EU’s New Data Protection Rules

On January 25, the European Commission proposed new data protection legislation. The rules include the "right to be forgotten," under which individuals will be able to delete uploaded personal data if there are no legitimate grounds for retaining them.

The rules would apply if data are handled abroad by companies that offer their services to EU citizens (e.g., Google Inc., Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Facebook). Breaching the rules would be fined by €1 million or up to 2% of the company’s global annual turnover. According to Viviane Reding, the The EU's justice commissioner, the new rules would save businesses about around €2.3 billion ($3 billion) a year.

"My proposals will help build trust in online services because people will be better informed about their rights and in more control of their information," she said in a statement. "A strong, clear and uniform legal framework at EU level will help to unleash the potential of the Digital Single Market and foster economic growth, innovation and job creation."

Needless to say, many are not happy.

"The latest draft still includes a number of draconian requirements for businesses that will be difficult to implement for many," said Jane Finlayson-Brown, a partner in London-based law firm Allen & Overy's data protection team.

“The real concern is that many of the proposed rules will inhibit the free flow of information globally and make it difficult for global businesses to operate and invest in Europe due to greater legal uncertainty, increased administrative burdens and the risk of fines," said James Lovegrove, managing director of TechAmerica Europe, a not-for-profit association representing U.S.-based technology firms in Europe.

If the changes are adopted, companies will deal with a single national data protection authority in the EU country in which they have their main base. Meanwhile, individuals can refer to the data protection authority in their own country even when their data are processed by a company based outside the EU.

Ronald Zink, Microsoft's Chief Operating Officer with responsibility for EU Affairs and Associate General Counsel commented:"The question [is] how do you future proof this; the European Commission is trying to create a regime that will have some staying power. The goal of [the] new proposal is to reduce the burden while increasing privacy protection; I'm optimistic this can be done."

Google reacted on its official blog, announcing that it will streamline its privacy policy from 70 documents to a single main privacy policy. "Regulators globally have been calling for shorter, simpler privacy policies—and having one policy covering many different products is now fairly standard across the web," Google's blog said. "We believe this new, simpler policy will make it easier for people to understand our privacy practices."

The proposals will now be passed on to the European Parliament and EU member states when they meet at EU councils and will take effect two years after they have been adopted.

Community-Based Gang Reducation

Based on the development of a three-year, nation-wide anti-gang strategy for Jamaica, Lieutenant Raymond E. Foster, LAPD (ret.) and international criminologist Michel Amiot developed a Community-Based Gang Reduction Model.

A Community-Based Gang Reduction Model has five key Components:

Building on Community Based Policing Practices;

Building on Intelligence Driven Policing;

Creating Public Safety Threat Assessment Gang Enforcement;

Incorporating Community Driven Problem Solving; and,

Facilitating Community/Stakeholder Involvement

To learn more, please download the folowing file:

Download the 3 Year Anti-Gang Strategy (PDF)

League Tables as a Marketing Tool for Dutch Lawyers

League tables are ranking lists of law firms involved in mergers and takeovers. When pitching for a job, law firms like to refer to their own ranking. It helps with marketing themselves as a major player. Ranking lists that Dutch lawyers like to use are those of the British Chambers and Legal 500.

To be included in these lists, law firms are being investigated, including interviewing clients about their experiences with the firm. The lists mainly serve as indicators of the “health” of the law office. Especially the number and value of the transactions that the firm was involved are great marketing tools. According to Gaike Dalenoord of the law firm Nauta Dutilh: “If you have a high score on both fronts, you are perceived as a serious and influential firm.”

Other league tables that are popular are those of the Nederlandse Overfusies (purely focusing on The Netherlands) and the British Mergermarket (includes all transactions in de Benelux. Both provide the value as well as the amount of deals. Most large international firms prefer scoring high on the value of the deals. They perceive being involved in really big deals as a way to move ahead of competition.

"We are making fun of them, but we still perceive them as an indicator for success”, said Jan Willem de Boer, partner at the Dutch office of Linklaters. “We all provide data about deals to the compilers of the ranking lists.”

Of course – the league tables and ranking lists are great for marketing!

Apple wants to patent and trademark its Thunderbolt trademark and technology

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) started the year with submitting three new patent applications. The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) detailed various aspects of Apple's revolutionary I/O technology called Thunderbolt. Apple already filed a slew of Thunderbolt trademarks in 2011.

But many experts (and lawyers) wonder: does Apple really own the trademark and technology? Many believe that Thunderbolt was developed by Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) and brought to market with technical collaboration from Apple Inc.

However, it seems that savvy Apple goes out of its way to secure Thunderbolt related patents. Already filed Thunderbolt trademarks include multiple and detailed patents. It looks like Apple abandoned its previous (legal) position that its involvement in the development of Thunderbolt was limited to "technical collaboration." Is pulling Apple a fast one on Intel, or is this a classic case of unclear expectations? Intel did not react (yet).

The good news is that Apple seems to be focused on bringing Thunderbolt to iOS devices in the near future. This would mean faster data transfers and faster recharging, which is something users have been looking for.

IT'S FANGA TIME!!!

Thursday 8 December 2011

Yad Lebanim Hall

(147 Ahuza Street, Raanana)

9:30pm

Hillary Sargeant & FANGA Band

(click above to see highlights of last year's show)

will light up the stage like never before!

Meet the Faces of FANGA!

Shai Bachar (USA)- Keyboards/ Musical Director
Tomer Cohen (IL) - Woodwinds
Jamale Hopkins (USA) - Drums
Royn Iwryn(IL) - Percussion
Gabriel Polak (IL) - Guitar
Yogev Glusman (IL) - Bass

BACKGROUND VOCALS:
Naama Cohen (IL)
Talia Kliger (IL)
Jacqueline Fay (IL)

FEATURING:

Eyal Ganor (IL) - Contra Bass

Yankale Segal (IL) - Oud

Nii Adzah Ananag (Ghana) - African Drums

Naama Cohen (IL-Season 9 Kokav Nolad ) - Soloist

Law Firm Marketing Plan

Law firms are a business, so they need a marketing plan. It consists of the following steps:

1) The best way to get business right away is to tell everyone you know what your law firm is doing. This can be done by e-mail, letter and (of course) social media. Make it clear what the firm’s expertise is. Your (potential) clients will get confused if you claim to be a “general practice”. It is important to specify if you the firm does wills and estate planning, or that that it specializes on car accident cases.

2) Offer a package deal. If the firm handles DUIs, offer a “Jailhouse Consultation.” For this kind of promotion, a firm needs to be creative and build its reputation. In certain cases, it might be worth while to take on pro bono cases. Law firms can easily mimic sales offered by the retail industry.

3) Drum up business. Engage friends and family to send clients in order to do business. Tell them what the firms would like them to do.

4) Blog! Start a blog (or blawg) to pull in search engine traffic. Maintaining a blog is a long-term marketing endeavor, so it might be worth while to engage a freelance lawyer-turned-blogger. It will certainly pay off if kept up.

5) Connect to lots of people. Start networking with people that are potential referral sources, as well as entrepreneurs and business owners whom could be turned into clients.

For more information, follow TipTopLawyer on Twitter!

Apple Takes Action Against a German Cafe in Bonn for Infringing on Its Famous Logo

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) has sent a “cease-and-desist”letter to “Apfelkind“, a cafe in Bonn, Germany. Apfelkind ("Apple child") uses a logo consisting of a red apple with the silhouette of a child inside.

Owner Christin Römer submitted the design to the Trademark and Patent Bureau in Munich, Germany. She applied for 42 classes (categories), including fashion and service provider. She also stated that she would like to franchise her “Apfelkind” concept.

The legal eagles at Apple noticed that the two logos are very similar. Apple lawyers promptly objected to the submission and issued a “cease-and-desist” letter to Ms. Römer.

She immediately involved the German media, playing the David vs. Goliath card.

But things are not as clear cut as Ms. Römer might think.

The problem is not just having the logo on the building. She also sells merchandize with the logo (such as cups) online. She also writes on her website that she is planning to expand her webshop (there is already a picture of pillows featuring the logo).

Furthermore, her submitting the logo in the category “service provider” and announcing that she wants to build a franchise show that she is a savvy business woman.

Her claim that her logo was inspired “by the apple trees of my neighbors” is weak to say the least. She hired a graphic studio to do the design. Any reputable graphic designer will warn against piggyback-riding on famous logos.

How will it end? Ms. Römer has two choices: to spend a lot of money fighting for her logo, or changing the design and removing it from the “service provider” category.

In the mean time, she got lots of free publicity. But she should realize that multinationals are investing a fortune in their brand and are therefore highly protective of their IP, including logos.

The lesson to be learned here is to make sure that your logo, font type, slogan, product name and color scheme do not even vaguely resemble those of other companies. Be original! It is not only better marketing, but also prevents legal problems.

A painful lesson in copyright and graphic design – inspired by Steve Jobs

Social media has changed the game; in more ways than one. Let’s look at the case of Mr. Mak.

Mr. Mak, a university student in Hong Kong who is an aspiring graphic designer. Upon the passing way of Steve Jobs, he designed a graphic of the Apple logo with a silhouetted profile of Mr. Jobs. It went viral and was even picked up by news media. Even actor Ashton Kutcher posted the design on his Twitter account. So far, so good...

But then, it was noticed that his design has an uncanny resemblance to the design of Chris Thornley, a British graphic artist.

Mak developed his design in late August using a white Apple logo on a black background. He used a black silhouette of Mr. Jobs indented in the apple as a tribute to Mr. Jobs after he stepped down as chief executive of Apple.

Although Mak said he had searched across the Internet both to ensure he was not infringing on another design, he did not come across Mr. Thornley’s design.

But his design turned out to be similar Mr. Thornley’s. Thornely designed a black Apple logo on a white background, with a white silhouette of Mr. Jobs. The angle is slightly different from Mak’s design.

A shocked Mak said he had received notification from Mr. Thornley’s wife, Julia, about the similarities of the two designs.

In the world of graphic design, similarities between images are quite common. This case illustrates once more how easy it has become to unearth similar images or outright copies. Mr. Thornley, a 40-year-old living in Darwen, England, acknowledges the dangers the digital age presented to creativity.

He is following the controversy while receiving treatment for a rare form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He stated that he first developed his design in May 2011. He wanted to celebrate the fact that someone who had cancer was still working, still driving forward and still thinking positively about the future.

“The Internet can be a double-edged sword,” he said. “You need to use the Internet in order to promote yourself, but in order to do this you are making yourself vulnerable to these situations.”

Mr. Thornley went on to say that he hoped to speak with Mr. Mak soon about the two designs.

“J. Mak has been as honest as he can about the situation, I think,” he said. “It is important to have the debate about this, and J. Mak has to be credited for opening up the debate and not hiding from it.”

Mr. Mak said that he learned a valuable lesson.. “It really taught me to be very careful about what I say and do. With all the negative publicity I received in Hong Kong, it taught me to be very careful. At the same time, I need to stay true to my sense of aesthetics.”

Posted by Tip Top PR at 5:39 PM 0 comments

Copyright Challenged

The U.S. Supreme Court justices are dealing with an interesting issue - to grant copyrights to works by foreign authors. The potential stakes are huge and n pit old industry against new. The publishing and movie industries say that robust enforcement of foreign copyrights in the US is essential to ensuring reciprocal protection of their copyrights overseas.

In contrast, companies such as Google (which has digitized millions of public domain works and placed them online) state that their investments could be jeopardized.

In 1994, Congress sought to give protection to foreign works under the Berne Convention, which gives US works reciprocal protection overseas. The 1994 law applies only to works that were never copyrighted under old US copyright law. Nowadays, all foreign artists receive the copyright protection they get in their home countries.

Granting copyright removes a work from the public domain. This means that works that would be free for anyone to use, republish, perform or build upon is not allowed anymore. Works that long had been available to all (e.g., Picasso, Nabokov and J.R.R. Tolkien) could be withdrawn if the owners assert their ownership.

A group including musicians, filmmakers and archivists who rely on public domain works challenged the law. They claim that it exceeds Congress's power to grant copyrights, and infringes on the First Amendment free speech rights.

Anthony Falzone of Stanford Law School stated that once a copyright's "limited time" expires, a work permanently enters the public domain. Since foreign authors never had copyrights at the outset, Congress can't extend them now.

Justice Ginsburg argued that there was a difference between restoring copyrights that had expired and granting copyright for the first time. However, several justices doubt that taking books and music by long-dead authors out of the public domain could promote the "progress" the Constitution sought to spur through copyright.

A decision in the case, Golan v. Holder, is expected soon.

Why Blawging (legal blogging) is so important

Job seekers should network strategically and take advantage of social media. Blogging about issues in their preferred practice area would give them an opportunity to showcase their capabilities.

Law students and recent grads often fear that they are too inexperienced to blog with credibility. On the up side: they have fresh researching skills and are knowledgeable about cutting-edge issues they learned in their classes. They can leverage this know-how into topics to write or blog about. Their professors might be wiling to endorse them!

Law students should not write law review-style articles. Instead, they should write in a more conversational way about subjects they are passionate about. Their passion will show through and inspires blog writing. So start a blog about law-related matters, and try to combine it with other passions. That’s what engages readers and builds a faithful following.

One law graduate landed a job in an estate planning firm, and he believes that blogging helped. He went to work for a firm that values writing and encourages him to write articles on topics clients care about.

Why did blogging help him? It gave him an audience interested in his writing and analytical skills, since it demonstrated his interest in the practicing in his field of interest.

Advise to all lawyers ( and lawyer to be): start blawging!

Amanda Knox- another miscarriage of justice?

In an astounding reversal of fortune, Amanda Knox was set free by an Italian jury. She told the jury impassioned: "I did not kill, I did not rape, I was not there." Throughout her trial, she has always maintained her innocence. So now, after four years, she walked out of her Italian prison a free woman.

Was she the victim of a miscarriage of justice? Or is she a second Lindy Chamberlain (“a dingo took my baby”) or Casey Anthony?

One of the main problems is the girl herself (similar to Ms. Anthony). She was quite appropriate referred to as “[the killer] with the stone-cold eyes”. She never even flinched once during her court appearances or showed any grief for the brutal murder of her close friend and housemate Meredith Kercher.

Poor Meredith was forced to kneel, her face was pushed into the floor, and she was then raped at knife-point before being stabbed and strangled to death.

Amanda seems to be obsessed though with former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito. To this day, Raffaele denies that she was at his house on the night of the murder (as she claimed).

Ms. Knox also repeatedly changed her story and even accused an innocent man to save her own skin.

So why was she set free? Simple - the evidence was too botched and the forensics too flawed. Does that make her innocent? Far from it! But in any democratic legal system - in dubio pro reo.

The act she put up during her last hearing was an example of great acting. She pleaded: ‘I don’t want to be deprived of my life.’ Yeah, sure, but what about poor Meredith? She for sure was cruelly deprived of her life!

Nicknamed Foxy Knoxy by the media, she will for sure hammer out a great book deal, followed by a Hollywood blockbuster. Ah well, she can always hook up with Casey Anthony and start her own “exclusive” club of accused murderesses set free....

In the mean time, there is no justice served and the parents and relatives of Meredith have to try to come to terms with this latest Italian carriage of justice.....

The public prosecutor announced that they will appeal the latest verdict. Stay tuned....

Ernst August of Hanover latest legal trouble – will BAT teach him a lesson?

Ernst August's latest legal predicament started with an ad campaign, which makes a nice change from his previous track record.

You see, Prince Ernst August of Hanover is a German royal known for his volatile temper which gave him the nickname “der Pruegelprinz” (punchy or beat-up prince).

In 1998 he attacked a TV cameraman breaking his nose by hitting him with an umbrella. The court fined the umbrella-wielding prince the equivalent of $50,800.

In 2000 he repeatedly hit 55-year-old hotel owner Josef Brunlehner, a German national, with a metal object (a knuckle duster) after becoming angry at the noise and laser show from the hotel disco. This incident took place on Lamu Island in Kenya, Africa. A judge in the town of Hildesheim, Germany, fined the prince the equivalent of 40 days of his salary, which the court put at 5,000 euros daily. HRH appealed and won.

British American Tobacco (BATS:LN) used these incidents for their ad campaign promoting Lucky Strike (yes, really). The text is great an example of great copy writing: “War das Ernst (was that serious) Oder August? (Or August)?

HRH was not amused and promptly sued BAT for 100,000 Euro based on "unauthorized use of his name". In the end, he was awarded 60,000 Euro. But BAT appealed and the Federal Court of Justice overturned the verdict and dismissed Ernst August’s claim.

But instead of paying back the money that was awarded to him, the German royal decided to ignore the final verdict. BAT has legal grounds to demand payment. At this moment, HRH is convicted to pay 120,000 Euro. This sum includes interest and court costs. He is therefore looking at foreclosure. Mr. Ad Schenk, CEO of BAT Germany remarked to the German magazine Bild: “Or Ernst or August, we don’t care – someone will pay!”

Will this German royal ever learn?

Why YouTube (and Other Social Media) is Important for Lawyers

Incorporating lawyer videos into a robust attorney Internet marketing campaign is important. An attorney video on Internet can serve various objectives, such as:

Securing high page ranking
The days of just optimizing the corporate website to achieve page 1 ranking on search engines are gone. Nowadays, lawyers must do anything to optimize, including images to articles, lawyer videos that are uploaded to video sharing sites (e.g., YouTube), articles, and free advice (e.g., “how to... guides as downloads) on their websites.

Law firms need to optimize their videos to showcase their abilities. They need to savvy about terms and keywords that can result in their video and their content to be visible to stand out in the Internet clutter. By incorporating optimized lawyer videos and optimized press releases and images in its comprehensive lawyer Internet marketing campaign, law firms will show up in search engine result pages.

Increasing client engagement
Potential clients prefer to watch lawyer video and funky content than read paragraph after paragraph of text a website. By incorporating a video onto select pages of a website, potential clients can learn way about the way a law firm operates. This keeps potential clients engaged and will entice them to visit the law firm’s website.

Building brand
A video enhances a law firm’s credibility and branding. It puts a face to the law firm name. It helps to ease a potential client’s apprehension and thus builds a sense of confidence in the law firm. By producing quality videos, a law firm can actually build its brand while building its credibility among clients.

In short, Use the available internet tools to stand out!

Dutch Politicians Question Legality LinkedIn Social Advertising

Networking site LinkedIn says it will alter an advertising technique, following criticism and questions in the Netherlands about whether it violated privacy laws.

LinkedIn has been testing "social ads" since June. Some attach users' photos to ads for services they have shown an interest in, then broadcast them to other members of their networks.

LinkedIn's privacy policy reads: "If you share your interactions on LinkedIn, for example, when you recommend a product, follow a company, establish or update your profile, join a Group, etc., LinkedIn may use these actions to create social ads for your network on LinkedIn using your profile photo and name."

Dutch lawmaker Jeroen Recourt asked the justice minister this week to investigate whether it is legal in the Netherlands.

The company said on its website Friday that reaction from users was "loud and clear" and it will stop using user photos in ads.

The Dutch are the heaviest users of LinkedIn per capita, though there are more United States users in absolute terms.

Judge Rejects Twitter’s Attempt To Move Patent Lawsuit To Californian Court

Internet companies such as Twitter, Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Facebook are hit with patent suits regularly, often in inconvenient venues. They would therefore want those lawsuits to be heard in the relatively tech-friendly courthouses of Northern California.

However, it looks like that is not going to happen anytime soon. Twitter raised a novel argument. It asked to move the most recent patent lawsuit against it to move from Virginia to San Francisco. Titter claimed that the plaintiff in this case, Dinesh Agarwal, is a Twitter user himself. He therefore agreed to Twitter’s terms of service. Those terms include a clause that states that all lawsuits must be brought against the Company in San Francisco.

US District Judge Henry Morgan however ruled against Twitter. He concluded that his own court in Alexandria (VA) is the appropriate place to hear the lawsuit. He stated that Twitter’s contract clause referring o where lawsuits must be heard, does not necessarily apply to patent suits.

The judge also did not want to create a precedent. Allowing Twitter to transfer its court case would enable other social networking companies to start similar disputes. This would potentially foster satellite litigation in every patent case involving a social networking market participant.

Twitter move was smart. If the judge had accepted its argument, companies such as Twitter or Facebook would be in a strong position to move their patent disputes to their “home court.”

In this case, Mr. Agarwal is suing in the district he has been living in for the last 25 years. He is therefore not seeking a location foreign to both parties (like East Texas). Interesting enough, Agarwal’s twitter account shows that he has zero tweets. His profile states that he is a patent lawyer as well as an aspiring screenwriter. Agarwal signed up for Twitter in January 2010 mainly for the purpose of determining whether the service infringes his patent. Later that year, he founded VS Technologies, a shell company that hold the disputed patent and he then pursued lawsuit against Twitter.

Agarwal’s patent is based on a “method and system for creating an interactive virtual community of famous people”. As a patent lawyer, Agarwal handled all the paperwork for this patent application himself. He used patents to demand royalty payments from the tech industry. This increasingly common situation is called “patent trolling”

Federal court records show that Twitter has been sued for patent infringement at least four times. In addition to this lawsuit brought by VS Technologies, Twitter is facing an ongoing patent lawsuit filed by Cooper Notification in 2009.

Twitter settled a patent lawsuit brought by TechRadium in 2009. A fourth lawsuit, filed in 2010 by lawyer-controlled patent-holding company Stragent LLC, the lawsuit was dropped without explanation.

Dutch House of Representatives Vote for Net Neutrality Law

The Dutch House of Representatives approved a tough net neutrality bill that will become law. It will prevent mobile phone operators to charge extra for using services such as Skype and WhatsApp. Operators are also forbidden to block or slow down traffic of such services.

Telecom companies KPN (AMS:KPN), Vodafone (NASDAQ:VOD), and T-Mobile (ETR:DTE) lobbied against the bill. Vodafone stated that the law will "lead to a large increase in prices for mobile internet for a large group of consumers". KPN said that it regretted "that parliament didn't take more time for this legislation".

Chile is the only other country in the world to have passed a net neutrality law; theirs came into force in May this year.

The Bill (translated into English) forbids communications providers from hindering or delaying any services or applications on the internet, except where doing so is necessary to stop congestion or block spam, or to otherwise maintain the integrity and security of the network.

The law would also force operators to provide a minimum level of quality for their internet services. They are, however, allowed to offer different tiers of bandwidth at varying prices.

The Dutch House of Representatives passed two more laws: one law would stop operators from employing deep-packet inspection (DPI) techniques; the other forbids the disconnection of internet users for any reason other than fraud or failure to pay their bills.

(Image courtesy of Kurt Griffith ©2004 KG/FRE)

Federal Lawsuit between Cybermoguls over Control of OMGFacts Twitter Account


Twitter is Serious Business – just ask Cybermoguls 17-year-old Adorian Deck and by 24-year-old Emerson Spartz.

In 2009, Deck started the Twitter account OMGFacts where he tweeted trivial facts. He gained 300,000 followers within one year. Last year, Spartz approached Deck for a business partnership.

Spartz is the owner of Spartzinc, a network of websites that receives over 6 million unique monthly visitors and has more than 3 million followers on Facebook and Twitter. His portfolio include Mugglenet, one of the most popular Harry Potter fansites, the Twitter account Givesmehope and the high school dating site Flirtlocker.

Deck and Spartz signed a contract that gave Spartz all the rights to the OMGFacts brand and content. Spartz was able to gain over 1.8 million followers for OMGFacts. He also launched an OMWFacts website and YouTube account.

Up till now, Deck only made $100 on the deal. He is striking back at Spartz with a lawsuit, stating that the contract is "predatory" solely aimed to get full control of the account. Deck’s attorney, Glenn Peter, claims that the contract was a ploy to dupe Deck into transferring his rights to the OMGFacts trademark without realizing what he was doing.

Under California law, individuals can disavow any contracts signed when they were minors. But Spartz counters that Deck’s mother co-signed the contract as his legal guardian, and that Deck is trying to exploit SpartzInc for financial gain.

“Among other things, this agreement was designed to protect against Mr. Deck walking away with what we created, which is exactly what he’s trying to do,” Spartz said.

The OMGFacts lawsuit also addresses the question of who legally owns a tweet. How does copyright apply to a tweet?

According to Eric Goldman, a professor of Internet and intellectual property law at Santa Clara Law School: “Because tweets are so short, it can be hard to compose them in a way that earns them full copyright protection. Copyright protects the ways in which we express ourselves; it doesn’t protect the underlying facts or ideas we are expressing.”

To complicate copyright matters even more, Twitter includes a button to “retweet” or repost another user’s tweet, which implies a right to reuse someone else’s material. Collection of tweets or brand identities are also in legal limbo.

Top tweeters/brands like Kim Kardashian (7.4 million followers) can command $10,000 per tweet to endorse a product, and when rapper 50 Cent (4.5 million followers) posted praise of a penny stock in which he was an investor in January 2011, shares of H & H Imports Inc. skyrocketed.

The law is trying to catch up. But as Goldman pointed out: “We’ve had 600 years to develop the rules on books; we’ve had less than five years to develop how those rules apply to tweets.”

Microsoft and Google team up to fight the GeoTag Patent Troll

Microsoft (MSFT) and Google (GOOG) have joined forces to defeat patent troll GeoTag, which has sued hundreds of companies for allegedly infringing its patent.

GeoTag claims that nearly 400 companies are using Bing maps and Google Maps – all based on its patented technology. According to GeoTag, its patent covers using mapping services to create store locators on websites.

According to GeoTag, its patented GeoTag geo-location technology is a spatial information management technology that makes possible a range of location-enabled online applications. GeoTag further claims that these online applications can use its technology to interactively and dynamically retrieve data from a database and associate retrieved data with a location.

GeoTag has been suing customers of Microsoft and Google including Boeing and Pizza Hut.

Microsoft and Google have joined forces and are going on the offensive. They asked a Texas court to rule that they have not infringed GeoTag's patent. They also asked the court to stop GeoTag from patent trolling and to order GeoTag to compensate Microsoft and Google for incurred costs. Microsoft and Google state that the patent concerned (U.S. Patent No. 5,930,474) is invalid for a number of reasons.

The patent was “invented” in the mid-1990s by Peter D. Dunworth, John W. Veenstra and Joan Nagelkirck. The patent was assigned to Z Land LLC. After unsuccessful attempts to commercialize the patent, the patent rights were assigned to Geomas Ltd.,an intellectual property holding company.

Around 2001, Jason W. Galanis, a U.S. entrepreneur, began investing in Geomas which apparently provided the capital to bring a patent infringement lawsuit in November 2006. In that lawsuit, Verizon Communications, Inc. (NYSE:VZ) and Idearc Information Services, Inc. were accused of infringement of the patent. Mr. Galanis arranged $20 million in institutional financing to support the lawsuit which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. That lawsuit was settled in December 2008; the terms of the settlement remain confidential.

The patent was then acquired by Ubixo Ltd. That company formed Ubixo, Inc. and assigned the patent and associated rights to it. In July 12, 2010, Ubixo, Inc. was spun off as an independent corporation and reincorporated in Delaware under the name GeoTag, Inc. GeoTag has therefore only held this one patent for two years, despite its claims that it makes a living licensing patents.

At this moment, GeoTag has been suing 423 companies for alleged patent infringement.

Let’s hope that the courts stop this kind of patent trolling soon.

(Image courtesy of Stu's Views )

Google’s popular homepage doodles got patent protection

It all started 1998 when Sergey Brin and Larry Page tweaked the Google homepage logo to indicate their attendance at the Burning Man festival. Google (GOOG) co-founder Brin filed the patent application on April 30, 2001.

Google's patent application reads: "a system provides a periodically changing story line and/or a special event company logo to entice users to access a web page. For the story line, the system may receive objects that tell a story according to the story line and successively provide the objects on the web page for predetermined or random amounts of time. For the special event company logo, the system may modify a standard company logo for a special event to create a special event logo, associate one or more search terms with the special event logo, and upload the special event logo to the web page. The system may then receive a user selection of the special event logo and provide search results relating to the special event."

The granted patent (Patent 7,912,915) is for "systems and methods for enticing users to access a Web site." But not everyone is pleased.

Business Insider's Matt Rosoff commented that this patent is an abomination of the patent system. He argued that: "The patent system was originally created to foster innovation by protecting small inventors from having their ideas ripped off by big companies. But increasingly, big companies are using patents for exactly the opposite reason--to stop competitors from innovating."

TechDirt's Mike Masnick uses it to show how mad the system has gotten. He hopes that “Google plans to use this patent as an example of...just how ridiculous the patent system is becoming".

In the mean time, just enjoy the doodles...

Jou ma se … advocate tells judge in South African Court

Advocate Nehemiah Ballem swore "Jou ma se p**s, man, f**k you!" at Judge Lee Bozalek and then stormed out of the Western Cape High Court in South Africa. The incident happened during the case of the State versus Godfrey Manxilane. It looks like Ballem was a public defender in this case and had a better paying case at the same time....

The Cape Bar Council has requested that Ballem refrain from practising law pending the outcome of an investigation into the incident.

Folowing is the transcript, translated from Afrikaans, of the proceedings.

Judge: “Now first of all, Mr Ballem, where were you this morning?”

Ballem: “My lord, I just want to know if my clerk gave you a message?”

Judge: “Yes, we got a confused message … (about) car problems you had.”

Ballem: “Exactly. Now do you want to hear it again?”

Judge: “Excuse me?”

Ballem: “Do you want to hear the excuse again?”

Judge: “Yes.”

Ballem: “My car broke down.”

Judge: “Now why did you realise that around 10am when court proceedings were about to begin?”

Ballem: “We had to wait for the AA.”

Judge: “Yes?”

Ballem: “To tow the car away.”

Judge: “But you, no doubt, had a cellphone?”

Ballem: “I didn’t know about the case. I didn’t have my diary (sakboek) with me.”

Judge: “Your bag (sakkie) wasn’t with you?”

Ballem: “My diary wasn’t with me.”

Judge: “Yes. Could you not have phoned the High Court half an hour, an hour, before the time?”

Ballem: “Judge, how long must we hassle with this?”

Judge: “Excuse me?”

Ballem: “How long must we hassle with this? I’ve now gone to some trouble to be here.”

Judge: “Mr Ballem, perhaps you don’t realise, your first duty, if you have to appear in the High Court, is to be here, and you are not doing us a favour by being here, despite your problems. Why are you turning your face away from me while I’m speaking?”

Ballem: “Well, I asked my secretary to pass on a message and I assume she must have done so.”

Judge: “Yes, but then we got …” (interrupted)

Ballem: “Now do you want the message from me again?”

Judge: “Then we got another strange message: Could the case be postponed until Monday, a telephonic request for a postponement?”

Ballem: “Exactly. Then I got the message that you were prepared to wait for me, and now I am here.”

Judge: “You were not involved in another case this morning, were you?”

Ballem: “I was not involved, Judge. I am here now.” (He slams his hand on the desk.)

Judge: “Sir (meneer), your attitude, you must...” (interrupted)

Ballem: “But then you must not also come ...” (interrupted)

Judge: “You must be careful about your attitude, Mr Ballem, in front of the court.”

Ballem: “But then you must also not come with an attitude.”

Judge: “Excuse me?”

Ballem: “I said then you must not come with an attitude, because we are both adults, I am not your child.”

Judge: “Mr Ballem, I must tell you ...” (interrupted)

Ballem: “I said I am not your child.”

Judge: “I must warn you …” (interrupted)

Ballem: “You do exactly what you want. Do what you want.”

Judge: “You are sailing very close to the wind.”

Ballem: “Jou ma se p**s, man! F**k you!” (Ballem leaves the courtroom).

Judge: “Ms van Rooyen?”

Van Rooyen: “I don’t know what to say, my lord, except to suggest we remove the matter from the roll for today, and there we can ...” (interrupted)

Judge: “I think the matter should rather be postponed sine die (adjourned indefinitely).”

Van Rooyen: “I agree … We’ll get other legal representation and then ...” (interrupted)

Judge: “How will that be arranged?”

Van Rooyen: “My lord, I will take the case back to advocate Van der Merwe. He will arrange that someone else takes over the case … the documents are ready in any case.”

Judge: “I think it should remain with this court and I think the most appropriate order is that it be postponed indefinitely … Right, this case is postponed sine die, and Snellers (Legal Transcriptions) are requested to type all the proceedings that took place.”

(Image courtesy of Leon Muller)