The Florida State College of Law Research Center Blog

Smartphone Patent Battles Escalate as Apple Sues Samsung

From the Wall Street Journal Law Blog a discussion of Apple's Lawsuit against Samsung.  Here's an excerpt:

Apple’s lawsuit, filed Friday in federal court in Northern California,alleges that Samsung copied the look, product design, packaging and user interface of its products, violating its patents and trademarks.

“Rather than innovate and develop its own technology and a unique Samsung style for its smart phone products and computer tablets, Samsung chose to copy Apple’s technology, user interface and innovative style in these infringing products,” Apple said in its 38-page suit. (The complaint is not available.)

A Samsung spokesman said the company will “actively” respond to the lawsuit. “Samsung’s development of core technologies and strengthening our intellectual property portfolio are keys to our continued success,” the spokesman said.

Read the whole post here.

Posted by Jon Lutz

Public Defenders Stretched Thin by State Cuts

According to the Wall Street Journal Law public defenders have been stretched thin by state cuts. Here's an excerpt:

The austerity moves stemming from funding constraints these days include laying off public defenders, holding the line on salaries, and reducing spending on the defense's case investigators and staff training.

"The system is not allowing us to provide competent representation," said Edward Monahan, the head of the Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy, which lost about $500,000, or 1.5%, of its funding this year, and faces an additional 2.5% budget cut in the coming fiscal year.

"We are running caseloads in excess of 450 per lawyer....With additional budget cuts to be imposed in [2012] and case assignments continuing to rise, average caseloads will likely exceed 500 new cases per year."

Read the article here.

Posted by Jon Lutz

Blekko

Google and Bing aren't the only search engines.  Blekko is worth a try. 

Try blekko.com.

Read the Help file for how to use slash tags.

Posted by Jon Lutz