With all of the shrink-wrap, and click through, licenses I have the urge to suggest the following, or wonder what would happen.

The next time you buy software, don't open it, and first send a letter (probably certified?) to the software company stating a counter-adhesion contract. State that unless [the company] rejects your terms by mailing you a rejection (which you promise to reimburse for postage) within 30 days of receipt of the letter they are bound by the terms of your agreement.

E.g. Setup the license to be exactly the opposite of a typical adhesion contract.

Mail it to the central office, in which it might eventually find its way to the legal department, but even if it does it probably won't receive a timely response. So after 40 days (time for mail transit!) you can open your software uninhibited by unnecessarily restrictive licensing terms.

Note: Don't go so far as to misappropriate the software, they might have other causes of actions against you if you take it too far.
Don't go looking for a lawsuit, if you want to litigate it you might be able to seek declaratory judgment of some sort.

Perks: The company is bound by the legal rules, just like an individual would be. The Edison case from contracts regarding surety and satisfaction made it clear that large companies are not excused from legal duties to respond/not cash the check just because they are large and there is the bureaucracy. Thus, if the companies legal department never sees your letter the company is still bound. Think about it... you are still bound by adhesion contracts even if you didn't show them to your lawyer.
Plus, if it does get litigated it is putting the company in a position where it doesn't want to establish bad precedent for itself so it can't strongly argue that the adhesion contract is unenforceable - and if it does, then it is even better because the precedent establishes the unenforceability of all kinds of adhesion contracts and immediately brings fair use and the first sale doctrine back into play.

If I had money and time I could see reverse-adhesion contracts really going somewhere.

This is NOT LEGAL ADVICE, and if somebody actually follows any of the above for any reason you might want to seek actual legal advice instead of my academic pontifications.

I found out this morning that my school is considering canceling the Biotech Law Seminar for next semester due to low enrollment. I am enrolled in that class…

So now I am starting a messaging campaign to prevent my class from being canceled.

Part of the problem of low enrollment is caused by scheduling. The course is scheduled 9am-10:40am, and a large number of classes begin at 10:30 so there is a short overlap preventing students from enrolling in both.

First, earlier today I suggested to my schools administration that the Biotech Law Seminar be moved 10 minutes earlier so it would not conflict. They have said that is a good suggestion and will follow up.

Second, I am going to start directly soliciting potentially interested students to enroll, namely messaging members of the Biotech Law Group (BLG) a student club. (FYI, I heard about this because I am an officer of BLG and was asked to do this.)

So, third: The Biotech Law Seminar is reported to be one of the best courses offered. Students who have taken it have “absolutely loved it.” If you are one of my fellow students, spread the word to let students potentially interested in Biotech to sign-up now or risk being unable to take such wonderful courses in the future. Also let students know about the possible schedule adjustment to reduce conflicts.

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It seems like if I weren’t a good lawyer then I would never be able to get the classes I need to actually graduate law school. Foolish of me to think that I would learn how to be a lawyer from my classes; No, that’s not how my school does things. Apparently my law school decided to give me a heavy course load in bureaucratic maneuvers, mandatory independent study. I feel fortunate to have had such an excellent education at Cal Poly before having to sludge through this now.


p.s. From earlier, the law library has actually removed my library spot several weeks ago. I have finally settled into my new home spot in the CHTLJ office. My desk doesn’t have quite as much space as the desks in the library but it is even quieter with less foot-traffic AND it doesn’t seem to close.

p.s.s. I am now a registered agent at the USPTO. I am no. 65316. =)

For the 2005 Solar Decathlon I was a member of Cal Poly's team and we managed to take 3rd place overall. Yay!

I started law school at Santa Clara University in 2007, and coincidentally SCU took 3rd place overall in the 2007 Solar Decathlon.

Guess how SCU placed for the 2009 Solar Decathlon? Yep, 3rd place overall.

Its an eerie coincidence (not referring to the Erie doctrine). Almost as eerie as finding out that my name was written in the sidewalk in the concrete in the walk of the house I lived at my 1st semester at SCU. (It said Jay '87, so it had been there 20 years...)

I will only need 10 units to graduate, but 12 units if I want to stay full-time.

I am pretty sure I will be taking:
Biotech Law Seminar, Patent Law Practice, Patent Prosecution, Computer and High Tech Law Journal.
which totals 7 units


And I will be taking some set of these that either add up to 3 or 5 units:
Remedies (3 units)
Pretrial Litigation Techniques [w/ Prof. Galloway] (2 units)
Law Practice Management (Winter session Jan 4-9) [w/ Prof. Galloway] (1 unit)

I have heard professor Galloway is awesome so I am really tempted to forsake Remedies to take the latter two. However, if financial aid tells me I need to stay a full-time student then I'll be taking remedies anyways. For now I just try to register for all of the above and figure it out my options after I know which classes I am even able to register for.

This:

http://practicality.wordpress.com/2009/09/11/video-bio-rad-gtca-song/

*Warning* May cause involuntary chortling.

Reposted from _scientists_.

( Weekend Wedding Win )
Friends Married: +1,000,000,000 pts

Wednesday I passed the patent bar. The previous week and a half I have been virtual nonexistent, and I apologize for being so unavailable. I am now ridiculously busy playing catch-up with all the work I should have been doing if I wasn't studying for the patent bar.

Notes on the patent bar: It is brutal. I have the urge to frame the little automatic computer printout saying I passed. In contrast, my bachelors degree was just filed away for safe keeping. Rationale: The patent bar is the only test I have had to take twice; plus passing was kind of a new years resolution of mine which seems to have taken most of the year to complete.

Curious facts: I was assigned the exact same seat in the testing center during the examination as when I took it the first time.

So now I will be a registered practitioner before the USPTO (following a lengthy wait for bureaucratic processing).

Let others know a little more about yourself by re-posting and tagging your friends. Re-post note as your name "ology"
( Meme under the cut )

A proposal by UC San Diego professors has been made to close UC Merced in order to help close the budget gap. This is on top of the 23% some odd percent tuition fee increase which is itself on top of the regular annual 10% fee increase.

I've tracked the cost of things before and this is something else. The rate of increase is starting to resemble percentages only associated with the usury lending practices of predatory credit card companies. I think it is fair to say that college students will be paying more than their fair share of increased taxes next year.

And now CA is considering closing a university. If the CA legislature proposed selling off park land for development, or selling huge tracks of lumber or other natural resources there would be an outcry (off-shore oil drilling anybody?) but if we are selling off the hopes and dreams of our younger citizens, that... is ok?

Pandora is moving proprietary. Some of my friends wanted the details, so here is the message copied and pasted below the ( cut )