AltLaw is a web searchable database of federal court opinions.  Pretty handy.  Here's what it says about itself:

AltLaw is a joint project of Columbia Law School’s Program on Law and Technology, and the Silicon Flatirons Program at the University of Colorado Law School. AltLaw was written by Stuart Sierra and Paul Ohm, with help from Luis Villa, and produced by Tim Wu.

For most courts, opinions are available from mid 1990's to April of 2007, and recent opinions should be available soon.  Before long, the site expects to be able to offer opinions within 24 hours of publication by the courts.  More from the site:

The law is meant to belong to the people, but it can be surprisingly hard to find. Case reports, a major part of the laws of the United States, are hard to get at, and even when on the Internet, rarely searchable. To get full access you generally need either a library of law reports, or an expensive subscription to an online database, which can cost hundreds of dollars per hour.

AltLaw is a small effort to change that—to make the common law a bit more common. AltLaw provides the first free, full-text searchable database of Supreme Court and Federal Appellate case reports. It is a resource for attorneys, legal scholars, and the general public.

Features

• Full text search of the last decade or so of federal appellate and Supreme Court opinions.
• Advanced search options (proximity searching, Boolean, concentration, wildcards, etc.)
• Fast and free
• Updated daily (not yet, work in progress)

Limits

• Coverage, for most Circuits, limited to about the last 10 to 15 years.
• West Reporter Citations (i.e., 23 F.3d 178) not yet available (work in progress)
• As of yet, no state law or district court cases.

Watch out Westlaw and Lexis . . ..

The Appellate Court of Illinois recently denied a motion to dismiss filed by the online stock photo company Corbis, effectively preserving claims that Corbis violated Jame's Browns right of publicity by offereing to license photos of the the late singer.  The decision is here.  The case is interesting, because presumably there would be some uses of the photos that would not violate Brown's right of publicity, for fair use or first amendment reasons. Corbis would presumably license the photos to anyone who would pay the fee, and note that the photo comes without a publicity release, leaving it up to the licensee to use the photo in a lawful manner.  Nonetheless, the court is willing to entertain the claim that Corbis, by offering to license the photos, is thereby engaging in some commercial activity for which it may need the permission or consent of The Godfather of Soul.  Internet Cases has a good summary of the case.

The US District Court in Utah has ruled that "Novell is the owner of the UNIX and UnixWare copyrights" that are the subject of the dispute between Novell and SCO.  The opinion will undoubtedly impact SCO's suit against IBM.  The opinion is here.  The Court concluded:

"Therefore, Novell is entitled to a declaration of rights under its Fourth Claim for Relief that it was and is entitled, at its sole discretion, to direct SCO to waive its claims against IBM and Sequent, and SCO is obligated to recognize Novell's waiver of SCO's claims against IBM and Sequent. Accordingly, Novell's motion for partial summary judgment on its Fourth Claim for Relief for declaratory judgment is granted, and SCO's cross-motion for summary judgment on Novell's Fourth Claim for Relief is denied."

SCO responded in a statement that it "is obviously disappointed with the ruling", but that it is only a flesh wound, and that even though its arms and legs had been chopped off,  it could still butt IBM and Novell with its head.

Just finished my Journal of the Licensing Executive Society, which includes the results of their most recent member survey on licensing issues.  There were some interesting statistics that suggest some best practices to adopt in negotiating deals.  For example, when asked "thinking about licensing agreements entered into in the last twelve months, with the benefit of hindsight, which, if any of the following contract characteristics would you now restructure?"  The top three answers were as follows:

·        Field of use restrictions (43%)

·        Technical Milestones (40%)

·        Business Milestones (44%)

At the low end of the spectrum were clauses on most favored nation provisions and terms of use.  As a follow-up a question, the survey inquired "what are three most common reasons why you would restructure some of last years deals if you could?"  The top answers to that question were as follows:

·        The other side is not putting their promised effort into the product/technology. (53%)

·        Revised business strategy. (40%)

·        New Information has emerged about the market opportunity. (39%)

I think it is interesting to note that 28% responded that they would restructure some of last year's deals if they could, because they now realize that they made mistakes in negotiating.  Isn't that amazing?  Over one fourth of the respondents would restructure some of last year's deals, and mostly because the other side is not putting their promised effort into the product/technology. Even more amazing is the fact that among respondents that identified themselves in the university/government space, a whopping 71.8% complain that the reason for wanting to restructure would be the failure of the other side to put forth the promised effort.  

So what does all this mean?  The survey results would tend to suggest that when structuring and drafting license and development agreements, more focus should be placed on the technical and business milestones, and, to the extent possible, contractual provisions should be structured to provide some assurance that each party will, in fact, put forth the promised level of effort into the subject technology. Carefully crafted, detailed, technical and business milestones will clarify the party's expectations, duties, obligations, and assumptions on the front end of the deal, and considerably decrease the likelihood of any surprises in terms of the level of effort or achievement as the transaction proceeds.