Record 163 mil. yen awarded to Hitachi inventor in patent suit

It's interesting what's happening in some of these Japanese cases. Apparently under Japanese patent law, employees are entitled to reasonable compensation (a percentage of profits) for their inventions, when they are in an arrangement requiring them to turn over all patents to their employer...

One has received a judgment for ￥163 million, and another (mentioned at the bottom of the article) has just received one for ￥20 billion.

Is there such an imbalance of bargaining power between companies and employees that this is justified? Can't employees bargain for this as part of their compensation from the outset? In the U.S., courts will generally not intervene to decide for the parties how much their services are worth.

This may seem just when you think about it, but consider all the engineers that Hitachi employs... It may be that they count on having a few gems in order to pay all the others. There are a lot of considerations... Quite interesting though.

I had to disable comments for a while... I'll get them back up as soon as I have time. :)

Microsoft is threatening to sue Mike Rowe over his domain name -- mikerowesoft.com. Story on ZDNet.

In my opinion, this is a waste of money for Microsoft. Especially since he offered to turn over the domain for only $10,000. Microsoft had offered him $10. To Microsoft, either number is smaller than the cost of a lawsuit, or even the time it will take their lawyers to prepare for a lawsuit...

Companies have to choose their battles wisely. This one is just a waste of money for MS.

So, I finally had some extra time this weekend, since I had both Friday and Monday off. It allowed me to review the first couple weeks of class, and chill out a bit too...

Criminal law is becoming very interesting. I've always been interested in constitutional issues, and we're beginning to touch on them in the concepts of "void for vagueness", ex post facto law, and fair notice. These are the concepts that law must be specific enough to give people fair notice that their conduct may constitute a crime, and thus that a legislature (and a court through its legal interpretation) may not broaden a law retroactively, effectively criminalizing something that was not a crime at the cime it was committed.

We've also been reading quite a bit about the theory behind punishment, viewing it through utilitarianism and retributivism, a couple of moral theories that try to justify and un-justify punishment in different circumstances.

Civil procedure is interesting so far mostly in its potential for practical application and practical legal strategy, but I'm not sure there are a whole lot of interesting theoretical or ethical issues there yet...

I have been spending quite a bit of time setting up my 'replacement' computer again, since my previous laptop was stolen. It's a bummer, but I feel whole again now that it's been replaced. We still have to deal with the insurance company though...

I have secured a great job for the summer as a summer associate at a large firm in D.C., which I'm ecstatic about. I will have to try to learn something about patent law before starting there, or I'll be very lost... ;) I actually can't wait to start applying some of the things I've learned though. It will be extremely satisfying to actually have some responsibility to produce thoughtful analysis of legal issues... I'm feeling more and more that this will be a great type of work for me, and that I'll really enjoy it.

A friend recently pointed out a great site to me -- www.6ga.net... It allows you to record Japanese television shows and download them over the web to view on your machine. I may get this service at some point, if I have the cash... ;)

First semester, we have an unusual schedule at George Mason, because everyone must take a class on economics. The other classes are typical: Contracts, Torts, Property, and Legal Research and Writing.

This semester, I still have to take more Torts and Contracts, but also am taking Civil Procedure and Criminal Law, along with another writing course.

The first week (last week), we did something interesting in the writing class: a mock client interview, and a letter to the client. It caused me to think much more about how it will feel to actually practice law. It also made me realize how much power a lawyer has to influence people. It's a great power if used wisely and responsibly, and can do a great deal of good. It's so appealing to me because I've been denied the power to make decisions at many of the software companies I've been a part of.

Managers and engineers at software companies often are at odds. As an engineer, I always wanted to create something well-designed, useful, and relatively bug-free. Managers wanted to meet deadlines and make money. For this reason, managers can't usually trust engineers' positions on technical issues, because they suspect that there's always a cheaper, faster way. News flash: often, there's a direct trade-off between quality and time. I was often forced to deliver low quality in short time, something I detested.

In Law, however, it's somewhat different. For one thing, you're not always designing something from scratch, but rather analyzing precedent and predicting within certain limitations. I think it's extremely challenging and interesting, but not as difficult to predict as a software idea that's never been implemented before. Additionally, lawyers are held to ethical and qualitative standards, so they are not allowed to cut corners beyond a certain point, or face the risk of malpractice suits.

At any rate, these are some of the things I've been thinking about. In Criminal Law, we're talking about the morality and philosophy behind the idea of punishment. It's difficult to pin down, but very interesting to think about. This week, we're just starting to get into issues of what responsibilities lie in the judiciary versus the legislature, with regard to creating and interpreting criminal law and laws in general...

Civil procedure is about how civil trials are performed, specifically, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Complaint, Motions, Answer, Reply, etc. It's less interesting than the other classes yet, but it's nice to finally pin down the specifics as to how a lawsuit proceeds.

We've been talking a lot about medical malpractice in Torts, and read the book "Damages" by Barry Werth. Very interesting account of a big medical malpractice suit. It's 400 pages, and I read it in about 4 days, along with other class reading.

Contracts is now about unconscionability... Not much to say about that right now.

I'm also looking for jobs for the summer. They say it's difficult for a 1L (1st year law student) to find a good summer job, but not impossible. I am still optimistic right now.

So, I had 2 weeks off school over Christmas. Here's how it went.

My laptop and everything else in my backpack was stolen when someone broke into my car in D.C., so I had to get a new one. At first, I was told my car insurance wouldn't cover it, but in the end, it probably will, minus a $1000 deductible.

Had a great Christmas and went out to San Francisco to visit my sister for a week. We saw the city and Muir woods, and had a great time...

Came back, and did a bunch of random errands for a week, getting ready for school, etc. The first week of school was interesting but tough, since I had neglected to read a book we were supposed to read over the break. I finished it (400 pages) by Thursday though. That was last week.

Then Friday, Yuki got in a car accident because the roads were all iced up on her way to work. Deductible on that is $1000 too. This is very stressful.

But, in between, I received 3 out of 5 of my grades from last semester, and they were far better than I had hoped. :) I am so happy about it that it's really helping me to keep all the other losses in perspective.

Time for class...