Stanford Center for Internet and Society

We won an important victory over the Estate of James Joyce's motion to dismiss last week in Shloss v. Estate of James Joyce. The Estate had moved to dismiss our entire case, arguing that Professor Shloss could not sue for a declaratory judgment of her fair use right to use quotations from Joyce family members on her Website because the Estate had not made threats sufficient to cause Professor Shloss reasonable apprehension that the Estate would sue her if she published her Website.

In a decisive 20-page opinion, the Court found that Shloss had alleged ample reasons to fear being sued by the Estate regarding her Website.

Our case Shloss v. Estate of James Joyce, et al., continues to generate interest. Here's a link to an interview I did with Public Radio Canada on June 13. The interview is just over 7 minutes into part 3 of the show.

The press has taken an interest in our case on behalf of Carol Shloss against the Estate of James Joyce. The New Yorker has a feature article by D.T. Max related to the case and the AP ran a piece by Lisa Leff that has been widely distributed.

Today we filed suit against the Estate of James Joyce on behalf of Stanford English professor Carol Shloss. In a nutshell, we ask for a declaration that Professor Shloss is permitted under "fair use" to make use on her academic website of certain Joyce materials that are copyrighted. In addition, we argue that due to the Joyce Estate's history of misusing its copyrights, the Court should hold that the Estate is barred from enforcing its copyrights against Professor Shloss.

But read more of what we have to say about the case here.

On June 12, 2006, CIS filed suit against the Estate of James Joyce on behalf of Stanford English professor Carol Shloss. In a nutshell, the Complaint asks for a declaration that Professor Shloss is permitted under "fair use" to make use on her academic website of certain Joyce materials that are copyrighted. In addition, the suit argues that due to the Joyce Estate's history of misusing its copyrights, the Court should hold that the Estate is barred from enforcing its copyrights against Professor Shloss.

Read more about the case here.

The CIS Fair Use Project filed a copyright suit today (.pdf) on behalf of English Professor Carol Shloss against the Estate of James Joyce.
more here.

After the depressing recent news that Google is customizing its service in China to implement the Chinese government's censorship goals, and Microsoft's decision last month to bow to the Chinese government and remove the blog of dissident Zhao Jing, it is some small comfort that Microsoft announced today that it has adopted a less censor-friendly policy for its MSN Spaces blog service.

According to the Financial Times:

"Microsoft said it would only remove blogs when it receives an official legal order. However,

From Reuters:

Google said its new Chinese service at http://www.google.cn will offer a self-censored version of its popular search system that restricts access to thousands of terms, Web sites and services to which users contribute e-mail, chat rooms and blogs.

"Other products -- such as Gmail and Blogger -- will be introduced only when we are comfortable that we can do so in a way that strikes a proper balance among our commitments to satisfy users' interests, expand ac

So as I was working on my article on business method patents (spoiler: they're bad), I was inserting a brief discussion of the recent Ex rel Lundgren decision wherein the Board of Patent Appeals held that the "technological arts" test is no more (or, according to the Board, never was). I decided to do a little more web research on Lundgren because his patent application is such an odd one -- it's for a method of compensating managers of private firms in an oligopoly market so that they don't collude to raise prices. Obviously no oligopoly firm would want to use such a method, because if it works it would eliminate the possiblility of oligopoly profits. So the only way to impose the method that I can see would be through govenment regulation. But how likely is it that the federal government would choose to pick up Lundgren's patent and apply it as regulation? Very unlikely, I would guess.

Mark Lemely, Doug Lichtman, and Bhaven Sampat have a sensible proposal in the winter issue of Regulation. They start with the well-known fact that most patents receive scant attention from examiners and accordingly, many bad patents issue. They then argue that this is not a problem most of the time because most bad patents are so worthless that they are never licensed or even asserted. Some bad patents do get asserted, however, costing innocent users of allegedly infringing technology millions in legal or settlement fees. They note that this is especially a problem when it comes to Internet patents, which is hard to quarrel with, I would think. Their solution to the problem is to reduce the presumption of validity for standard patents and to create a "gold-plated" class of patents that would be more rigorously examined at the applicant's expense. These patents would get a strong presumption of validity. As the authors note, the particularly attractive feature of this proposal is that it would allow those with the most knowledge about the worth of the patent to chose when to invest more resources in examining the patent so as to end up with a strong patent. As I said, an idea with a lot of merit, but read the short piece in full.