KinsellaLaw.com was featured in an article in the May 2002 issue of the Texas Bar Journal.
I’ve recently updated my IP Links page, including the list of Obscure/Ridiculous/Curious Patents and related matters.
Interesting article in RedHerring: Patents, long the tech world’s currency, come under attack. Subtitled: The patent office has been criticized for allowing a ticket of patents to grow in recent years; by Julie Landry, April 19, 2002.
Legal terminology, with its liberal use of Latin phrases and other specialized jargon, can be daunting and confusing. In law school I often wondered why the seemingly-redundant phrase “attorney-at-law” was used; what other kind of attorney was there?, I wondered. A peek at the dictionary, and a little reflection, reveals that “attorney” simply means “agent” for someone else; hence the expression “power of attorney”; both laymen and lawyers can have a “power of attorney”. The better term for those who practice law is probably lawyer or attorney-at-law, since anyong having power of attorney is technically an “attorney” (granted, however, that semantics follows usage, and the most common usage of “attorney” today is used to denote lawyers only).
More annoying than “attorney-at-law” is the practice of some attorneys of using the title “Doctor.” Although there is apparently some dispute over this, I view it as misleading, cheesy, unseemly, and self-embarrassing for a lawyer to refer to himself as “Doctor” such-and-such. In addition, the law degree is usually a Juris Doctor (J.D.), yet many lawyers insist on calling it a a “Juris Doctorate”, I suppose out of ignorance or to make it sound more impressive. (Note: a few law schools apparently do use “Juris Doctorate” on their diplomas—improperly, in my view.)
Way back when, lawyers got an LL.B. (the bachelor of laws—the “LL” meaning, I suppose, “laws”-plural in much the same way that §§ means “sections”). A master’s in law is an LL.M., and a true doctorate in law is an LL.D. (also sometimes given as a straight Ph.D, or as an SJD or JSD—for “doctor of juridical/juristic science”). Apparently, a few decades ago, the American legal bar decided to change the LL.B. to the J.D., in a vain attempt to garner the prestige of Ph.Ds or M.D.s. Under today’s rules, one must obtain a bachelor’s degree in anything, before entering law school. This does make the 3-year law degree technically a graduate degree, but since the undergrad degree need not relate in the slightest to law (my own undergraduate degree is in engineering!), it is not really a graduate degree in the sense of building on some foundation, and it is thus absurd to view the law degree as a true doctorate. Query: if a regular J.D. lawyer is a “Doctor,” what does he become after subsequently obtaining an LL.D.?—a Doctor-Doctor? Many non-American lawyers, incidentally, still obtain LL.B. degrees, though some seem to be following the American model to change from LL.B. to J.D. (without requiring an undergraduate degree though!).
This may all be academic (I am not sure if the pun is intended), as the prestige behind the Ph.D. degree and the “doctor” title continue to plummet, due to lowering of standards and the explostion of Ph.D.s granted in ridiculous specialties.
Incidentally, the B.C.L. and M.C.L. are the civil-law equivalents of the common-law LL.B. and LL.M., respectively. My alma mater, LSU’s Paul M. Hebert Law Center, now issues both a J.D. and a B.C.L. to all its law graduates, in recognition of the dual common law/civil law–“bi-jural”–education received.
P.S.: If anyone has a link to the real story behind the American change from LL.B. to J.D., please pass it on.
As I mentioned in my most recent blog, the CAFC in Festo radically cut back patent law’s Doctrine of Equivalents. It’s currently under appeal; we’ll see what the Supreme Court does with it. In the meantime, the CAFC continues to shrink the DOE, in Johnson & Johnston Associates Inc. v. R.E. Service Co. Inc., 99-1076. Good news for those who oppose patents and/or the DOE; not good news for those favoring broad patent rights. For more info, see this article.
The patent bar is biting its nails waiting to see what the Supreme Court will do with the CAFC case Festo. Some are in favor of, and some oppose, Festo‘s radical cutback of the doctrine of equivalents (DOE). Most believe the Supremes will pare back the CAFC decision somewhat (i.e., will breath a little more life back into the DOE), and/or may remand back to the CAFC.
For some good poop, see: Patent rule pending, Electronic Business Online, March 2002; and IEEE USA background material on Festo. See also the CAFC’s Festo decision; the Intel Amicus Brief [PDF] (the Statement of Interest is particularly interesting); and the oral arguments in Festo [PDF].
Particularly interesting in the oral arguments before the Supreme Court was this exchange between Bork, arguing on behalf of Festo and one of the Justices (Breyer or Rehnquist, perhaps) (transcript p. 11): “MR. BORK: That is true, but what they have suggested in effect is that the lawyer put into the literal claims he files a claim for all the equivalents that he can foresee. Now, he can’t foresee most of the equivalents, and if he did that, I think you’d have a patent claim that would look roughly like the tax code.
QUESTION: No, because they have ways of doing it. They say all the things like, or they say — you know, I can’t remember. There’s a special technical word for it where you — you try to do it in terms of function. There are ways of doing it.
MR. BORK: Function, way and result.” Bork here confuses “function, way, result” (from the DOE) with “means-plus-function” claim elements per section 112, para. 6. Apparently, a big name was more important to Festo than someone who understands patent law.
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