Adequate Search Terms Are Important

Via Legal Technology Blog, a great post titled Wake-Up Call on Slipshod Search Terms, discusses the important of proper search terms. U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew. J. Peck recently issued,

a self-styled "wake-up call" to members of the bar in the Southern District. Instead of attorneys designing keywords without adequate information "by the seat of their pants," Peck appealed for keyword formulations based on careful thought, quality control, testing and cooperation.

Further, Magistrate Judge Peck, in an order of William A. Gross Constr. Assoc., Inc. v. Am. Mfr. Mut. Ins. Co., 256 F.D.R. 134, 2009 WL 724954 (S.D.N.Y. March 19, 2009) endorsed

Magistrate Judge Grimm's description of the proper procedure for devising search keywords. He emphasized in a footnote that what is required is more than a lawyer's guesses, without any quality control testing to ensure the search results are minimally overinclusive or underinclusive for responsive e-mails.

A plug for the Pace Law Library, take a moment to listen to the law library podcast Food for Thought: Generating Search Terms.

Disclosure of Calories on Menus Law Upheld

As posted by Suites & Sentences blog, "the calorie police have won another one!"

On Tuesday, February 17, 2009, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld New York City's law requiring some restaurants to pose calorie information on their menus. The law covers about 10 percent of the restaurants in New York City, notably such chains as McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken.

More information is available on Health News, Associated Press, Consumer Law and Policy Blog, Law.Com, and more.

Who Owns the 'Fruits' of Prisoner's Labor?

Suits & Sentences Blog has an excellent post discussing the question, which is not a question anymore, of who owns the fruits of prisoner's labor. Well, a recent Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit says that by virtue a prisoner's work belongs to Uncle Sam. More so, a federal prisoner is "in service" of the United States. The story is about Robert James Walton who is a very talented federal prisoner.

James Walton, the Vietnam veteran, convicted bank robber and well-trained desktop publishing expert designed a 2001 desk-blotter calendar, as well as several other calendars, while imprisoned at Leavenworth. Federal Prison Industries then distributed millions of copies of the calendars to Government Services Administration warehouses.

Now serving out his 210-month sentence in Colorado, Walton sued on the ground that the government had stolen his intellectual property. The government retorted that he didn't own the copyright. He got a lawyer, and obtained the copyright. Nonetheless, last January, the Court of Federal Claims ruled against him. Copyright infringement suits can't succeed if the work was prepared "in the employment or service" of the federal government.