tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2977297931731346524.comments2024-01-02T19:41:05.489-05:00Written DescriptionLisa Larrimore Ouellettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18401005012430355377noreply@blogger.comBlogger99125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2977297931731346524.post-36513121194338535682014-10-05T16:40:07.524-04:002014-10-05T16:40:07.524-04:00The Court may well decide you're right. I thin...The Court may well decide you're right. I think experts are typically not allowed to testify on pure legal issues, but it is possible that this kind of testimony would be treated as evidence on "legislative facts" like general scientific knowledge. We'll see!<br /><br />Also, sorry to hear that you were having trouble with Blogger's comment system. There isn't an earlier comment from you in the filtered spam comments, so I don't know what happened to it.Lisa Larrimore Ouellettehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18401005012430355377noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2977297931731346524.post-6854283786740495912014-10-05T16:02:48.740-04:002014-10-05T16:02:48.740-04:00My earlier comment was erased. Hard to see that a...My earlier comment was erased. Hard to see that an opinion by an expert rises to the level of a factual issue, subsidiary or otherwise.Lawrence B. Eberthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05616776187293753324noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2977297931731346524.post-70285822597760345722014-09-02T23:32:59.751-04:002014-09-02T23:32:59.751-04:00Thanks for the questions. Dan Burk didn't incl...Thanks for the questions. Dan Burk didn't include clinical faculty in his calculations, but you're right that Sprigman should be grouped with NYU (which bumps you up in the rankings), and Syed and Abrams were also missing.Lisa Larrimore Ouellettehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18401005012430355377noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2977297931731346524.post-69047780279483807902014-09-02T21:52:04.775-04:002014-09-02T21:52:04.775-04:00Was there a cutoff date for including scholars? N...Was there a cutoff date for including scholars? NYU is missing Sprigman and Schultz, who have both been at NYU for over a year. Berkeley is missing Syed. There might be others, but those caught my eye.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04912055047756312192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2977297931731346524.post-25786301442555758182014-05-23T13:29:41.293-04:002014-05-23T13:29:41.293-04:00Lisa is correct that Google Scholar does not disti...Lisa is correct that Google Scholar does not distinguish self-citation, or even more to Saurabh's point, good old fashioned CLS-style collusive citation. <br /><br />My suspicion is that a much stronger influence is non-peer citation. The results Lisa posted are limited to faculty from AALS member schools. I have tried running a few European academics through Scholarometer and they tend to fare comparatively poorly. My hypothesis is that this is because they mostly publish in professionally edited peer review journals where student notes are unknown, and American citation rates are heavily inflated by student citation.<br /><br />Some further evidence of this comes from this LSE study suggesting that senior legal scholars have an h-index of about 2.8 -- clearly not the case for American academics: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/the-handbook/chapter-3-key-measures-of-academic-influence/<br /><br />Someone with a lot of time or a big research assistant fund might try culling citations to produce a peer citation study.Dan Burkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01824429514723711569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2977297931731346524.post-36622096798448213042014-05-23T12:42:15.807-04:002014-05-23T12:42:15.807-04:00As far as I can tell, self-citations count, which ...As far as I can tell, self-citations count, which is also interesting in light of recent evidence that men are 64% more likely to self-cite than woman. See http://chronicle.com/article/New-Gender-Gap-in-Scholarship/145311/ (paywalled) or http://www.academia.org/academics-citing-experts-selves/ (non-paywalled).Lisa Larrimore Ouellettehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18401005012430355377noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2977297931731346524.post-77087512162934587732014-05-23T12:32:15.879-04:002014-05-23T12:32:15.879-04:00Dan, how does this take account of self-citation? ...Dan, how does this take account of self-citation? For people whose scholarship is more thematically unified, self-citations would be higher in general and would tend to accumulate more quickly into a higher h-score—e.g., paper 2 cites paper 1, paper 3 cites papers 2 and 1, etc.<br /><br />Best,<br />SaurabhSVhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05345206075719328487noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2977297931731346524.post-18496383831747463502014-05-23T07:43:47.224-04:002014-05-23T07:43:47.224-04:00I think that's right, Dan. Mine was 11, but gi...I think that's right, Dan. Mine was 11, but given 7 years in the academy, I'll take it (though I think it included a couple people who are not me). Maybe the vast middle is more like 8-12. The one caveat is that other citation count studies show heavy weighing toward IP - but maybe that's about higher citation of a few articles, rather than the breadth that the h-score requires.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2977297931731346524.post-77055665760870472492014-05-23T05:46:06.299-04:002014-05-23T05:46:06.299-04:00Personally, I'm trying to get my head around t...Personally, I'm trying to get my head around the steep dropoff from 1 to 2.<br /><br />But more to your point: remember that 14-ish is the mean for all law scholars -- all the Posners, Amars, Volokhs, Tushnets, Mnookins, etc., not just IP scholars. <br /><br />I've run about 150 IP names through the database -- by no means all the IP scholars in the AALS, but I long ago exhausted any I could find with scores similar to those Lisa posted. You would have to do a more comprehensive study to get the IP mean, but eyeballing it I wonder if the mean for IP scholars isn't closer to 9 or 10.<br /><br />(Btw, this would make sense if you remember that there is a seniority bias to the h score and most of the AALS hiring in IP has been done in the last 10 years or so.)Dan Burkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01824429514723711569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2977297931731346524.post-65672217108122551992014-05-22T10:25:39.558-04:002014-05-22T10:25:39.558-04:00Interesting - pretty steep dropoff - if the law av...Interesting - pretty steep dropoff - if the law average is 14.8, and the 30th highest here is 19, it implies a pretty vast middle between 10 and 18Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2977297931731346524.post-65664880655903591432014-03-06T21:33:44.576-05:002014-03-06T21:33:44.576-05:00I think one reason for that might be that patents ...I think one reason for that might be that patents have their own sort of language (at least in pharmaceutical/chemical patents which I am most familar with) and with the prosecution of a patent application with the PTO there is skill to crafting claims and thus speeding up the prosecution practice as well as skill in writing disclosures to ensure that you don't get boxed into a corner down the road. With patent disclsoures you can't add anything to it later and sometimes during prosecution it becomes clear to the applicant that they need to narrow the claims to get around prior art but they don't have support for the amendments they want to make. I once saw an applicatoin for a composition that had no disclosure of any amounts at all and later down applicant wants to limit the claim scope to dosages higher than the prior art but can't because they have no support for such. I think academics tend to be more focused on the theory of the law and should be just as skilled at understanding an applying that but may not be as aware of the practical limitations that our patent system requires. Just my opinion. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2977297931731346524.post-22918014505214749632013-05-15T14:16:11.853-04:002013-05-15T14:16:11.853-04:00Note that one could make the same argument about o...Note that one could make the same argument about other fields where patents are controversial, such as gene patents. In discussing the pending Supreme Court <i>Myriad</i> decision, <a href="http://abovethelaw.com/2013/05/yes-it-is-worth-making-a-federal-case-over-angelina-jolies-boobs/" rel="nofollow">Above the Law recently wrote</a>: <br /><br />"Fundamentally, the problem is the over-reliance on patent law to incentivize innovation. Economist Tyler Cowen, writing about treating pandemics in the Times recently, suggested the government would be more efficient if it <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/05/business/an-economic-cure-for-pandemics.html?smid=fb-share" rel="nofollow">issued cash rewards for innovation</a> in certain cases rather than relying on patents. That would seem to better fit here by addressing the economic concerns of Justices Scalia and Alito without ignoring that patent law actually requires something more than finding something in nature."<br /><br />Perhaps increased R&D tax incentives for DNA research is the solution to the DNA patent controversy as well.Lisa Larrimore Ouellettehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18401005012430355377noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2977297931731346524.post-87304922180608945362013-04-24T16:45:32.360-04:002013-04-24T16:45:32.360-04:00I tried Pages out when I first got my iMac, but en...I tried Pages out when I first got my iMac, but ended up having to buy Word. Pages is nice and pretty functional, but converting back and forth between Word and Mac (which is a necessity for collaborating with others as most of my colleagues still use Word) was too much of a hassle. Some of the formatting wouldn't make it, and other things would transfer, but in weird ways that weren't easy to edit. I actually find Word for Mac better than the Windows version of Word.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2977297931731346524.post-73311157327482055812013-03-25T17:22:31.180-04:002013-03-25T17:22:31.180-04:00For another recap, check out SCOTUSblog: http://ww...For another recap, check out SCOTUSblog: <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/2013/03/argument-recap-no-easy-rule-on-drug-pay-for-delay/" rel="nofollow">http://www.scotusblog.com/2013/03/argument-recap-no-easy-rule-on-drug-pay-for-delay/</a>Lisa Larrimore Ouellettehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18401005012430355377noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2977297931731346524.post-77181262271133880752013-03-14T15:40:20.078-04:002013-03-14T15:40:20.078-04:00I'm sure Pages is lovely, but I think network ...I'm sure Pages is lovely, but I think network effects are going to keep me with Word for now. :) Also, "paste and match style" sounds a lot like Word's "match destination formatting."Lisa Larrimore Ouellettehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18401005012430355377noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2977297931731346524.post-39576338125505124052013-03-14T15:17:30.549-04:002013-03-14T15:17:30.549-04:00My number one shortcut for writing law review arti...My number one shortcut for writing law review articles on a Mac is ⌘+delete. Just navigate to your Microsoft Office folder, select Word, and use the shortcut. Then install Pages from the Mac App Store, and it will save you hours! (You'll probably need to undelete Word to read and respond to edits from the law review, but if you maintain a Word-free workflow before then, the one-time conversion hassle is more than worth it.) Pages is worth it for "paste and match style" alone.James Grimmelmannhttp://laboratorium.netnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2977297931731346524.post-65551014185664275442013-01-30T10:08:40.100-05:002013-01-30T10:08:40.100-05:00Interesting - do you have examples of queries that...Interesting - do you have examples of queries that didn't work?Lisa Larrimore Ouellettehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18401005012430355377noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2977297931731346524.post-84555239524906607002013-01-30T09:52:14.998-05:002013-01-30T09:52:14.998-05:00Surprised your results were so good with weslaw ne...Surprised your results were so good with weslaw next. I never, ever get what I want listed first there - even if I type it in by name.Michael Rischhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00878815952765507347noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2977297931731346524.post-51188320417241160452013-01-24T15:11:27.602-05:002013-01-24T15:11:27.602-05:00Chemist Gaythia Weis made a thoughtful comment on ...Chemist Gaythia Weis made a <a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/103031175196144496359/posts/LV8zEgXkufc" rel="nofollow">thoughtful comment on this post in Google+</a>, which I'll respond to here for those who aren't on G+. You can read her full comment at the link, but in short, she argues for more analysis of the public-health implications of pharmaceutical patenting. She notes that the public pays for a substantial portion of basic research on new drugs and also often picks up the bill on the other end (through Medicare, etc.). And she argues that this government-industry hybrid system does not serve the public, and that we rarely see the truly innovative discoveries from small companies. "Rather than locking up more drugs under patents and related protections, perhaps we should open up the process to these smaller companies, as well as foster continuing innovation by larger ones, by having the health and safety process publicly funded. This could have benefits in making such analysis more likely to be unbiased and thus also opening the possibility that broadly based overall health outcomes would be investigated."<br /><br />Roin does state that more public funding of clinical trials would solve this problem—he is just skeptical that this will happen in practice. For example, he states: "Although the potential benefits from government financing of clinical research are substantial, funding for government-sponsored clinical trials is chronically in short supply, and recent spending cuts reflect Congress's unwillingness to commit necessary resources to important clinical research." (This problem is probably even more true in today's political climate.) Personally, I agree with Weis and Roin that the US should spend more on public research funding, but I share Roin's skepticism that this will happen. Maybe that skepticism is misplaced, which would be great! But if we assume that the whole pharmaceutical research system is not going to be restructured, are there other ways to better align private R&D with social benefit?<br /><br />At first glance, Roin's proposal might simply seem to be "locking up more drugs" (and thus very pro-big-pharma), but allowing the FDA to tailor regulatory exclusivity periods to social benefit and requiring comparative effectiveness might lead to a corresponding weakening of patent protection (because pharma would no longer be able to argue that patents are necessary for R&D). One can even imagine this leading to FDA evaluations of health benefits, so that a company's reward (in terms of a longer exclusivity period) is tied to the health impact of a drug (a sort of modified version of the <a href="http://healthimpactfund.com/the-health-impact-fund-a-summary-overview/" rel="nofollow">Health Impact Fund</a>). And in any case, I don't think Roin's proposal would <i>worsen</i> the problems Weis describes: the drugs he targets are currently not being developed at all. Roin is clearly aware of how some pharmaceutical companies might "abuse" the patent system, and he warns against "fixes" that would exacerbate these problems.<br /><br />In any case, I agree that health innovation policy ought to be about public health—I just don't think it is obvious what the best way to promote public health is. But I appreciate when people take the time to read and respond to these posts, especially when the comments are as thoughtful and respectful as these!Lisa Larrimore Ouellettehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18401005012430355377noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2977297931731346524.post-76549275520265091842013-01-23T18:14:35.769-05:002013-01-23T18:14:35.769-05:00As a practitioner noted in an email, cost is also ...As a practitioner noted in an email, cost is also obviously an important factor for those who don't get free Westlaw and Lexis access. My post was just focused on who has the best relevance-sorting algorithm, but for practitioners who are choosing how to do legal research, the take home message might be that Google Scholar is not <i>that</i> different from the paid search tools for quickly locating some relevant cases—and it is free.Lisa Larrimore Ouellettehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18401005012430355377noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2977297931731346524.post-84900975119255073652013-01-23T10:09:05.001-05:002013-01-23T10:09:05.001-05:00This article was just reviewed on JOTWELL:
http://...This article was just reviewed on JOTWELL:<br /><a href="http://ip.jotwell.com/tattoo-you/" rel="nofollow">http://ip.jotwell.com/tattoo-you/</a>Lisa Larrimore Ouellettehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18401005012430355377noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2977297931731346524.post-11142821257874598742013-01-16T16:34:25.327-05:002013-01-16T16:34:25.327-05:00Here's the argument preview from SCOTUSblog:
h...Here's the argument preview from SCOTUSblog:<br /><a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/2013/01/argument-preview-making-a-federal-case-out-of-legal-malpractice-claims/" rel="nofollow">http://www.scotusblog.com/2013/01/argument-preview-making-a-federal-case-out-of-legal-malpractice-claims/</a><br /><br />And post-argument analysis from PatentlyO:<br /><a href="http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2013/01/gunn-v-minton-oral-arguments.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2013/01/gunn-v-minton-oral-arguments.html</a>Lisa Larrimore Ouellettehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18401005012430355377noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2977297931731346524.post-2466027672155806332012-12-13T02:00:08.835-05:002012-12-13T02:00:08.835-05:00Anything someone can implement in hardware, I can ...Anything someone can implement in hardware, I can implement in software, and vice versa. Although "software patents" are the favorite hobby horse of a group of folks, software patents are not meaningfully unique from other patents. IBM was getting software patents in the 1970s, when software was not considered patentable, by writing the claims in terms of memories and processors. Unless you want to eliminate all patents (as Stallman certainly does) advocating against software patents as a whole is not feasible. All you would be doing is raising form over function.Judith_IPnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2977297931731346524.post-46899407310319838032012-11-30T09:30:57.523-05:002012-11-30T09:30:57.523-05:00Those interested in Chinese IP law might enjoy Pet...Those interested in Chinese IP law might enjoy Peter Yu's new chapter on <a href="http://ssrn.com/abstract=2175385" rel="nofollow">The First Decade of TRIPS in China</a>.Lisa Larrimore Ouellettehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18401005012430355377noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2977297931731346524.post-36909595374636265482012-11-18T16:31:29.762-05:002012-11-18T16:31:29.762-05:00I still cannot understand the popularity of EFF pr...I still cannot understand the popularity of EFF propositions while they have been <a href="http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/06/opinion-eff-should-call-for-the-elimination-of-software-patents/" rel="nofollow">described</a> as a major turn around, implying acceptance of software patents. <a href="https://defendinnovation.org/proposal/shorten-patent-term" rel="nofollow">Comments</a> on their proposition are very telling. There is now a momentum in US to get rid of the threat of software patents altogether, partial solutions are just a waste of time and resources.Gibushttps://www.unitary-patent.eunoreply@blogger.com