Patent Baristas

We’ve gotten behind in some (OK, a lot) of to-do items on the site so we’ll try to get caught up on some housecleaning. One item of note is that the Patent Baristas received a nice mention by Monica Bay in the Common Scold. Besides being editor-in-chief of Law Technology News, editorial director of Law […]

A recent Wall Street Journal article profiled the wrangling between publishers of scientific journal and academics over so-called open-access journals. That is, many researchers would love to abandon expensive journals from publishers in favor of web-based journals and databases that offer free research articles. The WSJ depicted this as “a raging Internet-era debate about who […]

Jeremy Richey brings us Blawg Review #7 at his Blawg heralding: “Wisdom is the chief and leader: next follows temperance; and from the union of these two with courage springs justice. These four virtues take precedence in the class of divine goods.” –Plato Check out the review for a nice summary of this past week’s […]

On February 2, 2005, NIH Director Elias Zerhouni announced an overhaul of agency ethics guidelines that would restrict all 18,000 NIH employees’ outside consulting activities for pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, insurers and health providers “in an effort to restore luster” to NIH’s “tarnished reputation.” Under the revised guidelines, about 6,000 high-ranking NIH employees would no longer […]

The Washington Post reported that House backers of legislation that would loosen restrictions imposed by President Bush in 2001 say they have 201 co-sponsors and enough private commitments to put them at or over the 218 votes needed to pass. See our earlier report here. The Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005 would permit […]

You may not have heard but a new Star Wars episode opened today in theatres. Yes, after more than 25 years, “Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith” is certainly whipping up a frenzy among the public. ABCNews reported that Die-Hard fans of the epic paid $500 to attend the premiere of Episode […]

The New York Times had a great overview of the new tax boondoggle that is allowing the biggest drug makers to return as much as $75 billion in profits from international havens to the United States while paying a fraction of the normal tax rate. The break is part of the American Jobs Creation Act, […]

The National Inventors Hall of Fame added its latest class of inductees for 2005. The new inductees include the inventors of Streptomycin and the photocopier along with Grammy-Award winner Les Paul, inventor of the solid body electric guitar in 1946. The 2005 honorees are: LIVING C. Donald Bateman: Ground Proximity Warning System (GPWS); Robert Gundlach: […]