Prior art is what teaches the invention. The invention is defined by the claims. Does that figure illustrate the invention?
Claim 1:
A method comprising:

• determining a user is scheduled to travel to a destination on a current date;
• determining a portable electronic device in possession by the user is powered off;
• determining the user arrived at the destination by detecting that the portable electronic device has been powered back on; and
• transmitting an arrival notification of the arrival of the user to at least one third party recipient.

Except that Gawker is quoting evidence laws and search laws about divulging a "source." From what I read it doesn't seem that those have anything to do with California property found/stolen property laws. I highly suspect that those immunity provisions have zero applicability in this situation.

The 1-click patent has nothing to do with U.S. Copyright Laws. Although I am sure that you can find any number of people that hate both equally, especially on /.

Yes! I also want a stylus, shocking I know, so that I can hand-write annotations/comments in a PDF. Also, I want to be able to quickly bookmark a PDF while reading it. Why you ask? Because I am tired of printing out 30pg. pdfs just to mark them up with comments and stick tabs. I know I can do it on a screen with mouse and keyboard, but it is way faster with old fashion pen and post-its.

On a related question, does anyone have any experience using a wacom tablet display for this kind of purpose? I know that $1800 seems like overkill and a waste of an computer artist's dream device, but I am pretty sure that it might pay for itself with print costs and efficiency over the life of the device. If the iPad could do this, I think it would be a hit in the business world, though I did read an article claiming Apple doesn't about the business market so I have that going against my dream device...

Is there really? What is the difference, for sake of argument? Pirating is X while sharing mp3 files with strangers via bit torrent is Y. What are X and Y and how are they different? The majority of software pirating is exactly the same as sharing mp3s over (name your favorite technology). Are we arguing that only sales should classify as pirating, because honestly the only people that sell are those that want to sell hardcopies and typically fool their customer's into thinking the software is legit. What self respecting nerd has paid for Warez in the last ten years, or ever? Sharing mp3s (or your favorite software) is the same as any other software piracy as so long as we are using the same definition that has been used since ID Software put that huge warning on the front of Doom II.

According to 17 U.S.C. 504 (http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html), the minimum is $750 per work infringed while $30,000 is the max. However, if the infringement is willfully committed it jumps to $150,000 but if the infringement is committed "innocently" (naively might be a better word) then it drops to $200.

What is really neat is the presumption of willfullness under section 3 when the violator "knowingly provided or knowingly caused to be provided materially false contact information to a domain name registrar, domain name registry, or other domain name registration authority in registering, maintaining, or renewing a domain name used in connection with the infringement."

Does your ide include: "receiving, on a recipient messaging device, a text communication sent from a sender messaging device, wherein the text communication comprises at least one shorthand term;"? This the first limitation of the first independent claim.

It might be obvious to add into a messaging device, but the USPTO would need to find a couple of prior art references that contain all the features and then show a reason to combine them. The PTO doesn't get to just say, "it would be obvious to do that, kneener kneener kneeeener"

I guess the status as legal advice matters in a couple of contexts. If it is legal advice then there may be malpractice issues if the advice is bad. There may be a attorney/client relationship and all the duties of loyalty that go along with it. If it is legal advice then the corporation may be committing the unauthorized practice of law.

If it isn't legal advice, then you want to go look to contract and sale of goods laws. The law surrounding warranty would likely apply, though many warranties may be disclaimed. As far as I know, there are no particular laws for complex versus simple products. There are default warranties such as the implied warranty that a good is capable of performing its particular purpose (this warranty can be disclaimed by the seller though). Product liability and warranty disclaimer is a tricky bit of law, hence the 15 million pages of disclaimers we get when we purchase something, which we are all assumed to have read.

In light of the topic, I am not giving anyone legal advice nor do my comments intend to replace, compliment, or supplement the enlightened advice of an attorney in your state. In fact, I might be completely wrong so do not rely on anything I say. These are merely my uneducated opinions on the topic at hand.

Interstingly, Legalzoom is a corporation and as such, is not legally allowed to provide legal advice. Many states, allow for Limited Liability Partnerships which as similar to corps. but do not entirely insulate an individual from a lawsuit. In an LLP, one partner is not liable for the malpractice of another partner, but each is liable for his/her own malpractice. Thus, LLPs do not provide absolute insulation from professional liability but the firm as a whole is insulated for another's liability.

Corporations have much broader insulation for shareholders to encourage investment. LLP's aren't allowed to have non-professional investors. Thus, if the LLP is a law firm then only lawyers may invest in the LLP. If the LLP is a medical practice, then only doctors. Basically, most states don't want to guarantee no liability for people in these fields but still want to encourage efficient partnerships. Thus, the LLP was formed.

The fact the Legalzoom exists as a corporation tends to promote the idea that these form providers are not handing out legal advice, at least not under the definition of the states where they provide there forms. Of course, they may be "risking" it and might be in violation of some state's law, but I didn't take the time to go check any individual state's law on the unauthorized practice of law with reference to "legal" forms. There is likely some case law out there with respect to tax forms and wills/trusts forms since people have been publishing self-help books with template forms in those areas for decades.

We set up eGroupware, http://www.egroupware.org/ for a 100 person school team. Our team was a legal journal and we need time logs, knowledge base (Q/A), wiki for instructions, project management, resource tracking, task management, and document management. It has a long way to go but we installed at 1.43 and the group is still using it a year later.

I wonder how accurate that really is. I mean, home use of the internet was not prevalent until at least after Win. 95 came out. And I mean prevalent in the percentage of Americans on the internet not the percentage of computer users on the internet. Compuserve and AOL were going strong as ISPs, 14.4 modems were higher end at this time while 28.8 was on the way. I remember a lot of software had codes your had to type in and hardware dongles were all over. It would be interesting to see what systems were really out there at this time. Windows 95 certainly didn't have remote activation, you just typed in the code on the CD cover IIRC.

Jurisdiction can be based on where the harm occurs. Has anyone purchased software product (*pick one from above*) in the E.D. of Texas? Then infringement happened there and jurisdiction is proper. Are the companies selling their products in Bestbuys, Walmarts, or other retailer located in the E.D. Texas? Do they advertise there? Maintaining an office in the jurisdiction is just one of the factors, but for patent infringement it is pretty easy to meet the test for jurisdiction in just about every district in the U.S. I imagine for software, it would even easier.

I said it above, but it really comes down how fast the E.D. of Texas moves these cases through the system and plaintiff friendly juries. Texas = high value on property rights = high damages figures. That is a jury decision.

My understanding is that the favorable juries are why plaintiffs tend to sue in the E.D. of Tex. The relatively high value of property rights (just look at the laws for using deadly force to protect property in Texas) and the lower average education level of the jurors leads to higher percentages of verdicts in favor of the plaintiffs and much higher damages calculations.

The other factor, is that the judges tend to fast track the patent dockets so from start to finish the average time spend on trial is much shorter in the E.D. of Tex. than in other districts (though there are faster places, but not many).

A mutex is a way of controlling access to a shared resource. Imagine you have a car with one key. If you and your sibling both want to use the car for the night, the key is the mutex. Whoever gets the key first gets to use the car until they put the key back.

/. loves car analogies, right?