head and shoot holes in it: I'm not a constitutional lawyer, nor do I play one on TV. The ideas proposed herein may well not stand up to extended inspection, which is OK with me. Think of this, then, as a public beta, offered only as a conversation starter.
So cruise on by and join the conversation. It can't hurt. Just people who care about how things should be trading ideas, which is the sort thing that Jefferson and Madison were really into when they were revolutionizing the world.
Jurist over at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law is a great site that, among other things, lists legal weblogs and has a news page called Paper Chase. And here's the really good news: the Paper Chase page is available as an XML feed. I've added it to the list of law blog sites with XML feeds, and I encourage you to check it out.
10:03:30 AM
