Photo credit: William Hook of Twitter

By Spencer Hutchins

The old rotary-dial landline phones were so easy to tap, weren’t they? We instantly recognize the scenario when we see it on the big screen: “Hello?” – buzz, click, crackle – “Hello? Who’s there?!” – tap, tap, pop. Those dusty old days seem to be over. But only a few decades into the age of mobile communication, cell phone privacy already seems a thing of the past. Continue reading →

The new face of Youtube?

By Lauren Guicheteau
Yesterday, YouTube announced that it now provides a tool allowing users to blur people’s faces in videos uploaded to the site. This new tool, as “a first step towards providing visual anonymity for video on YouTube,” is a response to the desire by individuals to have privacy while still participating in public forums, a desire which raises important legal issues for sites such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Continue reading →

JLTA Staff Writer

Judge William Alsup, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, approved a settlement for zero damages in Oracle’s copyright infringement against Google. Oracle Am., Inc. v. Google Inc., 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 75897 (N.D. Cal., May 31, 2012). In August 2010, Oracle sued Google for illegally using 37 of Oracle’s application programming interfaces (“APIs”)—protected by patents and copyrights—in Google’s Android mobile operating system. Google has contended it did not violate patents or copyrights, because APIs are necessary to use in Java programming language and Java itself is free for anyone to employ. Continue reading →

By Robert Gomulkiewicz
Faculty Adviser

Last summer, the University of Washington School of Law’s annual CASRIP High Tech Summit celebrated the elevation of Judge Randall R. Rader to Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.  Judge Rader has been a regular and long time participant in the Summit. Many speakers during the Summit focused on how opinions written by Judge Rader had shaped important aspects of intellectual property law and practice.  Other speakers highlighted his contributions as a teacher and scholar. Still others emphasized that his influence reached globally, particularly to Asia. As I listened to these insightful presentations, I became convinced that we needed to share them with a broader audience. The notion of a festschrift–a collection of writings published to honor an outstanding intellectual during his or her lifetime–came to mind.  That fit the bill nicely because Judge Rader’s intellectual contributions can be found not only in his judicial opinions but in his books, presentations, and classroom teaching. Accordingly, the Spring 2012 issue of the Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts contains 11 articles written by participants in the Summit, highlighting Judge Rader’s achievements in all these areas. I’m grateful to the editors of the Journal for their partnership in celebrating the accomplishments of Chief Judge Rader through this festchrift symposium issue.

The full issue may be read here, and will be available as a manuscript at major law libraries later this year.

By Collin Conerton

Throughout the world, the patent granting process has long been used as a primary way for countries to promote and encourage innovation among its citizens.  Countries see patents as powerful tools that drive advancement because they encourage inventors to quickly and accurately disclose their idea in the hopes of exploiting their invention for profit, as well as allowing other individuals and business to see and benefit from this new development. Hence, it should come as no surprise countries are constantly re-evaluating their patent granting process to ensure that they have the most effective process. Continue reading →