The very picture of quaintness.
The ex-publisher of the WSJ, L. Gordon Crovitz, writes today under the title "The Antitrust Anachronism: When will technology's ever faster cycles of creative destruction spell the end of antitrust law?" He argues that the blazing speed of change in high tech renders the Sherman Act, well, quaint.
A panel of the Tenth Circuit today vacated the 72-month sentence Joseph P. Nacchio got for insider trading in the stock of Qwest Communications, where he served as CEO. The court held that the district court added too many months to the prison hitch by overstating Mr. Nacchio's "gain" from exercising stock options in April and May 2001.
Cartoon short producer Marlin "Ren" T. Hoek.
Blawgletter® sometimes thinks we live for opinions like one the Federal Circuit offered today.
How should we describe it? Kafka-esque doesn't quite get us there; too harsh. More like Ren Hoek-ey, we think.
The ruling dealt with a pet subject of the Federal Circuit — patent "
If you planned to argue a transfer motion to the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, you'd best start getting yourself to Portland, Oregon.
The JPML scheduled 16 motions — MDL Nos. 2067 through 2082 – in the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse from 9:30 a.m. until the arguments finish.
The session will include In re Citigroup
People who write patents walk a fine line. A broad claim increases the stuff that infringes, but it also raises the risk that the patent fails some test for validity. A Federal Circuit ruling today pointed up one of those invalidity rules.
A common way to claim broadly involves using "means-plus-function" language. The claim
Stephen Labaton lands on the front page of the Sunday NYT today with "Antitrust Chief Hits Resistance in Crackdown". He says tougher antitrust enforcement by the Department of Justice has ruffled feathers at "expert" agencies, regulate specific industries:
In some cases, though, the new approach is being opposed by administration officials. Some fear that the crackdown
Flag Telecom's stock price sank when its undersea cable business took a dive. The price dropped to the bottom. Verily, it slept with the fishes.
One group of stock buyers — let's call it Group A — overpays for a company's stock because the company – Flag Telecom – told a lie — which we'll name Lie A — that misled the market into
"TM", yes; "®", no.
Blawgletter's heart swells each time a court rules in line with what we think of as common sense. Today we almost popped a ventricle.
The Federal Circuit provided the cause. It held that the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board — a branch of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office — did not err in
The WSJ reports today that the American Arbitration Association has joined the National Arbitration Forum in saying it no longer shall tinker with the machinery of debt . . . collection.
At least until "some standards or safeguards are established", says the article, quoting an AAA spokesperson. Right.
The item says nothing about the common
A patent for refrigerator shelves — yes, refrigerators need patents, too! — called for a "relatively resilient" frame into which the glass part of the shelf snaps. The frame must "temporarily deflect[] to accommodate the glass". But the frame of the ones Saint-Gobain Corporation made came out of a mold hot, snapped onto the glass part