Robert Merges, Pamela Samuelson Clarify Patent Study Results

Patently-O, August 5, 2011 by Robert Merges, Pam Samuelson, and Ted Sichelman
http://bit.ly/mZ95cm

First, our study only applies to U.S. startup companies. Second, many executives—particularly those in the biotechnology and medical device industries—reported that patents provide strong or moderate incentives to innovate. In the very least, prompt patent grants for these companies would not be “irrelevant” to stimulating innovation. Last, our responses on the role of patents in the innovation process relates to the patent system as it is currently constituted.

Jason Schultz Suggests Modest Patent Reforms

Ars Technica, August 4, 2011 by Timothy B. Lee
http://bit.ly/nKGB4I

The most important reform, he argued, would be to add an affirmative search requirement to patent applications. “If I think I’ve invented something, the patent office doesn’t require me to look anywhere to see if anyone has done it first,” he said. By requiring applicants to “do a little homework first,” the law could make examiners’ jobs easier and dissuade some applicants from filing for patents at all.

Barry Krisberg Sees Flaws in Transfer of State Inmates to Counties

-The Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Bay Area, August 4, 2011 by Bobby White
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903520204576484794233725436.html

“As every county makes up its own rules—who goes on probation, who goes to state prison, who goes to jail and for how long—you will likely see big disparities between some counties,” says Barry Krisberg, director of research and policy at the Earl Warren Institute on Law and Social Policy at University of California, Berkeley.

-The Wall Street Journal, August 10, 2011 by Vauhini Vara and Bobby White
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904292504576482151386405920.html

But county plans so far are wildly uneven. “The approach California is using for realignment is, put the money on the stump and run,” said Barry Krisberg of the Earl Warren Institute of Law and Social Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. “The state gives the money to the counties and then says, ‘Do what you want.’ “

Alan Auerbach Questions Deficit Plan

The New York Times, August 4, 2011 by Catherine Rampell
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/05/us/politics/05deficit.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=Berkeley&st=nyt

Previous efforts by Congress to bind its own hands have almost always failed. “I’m a skeptic about these kinds of things,” said Alan J. Auerbach, an economics and law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. “You’re sort of saying, ‘I can’t control myself, so I’m putting in this external mechanism to control myself, but I’m also in control of the external mechanism.'”

Alejandro Sueldo Opines on Russia’s Nuclear Policy

The Moscow Times, August 2, 2011 by Alejandro Sueldo
http://bit.ly/qzbiS4

Russia must accept the futility of maintaining and building a sizable nuclear force and recognize that its security would be better served if more resources were allocated for military reform and developing conventional weapons that are a more credible deterrent and repellant to potential conventional aggressions.

Christopher Hoofnagle Finds Online Tracking Tactics Evade User Control

ClickZ, August 2, 2011 by Jack Marshall
http://www.clickz.com/clickz/news/2098796/tracking-methods-evade-user-control

Although KISSmetrics is not listed as a member of either of those initiatives, Hoofnagle suggested practices such as ETag tracking could severely undermine the efforts. “This is another example of tracking brought to light by researchers, rather than the industry self-regulatory groups…. It is unclear whether they have the technical expertise to engage in the surveillance and reverse engineering of new tracking methods,” he wrote in an email to ClickZ.

Barry Krisberg, Jeanne Woodford Urge Reform of Second-Strike Policy

San Francisco Chronicle, July 31, 2011 by Marisa Lagos
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/07/31/MN0F1KFC2T.DTL&type=printable

“We’re missing the significance of the second strike,” said UC Berkeley’s Barry Krisberg, director of research and policy at the school’s Institute on Law and Social Policy. “It is having an enormous impact on our prison population, and many second-strikers are serving more time than third-strikers, but when people talk about the policy of reforming three strikes, nobody wants to touch the second strike.”

Jeanne Woodford, a former Corrections Department chief … said the “three strikes” law has unquestionably helped drive the state’s prison crowding and spending problems…. “Some of these guys are literally serving 60, 70 years—more time than three-strikers,” she said. “The bottom line is that we really do need to look at our sentences. They are just so all over the place that people could commit a very serious crime and get less time than a second-striker who did something far less serious. To be a deterrent, the sentencing system has to be consistent.”