Innovation at The Daily Beast: Emily Brill Investigates Jonathan Zittrain - Harvard Law Prof

Innovation at The Daily Beast as Emily Brill investigatesJonathan Zittrain - Harvard Law Prof

EBay Sued for Patent Infringement OVER its Affiliates PayPal, Bill Me Later, Shopping.com and StubHub -- Video with Blooper

This is a follow-up to our previous posting at The post-Bilski Business Method Patent Hell Begins: eBay Sued for $3.8 Billion Patent Infringement re E-Commerce Payment Systems & Methods

EBay Sued for Patent Infringement (Note that the top title of this video is wrong in reading that "eBay was sued for patent infringement OF PayPal" - rather - it should read "patent infringement OVER PayPal". In fact, the defendants are eBay and eBay affiliates PayPal, Bill Me Later, Shopping.Com and StubHub.

See also

TradingMarkets.com

CNET

IKB's CEO Is Officially The First German To Get In Trouble For Allegedly Misleading Investors During The Crisis

IKB's CEO Is Officially The First German To Get In Trouble For Allegedly Misleading Investors During The Crisis: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

SEC: Goldman Sachs to Pay Record $550 Million to Settle SEC Charges Related to Subprime Mortgage CDO; 2010-123; Jul. 15, 2010

SEC: Goldman Sachs to Pay Record $550 Million to Settle SEC Charges Related to Subprime Mortgage CDO

SEC Statement on the Supreme Court's Decision in FEF v. PCAOB (Press Release No. 2010-111; June 28, 2010

SEC Statement on the Supreme Court's Decision in FEF v. PCAOB (Press Release No. 2010-111; June 28, 2010: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Delays Vote on Kagan because of Senatorial Delay Tactics out of a Different Era

JURIST - Paper Chase: Kagan committee vote delayed a week by Republican Senator

Our comment: it is a scandal that such poorly qualified people as the Senator responsbile for this delay are elected to the U.S. Congress.

The post-Bilski Business Method Patent Hell Begins: eBay Sued for $3.8 Billion Patent Infringement re E-Commerce Payment Systems & Methods

One of the things that Supreme Court Justices sometimes do not seem to understand is that a stupid decision on their part can have disastrous consequences for society, even though it may be a boon to the legal system in providing ever more work for the lawyers.

The ill-advised "business method patent OK" handed out by the majority in the SCOTUS Bilski case decision will surely engender a string of business method patent suits the likes of which the legal world has never seen before.

We refer here now to the Paper Chase at JURIST and a report by Ann Riley that eBay has been sued for $3.8 billion in a patent infringement case involving e-commerce payment systems and methods.

Details of the suit can be found in a July 13, 2010 Kelley Drye Press Release titled XPRT Files $3.8 Billion Lawsuit Against eBay Charging Patent Infringement and Misappropriation of Trade Secrets.

The gates of patent hell have been opened wide by the Supremes and now all business methods are fair game in the patent wars -- this is just the beginning.

The Economic Loss Rule as a Bar to Tort Action and the Possible Imposition of Punitive Damages

Kirk Jenkins at The Appellate Strategist posted in March 2010 about Keeping Tort Out of a Business Dispute: The Tenth Circuit and the Economic Loss Rule and he has now followed that up with Indiana Supreme Court Reaffirms Economic Loss Rule. As Jenkins writes:

"According to the economic loss rule, where a plaintiff has suffered merely economic loss – frustrated commercial expectations – the plaintiff is limited to suing in contract. Tort suits are barred. Once a plaintiff is restricted to contract remedies, limitations on liability provided in the contract will generally be enforced, and punitive damages are unlikely to be available.

This is an important rule, especially when one considers that punitive damages are a legal abberation -- so our opinion here at LawPundit.

Warner Bros. Wins Marshall Football Team Film Case

Matthew Belloni writes at THR, Esq (The Hollywood Reporter at the intersection of hollywood and law) in Appeals court affirms Warner Bros. win in 'We Are Marshall' copyright case that:

"The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed Warner Bros.' win in the copyright case brought by two documentary filmmakers who claimed their film, 'Ashes to Glory,' about the Marshall University football team, was ripped off in the 2006 film 'We Are Marshall.'"

Read the full story.

PointofLaw.com writes on Preemption: Obama, Brandeis, and 'a single courageous state'

PointofLaw.com writes on Preemption: Obama, Brandeis, and 'a single courageous state':

"On May 20, 2009, President Obama issued a memorandum to executive branch agencies, instructing his appointees to take a critical approach toward federal preemption of the states in the promulgating of regulations."

Read the full posting and Obama's memo here.

The Kennedy Court : U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) burdened by Politically Predictable Justices who should be deciding the LAW only

At The Volokh Conspiracy, Jonathan H. Adler comments on Sotomayor’s First Term, based on Robert Barnes' review at the Washington Post.

Their commentary is correct in that there have been no real surprises in Sotomayor's voting or opinion-writing at SCOTUS and that is part of the problem faced by a U.S. Supreme Court divided into two -- more or less -- political factions:

the liberal wing - Sotomayor, Ginsburg, Breyer and Stevens (retired at the end of the term) - with Stevens due to be replaced by Elena Kagan, who will surely be no less liberal than he was

the conservative wing - Alito, Thomas, Scalia, Roberts

the political centrist in the middle - Kennedy

Although Roberts is the Chief Justice and although most Supreme Courts in the past have been identified by the name of the Chief Justice, this is by no means "The Roberts Court". Rather, this Court is clearly "The Kennedy Court", as Justice Kennedy, given the political intransigence of his colleagues, almost singlehandedly decides "the big cases", with both blocs voting on either side of him. Do we really need the other 8?

The Supreme Court Justices ought to sit down and seriously ponder a change in the way they do their business: it is not the JUSTICES that should be so politically predictable in their case decisionmaking, but rather it is THE LAW itself which should have some predictability in its application to concrete cases.

As it currently stands, we could replace any Justice on the liberal block of the Court with people like Michael Moore or Arianna Huffington and any Justice on the conservative bloc of the Court with people like Rush Limbaugh or Michelle Malkin and NOTHING greatly perceptible would change in the Court's decisionmaking. That is not the way things should be.

We allegedly have a system of LAWS not MEN (viz. WOMEN).

Supreme Court Justices should for a change attempt to interpret the law the way that it IS, rather than using it as a medium for judges to exercise their personal political predilections in shaping the world the way they want the world to be, even if the law actually tells them that they should decide things differently.

The hallmark of every judge should be IMPARTIALITY before the law. Judges should have only ONE loyalty -- the law itself.

New Federal Insurance Office is in the Offing

At JDSupra, Larry Golub of Barger & Wolen L.L.P. writes that The Federal Insurance Office is on the Way

U.S. 2010 May Trade Balance Figures Released

See May Trade Data Released at Global Reach, the blog of the U.S. Census Foreign Trade Division.

Second Circuit Strikes Down FCC Indecency Policy as Unconstitutional : Fleeting Expletives are Protected Speech

At Second Circuit Flushes FCC Indecency Policy the CommLawBlog of Fletcher, Heald & Hildreth, P.L.C. discusses the Second Circuit decision in Fox Television Stations, Inc. v. FCC, which struck down the FCC indecency policy as being unconstitutionally vague and creating a "chilling effect" on constitutionally protected free speech, finding that fleeting expletives are protected. As written by the Court:

"LEVAL, POOLER, and HALL, Circuit Judges....

POOLER, Circuit Judge:

This petition for review comes before us on remand from the Supreme Court. Previously
we held, with Judge Leval dissenting, that the indecency policy of the Federal Communications
Commission (“FCC” or “Commission”) was arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative
Procedure Act (“APA”), 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A). See Fox Television Stations, Inc. v. FCC, 489
F.3d 444, 462 (2d Cir. 2007). The Supreme Court reversed, upholding the policy under the APA
and remanding for consideration of petitioners’ constitutional arguments. See Fox Television
Stations, Inc. v. FCC, 129 S. Ct. 1800, 1819 (2009) (Scalia, J.). We now hold that the FCC’s
policy violates the First Amendment because it is unconstitutionally vague, creating a chilling
effect that goes far beyond the fleeting expletives at issue here. Thus, we grant the petition for review and vacate the FCC’s order and the indecency policy underlying it."

We agree with the Court's decision as being right on the Constitutional Law issue but we do hope that the case does not help to contribute to the general decline in the quality of speech on public and private media, where expletives too often seem to replace thought and intelligent language expressiveness and where the intellectual level of language used is sometimes what we would simply call language garbage. Unfortunately, such language garbage is also speech protected by the 1st Amendment.

Handling Multiple Offers on a Home Purchase | Doron Eghbali - JDSupra

How to Handle Multiple Offers on a Home Purchase | Doron Eghbali - JDSupra:

Contributor: Doron Eghbali Law Advocate Group, LLP

FTC Rulings : Red Flags Rule Compliance Date Extended : New Guidelines for Endorsement and Testimonial Ads (Websites, Blogs, Facebook, Twitter)

If you place an endorsement or testimonial ad on your website, blog, Facebook or Twitter, are you subject to FTC (Federal Trade Commission) regulations? Yes, you are.

Harwell Howard Hyne Gabbert & Manner, P.C. discuss at JD Supra the new FTC rulings on the Red Flags Rule Compliance Date Extension and New Guidelines for Endorsement and Testimonial Ads on Websites, Blogs, Facebook, Twitter.

Keeping Up Made Easier : Dechert Reduces 2300+ Pages of Financial Reform Bill to 240 Pages for the ABA

Dechert Parses Financial Reform Bill (in 240 Pages) for the ABA

Zach Lowe writes at The Am Law Daily that:

"... 22 lawyers at Dechert ... spent the last three weeks poring over the financial regulatory reform legislation approved by Congress on Thursday and produced this 240-page desk reference for bankers who will have to deal with all of those new rules."

The Reform Bill itself is 2300+ pages
so that it pays to look at Lowe's article
and the 90%-reduced reference he refers to.

Russian Skolkovo - outside Moscow - to be like Silicon Valley as Russia, Germany Sign Multibillion-Dollar Deals

Russia, Germany Sign Multibillion-Dollar Deals (via Voice of America):

"Siemens also agreed to help Russia establish a high-technology center in Skolkovo, outside Moscow, that would be similar to Silicon Valley, a region in the western U.S. state of California that is home to many high-tech companies.

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

NY Times: Congressional Overhaul of the Nation's Financial Regulatory System

David M. Herszenhorn at the New York Times discusses the "overhaul of the nation's financial regulatory system"

- see Congress Sends Financial Overhaul Bill to Obama - NYTimes.com