amicus briefs

We've been talking a lot about publicity rights cases lately, and how this new form of "intellectual property" (based on various state laws) is already being widely abused in ways that appear to violate First Amendment rights.

It looks like we may finally be getting some lawsuits to test the legality of such publicity rights claims.

We just saw that amicus briefs are being filed over whether or not the Supreme Court should hear the case concerning whether or not an "innocent infringement" defense is a legitimate defense to an RIAA file sharing lawsuit.

Groklaw: "They will say their businesses will be deleteriously affected if they can't ship Word, and the world as we know it will halt if the judge doesn't turn this around and block the injunction at least until the appeal can be heard."

Groklaw: "We looked at some amicus briefs submitted to the Supreme Court in support of the petitioners in In Re Bilski, so we have now a good idea of what the pro-patent forces think.

Then, as an antidote, we turned that page and read the letter that Donald Knuth submitted to the European Patent Office, expressing the view that mathematical ideas, or algorithms, should not be patented."