Anyone who has ever searched the uspto.gov website has surely thought that the private sector could offer a better system. Google agreed, and nearly a year ago struck a deal with the United States Patent and Trademark Office to make all of the data on patents and trademarks available not…
Justia Law Blog
https://youtu.be/ZHBQCjgm7-Y The Texas Attorney Generals' Office issued an opinion in July that effectively halts the Texas Forensic Science Commission's investigation of the Cameron Todd Willingham case. Mr. Willingham was executed in 2004 after he was convicted of arson and murder in a 1991 fire that killed his three children. In…
Buried in an announcement from the Judicial Conference today on standards and procedures for sealing civil cases comes news of an approved fee increase for PACER access: The Conference . . . authorized an increase in the Judiciary's electronic public access fee in response to increasing costs for maintaining and…
Step 1. California imposes a Use Tax collection duty on retailers with an affiliate or corporate nexus to California. Step 2. Amazon immediately abandons its California-based affiliates. Step 3. Amazon seeks a referendum on the New Sales and Use Tax law. Step 4. Rinse and Repeat.
Earlier this week, a panel of Ninth Circuit judges held in Diaz v. Brewer that an Arizona bill withdrawing health benefits for domestic partners of state employees violated the federal Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. The state originally offered these benefits to spouses of state employees, but in April 2008 expanded…
As readers of this blog, you probably already know that we at Justia are big fans of universal citation. With that said, I wanted to give you all a heads up that Courtney, in continuing to fight that good fight, has written a great piece on the topic which is…
Here is a rundown of August's highest scoring lawyers on Justia Legal Answers, along with a look at which Onward blog and Facebook posts readers viewed the most. Justia Legal Answers’ Top 10 Legal Answerers for August 2011 Francis M. Boyer, 2,311 points, 48 answers Mark A. Siesel, 801 points,…
As Hurricane Irene moves up the East Coast, we thought it might be useful to pull some resources for those folks living in the projected path of the storm. To all our Justia friends & family in Irene's way, we hope she weakens, veers off "to the right" and that all…
Some government authorities in the United States and abroad want to criminalize the use of social media, concluding that by taking a blunderbuss approach to outlawing conduct, more crimes will be prevented. The problem with this strategy is that it appears to be largely based upon an unfounded fear of…
In the next few weeks, children throughout the Golden State will bid farewell to the unstructured freedom that summer affords as they head back to rule the corridors and classrooms of their local schools. For public school teachers, the new school year offers a respite from this summer of discontent.…