Robert Merges, Pamela Samuelson Argue for First-to-File Patent Law

San Francisco Chronicle, March 9, 2011 by Carolyn Lochhead
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/03/09/MNQ01I6D0G.DTL

UC Berkeley law Professor Robert Merges said concerns among small inventors are wildly overblown. They would be able to file placeholder applications and have a year to hone their inventions, he said.

Pamela Samuelson … said in an e-mail that the United States and the Philippines are the only nations that have first-to-invent systems. “The international norm is that the first inventor to file gets a patent,” Samuelson said. “The economic arguments in favor of the first-to-file system are strong and the ‘little guy’ inventor story that this rule favors big firms is really a myth.”

Alan Auerbach Likes Gov. Brown’s Single-Sales Tax Proposal

San Francisco Chronicle, March 8, 2011 by Joe Garofoli
http://articles.sfgate.com/2011-03-08/news/28670837_1_sales-taxes-tax-code-corporate-taxes

“It’s certainly going to raise corporate taxes, and it probably will not do any harm to employment in California,” said Alan Auerbach…. “Now whether it falls on wealthy Californians or wealthy shareholders in other states, it’s a little hard to know,” Auerbach said. “So it’s not as transparent as an increase in the top individual rate would be, but it’s certainly a progressive move and one that makes sense.”

David Kirp Proposes Education Policy Reforms

KQED-FM, Forum, March 8, 2011 Host Michael Krasny
http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201103081000

“If you think about policy, you want to think about kids generally in the way you think about a kid you love. That doesn’t necessarily mean the trip to Europe or the internship with the Congressman. But it means providing the same kinds of support so that the kid is going to emerge healthy, wealthy, and wiser.”

Franklin Zimring, Justin McCrary Examine Crime Stats

The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 6, 2011 by Lauren Sieben
http://chronicle.com/article/5-Minutes-With-Where-More/126612/

Mr. Ludwig is a gun-policy researcher and an editor, along with Philip J. Cook, of Duke University, and Justin McCrary, of the University of California at Berkeley, of Controlling Crime: Strategies and Tradeoffs, forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press.

Frank Zimring is a law professor at Berkeley who wrote a terrific book in the late 90s where he points out that if you look at cities in the United Kingdom and you look at cities in the United States, the overall levels of fights and robberies and other crimes aren’t very different.

John Yoo Calls for No-fly Zone Over Libya

The Wall Street Journal, March 5, 2011 by John Yoo
http://on.wsj.com/gkyVHs (registration required; go to H:\Law School in the News\In the News 2011\News Clips for article)

It should come as no surprise that an administration dominated by academic thinking on Iraq is making a fetish of international law in Libya. This pious elevation of international law over American national interests means that more innocent civilians will die and authoritarian regimes will last longer.

Deirdre Mulligan, Kenneth Bamberger Co-Author Privacy Paper

Stanford Center for Internet and Society, March 4, 2011 by Omer Tene
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/node/6629

I find the Deirdre Mulligan and Kenneth Bamberger paper, Privacy on the Books and on the Ground, eye opening in this respect. In what is surely one of the most important and influential papers on privacy over the past decade, the authors identify stark differences between the development of the profession on both sides of the Atlantic.

Robert Berring Values Small Bookbinderies

The Wall Street Journal, March 3, 2011 by Cari Tuna
http://on.wsj.com/iiI7co

Bob Berring, a University of California, Berkeley, law professor and book collector, said small bookbinderies serve an important role, making high-quality bindings for $100 to $200, compared with upscale book artists, who charge up to $5,000 a book.