Law on Rice

I was playing around with Eclipse tonight, when the application suddenly decided to tell me that it wanted to tell the Eclipse developers about how I use the application.

Of course I said yes, but I thought I’d share their terms of use because I was kind of surprised–and kind of pleased–by (a) the technology for giving me control over what feedback it submitted and (b) the forthrightness of the terms of use. Whether the terms are really going to make the privacy folks happy, I don’t know… but at least it’s direct.

I thought my contracts professor said courts hardly ever find contracts to be unconscionable. Well, one just showed up in my inbox from the Washington Supreme Court, no less. The case is McKee v. AT&T Corp. I haven’t read it yet, but here’s the first paragraph:

McKee filed this class action suit, alleging AT&T wrongly charged him (and others) city utility surcharges and usurious late fees. When the Chelan County Superior Court found the dispute resolution provision of AT&T’s Consumer Services Agreement unconscionable and denied its motion to compel arbitration, AT&T appealed. The Court of Appeals, Division Three, certified the case to this court. We affirm the trial court and remand for further proceedings.

Why would the law school offer a class devoted to it, you ask? Well, I thought this was a pretty good summary of why lawyers (and their clients) care from Woodcock Washburn–the home firm of my professors.

. . . our lawyers advise clients on compliance with patent disclosure obligations. This expertise is especially important to companies with employees participating in standards-setting organizations to avoid the risk of rendering crucial patent rights unenforceable. We also counsel health care providers that rely extensively on web-based technologies to share data with customers, partners and suppliers. These organizations need to know that the third-party intellectual property rights they contribute will still be available to them.

Interesting, huh? Until today, I really didn’t give standards setting organizations much thought. Not much at all.

This came up in my IT Standards and Open Source class tonight. I thought you’d find it amusing if you haven’t seen it already.

The point was that the book operates on a standard that technology companies (read, printers and binders) could conform to.

She’s practically an indie cliché already, but given that I listen to the thirtysomething cliché sources (read, kexp), I figured it was mandatory that I buy some Jessica Lea Mayfield and obligatory that I add said purchase to the stream.

Along the same lines, I’m also buying two from the Oberst rack. Specifically, I’m buying one off his new solo (yes, yes, the Cape Canaveral song, spare me the look please) and one from one of his portfolio bands, The Faint’s new track, The Geeks Were Right. Yes they were. Yes they were.

I like to blog because I like to write, but I don’t have lots of time to troll around the web looking for “the next Perez Hilton or the next BoingBoing.” Hopefully blogs.com, a new project from Six Apart, will make it easier for me. But, then, it won’t be me who discovers the next hot new name in web celebrity.

Oh well, I’ll deal.

Plus, I’ll be using a Six Apart product again, so I can stop feeling guilty for getting off MovableType.

I’m getting prepped for an interview tomorrow, so I was looking at some of the stuff I was working on my last project. Naturally, I wanted to know if anyone patented software related to inversion of control (IoC) patterns.

Interestingly, I did not find even one software patent that covered any part of the pattern – explicitly anyway.

However, I found at least seven published applications that do seem to touch the pattern to varying degrees. For example, there is an application for an “e-ENABLER FRAMEWORK.” According to the abstract, Mr. Batabyal’s framework is “[a] system and application design paradigm in the form of web-architecture, uses self describing modules of reusable services, offering SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) based composite solutions and multiple processes in a dynamic business environment.”

[Warning: don't rely on this for legal advice! I can't give you legal advice, and even if I could, I only spent 15 minutes looking at this!]

I believe that in law, business, and technology individual primacy is almost absolute. That is, the law should do everything possible to maximize opportunities for individuals (and, by extension responsibility) and the community should only be important where one individual’s rights are beginning to trump others (a tough line to draw, I know). Businesses should do the same. Institutions should do the same. So should technology.

My faith in the individual explains why I see businesses, rock bands, and celebrities as identical! I’ve often had trouble explaining why I see them the same, but now it makes sense: all three are examples of individuals trying to take a megaphone to their personas. It explains what I loved so much about Los Angeles when I lived there; many people go there to be larger than they could have been in Topeka. It explains why I actually like the new world of web celebrity.

Indeed, after spending twelve years trying to solve problems with code and studying law for over two years, I’m beginning to think the story of humanity is simply the story of individuals. That is, the best we can do is be the biggest we can be (subject to many qualifications, of course!) and that our communities, our ideas, our arguments, our technologies, our laws, and our institutions are, while important at the time, only moments in time.

I just got out of the shower, and this is the kind of stuff I think about in the shower sometimes. My apologies for the over the top post!

I’m kind of interested in this Hillcrest Laboratories v. Nintendo case, even though I’m normally a software purist. Hillcrest Laboratories, according to its website, "has pioneered technology that allows consumers to interact with digital media on television using motion-control and pointing techniques. The company holds 29 patents in this area worldwide, and has filled [sic] for more than 100 related patents."

There are four patents in suit:

7,158,118 (3D pointing devices with orientation compensation and improved usability),

7,262,760 (3D pointing devices with orientation compensation and improved usability),

and 7,139,983 (Interactive content guide for television programming).

And finally, the company claims that Nintendo is infringing patent number 7,414,611, but I could not find that patent in Google’s patent search.

We had dinner at Cafe Bengodi (great pasta selection) in Pioneer Square and then walked around for just a few minutes. I took a few pictures with the iPhone. The first is of the Smith Tower:

The second is our much maligned Alaskan Way Viaduct.

The next was from the pathway that leads from the ferry terminal at pier 50 to First Street.

I know they aren’t the greatest pictures, but I wanted to share anyway. I thought the sky had a nice color to it.