Northern District & IP News: Pro Bono & Patent Reform

Posted on March 18, 2008 by R. David Donoghue

Tomorrow I will be back to case analysis, but there is some Northern District news and some excellent IP and litigation blog posts worth reading, here they are:

  • Ninth Annual Pro Bono and Public Interest Awards -- The Northern District and the Federal Bar Association are seeking nominations for excellence in pro bono and public interest work. Nominations should be based upon work performed in civil cases before the Northern District which are no longer pending. Send nominations by March 28 to:

Amy Rettberg, Executive Law Clerk
Email: amy_rettberg@ilnd.uscourts.gov
Chambers of the Chief Judge James F. Holderman
219 South Dearborn Street, Suite 2548
Chicago, Illinois 60604

  • Patent Reform is Moving Forward -- The Senate is preparing to vote on the Patent Reform Act after its spring recess (yes, it is spring already in DC).  Here is some additional coverage of the Act's status:

271 Patent Blog -- looking at the latest amendments to the Act.

Maryland Intellectual Property Blog -- looking at the latest amendments and questioning whether proponents have the sixty votes necessary for cloture, thereby avoiding a filibuster.

Patent Docs -- taking sides, but asking you to call your Senators regardless of which side you take.

  • Check out the newest entry to Chicago's law blog scene, the Lean & Mean Litigation Blog.  It is not IP-focused, but it is an interesting read for any commercial litigator or litigant.
  • William Patry at Patry on Copyright has an interesting post about the difficulties of serving corporate entities based upon a District of the District of Columbia case involving a pro se plaintiff.  The best advice, of course, is to hire counsel because if you do not get the party served properly, you have no case.
  • The Seventh Circuit affirmed Judge St. Eve's ground breaking opinion in the CLC v. Craigslist case.  The Seventh Circuit held that an ISP is exempt from cases based upon user content when the case attempts to treat the ISP as a publisher of the content.  This is considerably narrower than most of the other circuits, which have held that Section 230 exempts ISPs from essentially all suits based upon user content.  For more coverage, check out the WSJ Law Blog (which erroneously elevates Judge St. Eve to the Seventh Circuit), Internet Cases, and the Technology & Marketing Law Blog (very detailed analysis of Judge Easterbrook's opinion).
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Northern District Has an Excellent New Website

Posted on March 7, 2008 by R. David Donoghue
The Northern District debuted a new website design based upon survey input.  The new layout is much more streamlined and user friendly than the prior design.  There are buttons on the front page that take you directly to the most used features on the site:  the daily calendar and ECF/Pacer.  Additionally, there are pull down menus along the top of the page that allow you to go directly to each judge's page, as well as to the Local Rules.  All of these features reduce the number of pages you have to navigate through to get to the information you want.  Even the judge's pages have been revised with a much more user friendly layout, including more linked information as opposed to the long text descriptions in the previous design.  And the Northern District is planning to provide a version of the site for mobile browsers.  That way if you get stuck on the way to court, you will be able to find the chambers' phone number from your Blackberry or iPhone.  My only complaint about the site has been resolved.  Early in the week the site required that you have the latest version of your browser before you could access it (not ideal for an institution that strives to provide broad public access), but that was apparently a mistake and has been fixed.
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