Despite the debate about whether tweets are a valid form of writing and what Google and the Library of Congress are doing with tweet archives, privacy etc., I want to write about archiving twitter streams. Perhaps if I put my thoughts out there (on the web) I believe I will be able to find those thoughts later when I need them. In 140 character thought bytes.

Steve has written about the value of tweeting at a conference and Simon F. has written about archiving tweets, but things have changed a bit (byte) as they tend to do.

The Legal . . . [more]

The CBA Task Force continues to work to help the profession with conflicts issues.

On top of the original report and the amended model code of conduct, there is the excellent collection of precedent documents and checklists in the CBA Conflicts Task Force Toolkit. A full list of the documents in the toolkit is here. I am a member of the Task Force did a lot of work on the Toolkit. I think it is truly a fantastic collection of resources that can help lawyers avoid conflicts of interest claims.

There is also an overview and list of . . . [more]

I made a half-baked comment in response to Omar’s April 4th post on the procedural issues in dealing with the communications that employees have with their legal counsel through employer e-mail systems. This is a post based on some “more baked” thoughts that I plan to incorporate into a book chapter under development.

The thoughts I’ve included are strictly on the procedure for dealing with these “hot” e-mails. I’ll leave the substantive issue about the legitimacy of an employee privilege claim to another day, but will set up the thoughts below by noting that the issue is highly uncertain in . . . [more]

Many of you already know the Index to Canadian Legal Literature (ICLL), LegalTrac, or the Index to Legal Periodicals on Quicklaw.

Here is another online source of Canadian legal journals.

The Scott Index to Canadian Legal Periodical Literature is now available on the website of CAIJ (Centre d’accès à l’information juridique), the network of 38 libraries serving members of the Barreau du Québec and the province’s judiciary.

The Index, a print-only product, was created in the early 60s by Marianne Scott. Scott was law librarian at McGill from 1955 to 1973, lecturer in the Faculty of Law from 1964 to . . . [more]

Not that Firefox wasn’t the most customizable browser already, but the upcoming edition will allow you to add and remove elements from all installed toolbars – paring your experience down to a single row, if desired.

As someone who currently uses three rows of toolbars, plus the area taken up by in-browser tabs, screen real estate is always an issue. Moving to larger monitors & screen resolutions does help, but it remains a constant balance between adding functionality -vs- viewable area. Knowing that I’m overly reliant on my ‘bookmarks toolbar’ – which I jam as many essential links into as . . . [more]

With allegations of racial profiling in Arizona’s new immigration law abuzz throughout the media this week, it was interesting for me to come upon the speaking notes for a recent speech by Jennifer Lynch, Q.C., Chief Commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC); the speech,

When should software and business methods be patentable, if ever? Two courts are currently grappling with this very question. In the United States, the Supreme Court is expected to deliver its decision in Bilski v. Kappos within weeks. In Canada, the Federal Court recently heard oral arguments in Amazon.com, Inc. v. The Attorney General of Canada et al, the Amazon 1-Click appeal. Both cases are likely to shape the patent landscape for years to come.

Previous developments

Previous decisions in Bilski and Amazon both conspicuously broke with established patentability requirements and led to the current appeals. Each discarded earlier . . . [more]

Following on the heels of Ontario’s draconian Road Safety Act (discussed at some length in one of my earlier Slaw posts) The B.C. Liberal government has introduced legislation that would create a Provincial offence for driving with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) between 0.05-0.08 (the Criminal Code legal limit is 0.08). The penalty for a first offender would be a 3-day driving ban plus a $200 fine rising from there for each subsequent offence.

Not to be outdone by Ontario though, B.C.’s law proposes to go a step further by also creating a Provincial offence of driving over 0.08. . . . [more]

The venerable Journal of Information, Law & Technology (JILT) is reborn as the European Journal of Law and Technology. Volume 1, Number 1, available free online, is a special issue, “A History of Legal Informatics”:

• Let there Be Lite: A Brief History of Legal Information Retrieval (Jon Bing)
• The Global Development of Free Access To Legal Information (Graham Greenleaf)
• How Structural Features of the U.S. Judicial System Have Affected the Take-Up of Digital Technology by Courts (Peter W Martin)
• Legal Informatics – A Personal Appraisal of Context and Progress (Richard Susskind)
• Jurimetrics Please! (Richard De Mulder)
• The Rise

. . . [more]

Connie Crosby and I will be co-presenting with two American law library colleagues (Jane Edwards and Marlene Coir) in a few weeks at the annual conference of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries in Windsor, this year a joint conference with the Michigan Association of Law Libraries.

Our topic is “Legal Research Free and Fast!” and we will be making available a jointly-authored paper that provides an overview and analysis of “free” versus “fee” online research tools.

My personal challenge for the presentation – and I assume perhaps a challenge shared by my co-panelists – is what free Internet-based, law-related . . . [more]

The Canadian Privacy Commissioner is in the midst of consultations on the privacy impacts of online tracking, profiling and targeting. The first public event is a panel discussion taking place today correction – Thursday the 29th in Toronto from 8:30 til 4:15. This event is being webcast. Viewers are invited to pose questions to the panelists.

To follow the consultations on twitter the hashtag is #priv2010. The Privacy Commisioner’s office’s twitter handle is @privacyprivee. . . . [more]

In Canada, under s. 48(1) of the Patent Act, a patentee can disclaim portions of an issued patent if “by mistake, accident or inadvertence, and without any willful intent to defraud or mislead the public,” the patentee has “made a specification too broad, claiming more than that of which the patentee… was the inventor.” Disclaimers can be filed to correct errors in patents and can be used to enhance the validity of existing claims by narrowing the claims based on newly discovered prior art. However, patentees should proceed with caution, as disclaimers filed in the wrong manner, or for . . . [more]