The Disassociate has some pretty funny lawyer greeting cards. Of course, I can't mention lawyer products without mentioning tortfeasor - still going strong.... more

There may be no end to humorous legal opinions / motions / briefs or my enjoyment thereof. Here's a court-ordered lunch [pdf] (via Law Geek) and (unrelated) a notice of appeal [pdf].... more

The US District Court for the Middle District of Florida today announced "a new form of alternative dispute resolution" namely, a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. The game will decide who picks the location of a deposition hearing. The location... more

Another embarrassing lawyer email has been leaked to my inbox (as well as hundreds of others) and ultimately, to the press. In this exchange, a 2004 graduate declines a job offer by burning a bridge, and she just keeps throwing... more

In this week's USA v. Murphy opinion from the Seventh Circuit, the court affirmed a conviction of the trial court but corrected the lower court's spelling of the word "ho" as used in the phrase "snitch bitch ho". The first... more

My Note on potential FTC regulation of paid search engine listings [pdf] has finally been published. I wrote this two years ago, but due to snail pace publishing it is just now coming out. Technology moves faster than that, but... more

The Software Freedom Law Center launched today. The Center will offer pro-bono legal services to open source software developers. It has an impressive Board of Directors and has been funded initially by Open Source Development Labs ("home to Linus Torvalds,... more

Martin Schwimmer has asked bloglines to remove his rss feed from their service, citing copyright violations and then explaining further. This opened a can of worms as to how legal, technological, and social regulations should affect rss feeds. I don’t... more

Foley Hoag Partner John Welch reports on last week’s TTAB decision to deny trademark registration of the mark "A**HOLE" "on the ground that [it] comprises immoral or scandalous matter." The applicant argued that a**hole doesn’t just refer to a detestable... more

Google got a court victory yesterday with respect to the machine-readable use of competing trademarks in contextual targeted online advertisements. I’ve been interested in this concept because the mark is never seen by the consumer (that’s the yet unresolved part... more

There’s a lot of buzz around this decision (full pdf opinion – see pages 12-14) to allow archived web pages from archive.org into federal court, overcoming hearsay and authentication objections. This doesn’t seem very surprising to me, but I’m often... more

Check out this sentence from a recent job listing: "Justices reiew work for technical accuracy."... more

The Trademark Blog reports on the September 13 Gateway v. Companion products 8th Circuit decision [pdf] in which Gateway prevailed in protecting their cow-theme trade dress from infringement by Companion’s product: a cow stuffed animal that stretches around one’s computer... more

The 9th Circuit’s Judge Kozinski has been known for writing the more colorful of legal opinions. My first exposure to Kozinski’s writing was Andrews v. United Airlines: We are called upon to determine whether United Airlines took adequate measures to... more

We’ve been reviewing torts for three days in my BarBri bar review class with Professor Robert Schechter from George Washington. Professor Schechter is greatly entertaining, and in today’s lecture he covered product’s liability and the warning labels that can help... more

Not every business can afford to promote their products with excessive branding of all their packaging. This is the reason that many Asian restaurants in my neighborhood use a generic “Delicious Chinese Food” box despite that it’s contents are not... more

My first published article reaches the printed page this week. You can now read the pdf version online. The article is intended to be an update on third party pop-up advertising litigation that has now become a widespread legal issue.... more

As the trademark dispute between Windows and Lindows rolls on, hundreds of law students are becoming JDs. What is a school like Boston University teaching their graduates about changing the first letter of a famous mark? Check out this bottle... more

A few days ago I reported on the launch of lexBlog, a new service for helping lawyers to establish blogs. To me lexBlog’s value is that it gives non-technical lawyers access to an online presence. David Giacalone read a little... more

lexBlog is a new company from Kevin O'Keefe that hopes make blogging accessible to all lawyers. Judging by their site, it’s a service aimed at non-techy lawyers to help them develop blogs as marketing tools. The idea seems to be... more

Google has announced a change in its advertising policy and will now be allowing advertisers to bid on placement for trademark protected terms. They’re not allowing advertisers to use others’ trademarks in the ads themselves, but rather in the machine... more

My opinion on Holding Names Hostage is available today over on De Novo as part of their symposium on Internet, Law, & Culture. Comments on that topic should be posted at De Novo.... more

I was able to obtain a copy of Lawrence Lessig’s new book this weekend in Amsterdam. I had thought of all sorts of schemes to see how quickly I could get a copy of the book from the states, assuming... more

I am now taking suggestions regarding how I should spend the $13.86 I recently received in this class action settlement. Use the comments link to make a suggestion.... more

If you haven’t heard, there’s a big copyright protest going on today regarding a certain remix album that juxtaposes the Beatles’ White Album with JayZ’s Black Album – thus making a Grey Album. I’m pulled in both directions on this... more

Rebecca Bolin is writing a series of posts about spam regulation in various countries over at Law Meme. It’s a mini-series of Spam Around the World. I have something interesting about foreign spam to share too, but it’ll have to... more

Microsoft sues 17 year old Mike Roe (Soft). Everyone loves to hate Microsoft but I don’t see what’s wrong with trying to protect one of the strongest trademarks in history. WebmasterWorld has an interesting, but rather uninformed, discussion. Mike Roe... more

There was a comment about the Lexis points that compared them to the famous Harrier Jet case. The story goes like this: Pepsi made a television commercial advertising their Pepsi Points promotion. As consumers collected Pepsi Points, they could turn... more

A few months ago, a partner at Paul Weiss ate some bad sushi. She gave a paralegal the assignment of researching the sushi restaurants in the area and reporting back. What followed was a formally written three-page memo, complete with... more

As I write this there are Red Sox fans in my street hootin’ and hollerin’ in celebration of tonight’s victory. I don’t know if those in other cities have been privy to the “Cowboy Up” phrase that has become an... more

This is an actual job listing, with certain details omitted. Read carefully: If you are interested this, please e-mail your resume, no later than Friday, October 3, 2003 by 5:00 eastern standard time. This October 3, date only applies to... more

I went down to the Fish & Richardson’s “What you need to know about the law & business of Media & Entertainment” seminar this morning (pdf). It was a good review of copyright and trademark with a lot of great... more

Oyez is distributing Supreme Court oral arguments and oral opinions over the web! I might spend a lot of time listening to these (I’ve always been a aural learner) . . . if I could actually get them to play... more

Yesterday I stated a theory that poor legal writing (in transactions) is the result of negotiation rather than tradition. What if contracts weren’t written with words, but rather, with symbols? At the bottom of this page is the Creative Commons... more

During my first year of law school I was told of a new movement in legal writing. Apparently legal writing contained all sorts of legal jargon, redundancy, and a general lack of clarity. The movement is to fix this by... more

I honestly believe that foosball increases productivity. Who, stereotypically, has foosball tables in their offices? That’s right: programmers. And what do programmers do all day? They stare at computer screens and write arguments. The lawyer’s mind might work slightly differently,... more

Yesterday, the California Supreme Court decided that the doctrine of trespass to the chattels did not apply to spam emails. At first glance, it looked to me like the trespass to the chattels theory had lost a lot of ground... more

There was a lot of court activity today, but instead of focusing on these serious US decisions, I’m going to bring your attention to a rather silly decision from the fifty-first state: The United Kingdom apparently has some stronger copyright... more

Explore the rise and fall of the GIF patent. The patent expired yesterday, so we’re all free to create GIF files without paying royalties (Never paid a royalty? Me neither, but the makers of software that creates GIFs probably did.)... more

Another thing I found interesting about the playing cards spam outbreak was the copyright implications. The original decks were Federal government work, and thus were not protected under copyright law. However, muhahahaha, it turns out that the government used commercial... more

Today I’m officially launching a project I’ve been working on: tortfeasor.com. The website is just a place to buy tortfeasor t-shirts. Basically I wanted to make up some tortfeasor shirts, but I wanted quality (none of this iron-on stuff). This,... more

Lawrence Lessig has proposed that someone propose a statute to charge copyright holders $1 per year beyond the first 50 years to maintain their copyright. This would mitigate some of the loss of public domain works to the copyright term... more

“Their job is part telemarketing, part chauffeuring you to lawyers and doctors, and a lot of hustle.” Apparently Washington DC has found a way to actually merge the telemarketing and legal professions! (via metafilter)... more

File sharing issues have seen a lot of developments recently. Last week, the RIAA unveiled software that instant messages users to let them know they are infringing. This followed shortly after a California District Court found that the popular file-sharing... more

EPIC has announced its privacy threat index “to track the growing threat to privacy resulting from the expansion of government surveillance.” (pr) (via Life, Law, Libido) One cool thing about this is that the image is hosted at EPIC, so... more

Fans of the band Creed (muhahaha) are bring a class-action suit against the band for failing to “substantially perform” when the lead singer “was so intoxicated and/or medicated that he was unable to sing the lyrics of a single Creed... more

I just a read a footnote to a case that reads, “The combination of detergent and chlorine bleach is called ‘la bomba’ in Puerto Rico.” Clorox Co., Puerty Rico v. Procter & Gamble Commercial Co. 228 F.3d 24 (1st Cir.... more

Kevin Heller offers some legal analysis of the Puma BJ advertisement controversy. Puma won't embrace the consumer interest, but Nick Denton will. (via Nick Denton / Gawker)... more

Google attempts to prevent genericide by asking Word Spy to cease defining “google” as a verb. For those not familiar with the word “genericide”, just google it. Check out the third result for an accurate description: the word spy.... more

How popular is your favorite number – and why? I’ve recently learned that numbers, like abbreviations, can be protected under the Lanham Act (trademark protection). Of course, like any trademark, we have to look at the mark in relation to... more

David Galbraith points out the irony of the “Creative Commons” trademark application. I’ve been heavily immersed in the study of trademark law lately. I’m taking Intellectual Property and Trademarks this semester. The fact that the former includes the latter resulted... more

Illegal Art says, "Rooted in the U.S. Constitution, copyright was originally intended to facilitate the exchange of ideas but is now being used to stifle it." I don't think the Constitution actually allows congress to promote the exchange of ideas:... more

The new "Crispy Crepes" restaurant has opened in my neighborhood. We've been waiting for a long time. I used to pass the location every day on the way to school, and now we have another quality eating establishment in the... more

Finally, my computer is working again. A few months ago my power supply started getting really hot, and the computer would eventually shut down on its own. Recently, "eventually" has been about half-an-hour, which is just enough time to start... more

The Contracts exam is now over. It was as difficult as expected so keep your fingers crossed for me. By the time I get the grade it will probably be long forgotten, but then I can pick up my bluebook... more

Lawrence Lessig gave a presentation at BU Law today for our annual "Distinguished Lecture". Luckily, my Constitutional Law professor was losing his voice and let the class out an unprecedented 15 minutes early. This allowed me to catch Professor Lessig's... more