Why do I like Kelly Talcott's law blog so much?

Kelly Talcott's law blog, Infringing Actions, is a great law blog. I have been waiting for a reasonable lawyer who has a pro-intellectual property outlook to appear in the blogosphere. Why? Because if the only lawyers who blog here are anti-IP then we have nothing more than an echo-chamber. But if we can have reasonable lawyers discussing their disagreements in public then at least we'll know what the honest disagreements are.

Kelly is reasonable, and he writes well. I agree with his observation about the Bunner case. I don't like the practical outcome that the case dictates, but that doesn't mean I can't agree that the court's decision is properly rendered. If we all don't take stock of ourselves and learn to accept (at least at some level) decisions that we don't agree with then we might as well just use blunt force to achieve all of our aims. I'm tired of hearing anti-IP law techies, when they disagree with an IP decision that they don't like the practical effect of, say that the decision is legally incorrect. Many of the techies that opine in this manner simply don't even know enough law to have an informed opinion. But that doesn't stop them from delcaring that a given court opinion is wrong. And the strange thing is I'm actually one of the lawyers who think that we have too many people trying to lay claim to IP rights, which I think is a very bad state of affairs.

I will probably disagree with Kelly on many things, but I have the sense that we will at least have a frame of reference where we will say to one another We disagree about the practical result of a decision, but we agree that the decision was correctly rendered. A legal system that where the lawyers (or worse, the judges) don't feel like they have to respect a legal rule that they don't like is an intrinsically flawed system. The state judge in Alabama who refuses to abide by the federal court order to remove the Ten Commandments is an example of this problem.

Anyway, I didn't start this post to condemn judges in Alabama, but rather to praise Kelly Talcott. Speaking of which, I also like his post about the case involving the Pocket Cajun. The only thing I don't like about his site is that it doesn't have an RSS feed. But, you know what? I like it so much I'm going to bookmark it and go visit it everyday.

Update: Reading this post just now, I realized that I shouldn't have implied that there are no other pro-IP lawyers who blog (obviously there are). I think, however, that there is a lot of critcism of IP law in the blogosphere (I'm among the critics) and it's nice to have another reasonable legal voice on the other side of the issue. I guess that's what I should have said. So I apologize if I inadvertently offended the other wonderful pro-IP law blawgers. I was just very excited because I think that Kelly's blog is a great addition. Also, I was very sleepy when I created the post. And my dog ate my homework...

Comments

[Denise Howell]

Right on Ernie, well put. I dig Kelly's blog too, for a whole host of reasons.

[John Anderson]

This is not the topic of your post, but since you mention it I am surprised at "The state judge in Alabama who refuses to abide by the federal court order to remove the Ten Commandments is an example of this problem."

The decision was by eight of the nine (Moore is the ninth) justices of the ALABAMA Supreme Court, based on the ALABAMA State Constitution, and the removal (or just moving, seems they are trying to find someplace to put it where the flooring can take the weight) order was from these ALABAMA judges. The Feds got involved when Moore tried to get an injunction against his fellow justices and prevent the movement.

I have been posting this at a lot of sites which are on either side of the issue of bewailing "State's Rights vs Federal Government", and am surprised to find it needed here.