Although dated, this article elucidates the legal landscape at the time this week’s cases were coming out.  It sheds light on both the case law and legislation, and considers the country’s reception and possible effects.  Some of the article also brings to mind our previous discussions of disruptive innovations.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B07EEDC153BF930A25752C0A96E9C8B63

And this article provides an interesting and entertaining take on the patent world.

http://www.forbes.com/2008/03/10/patent-smucker-newton-ent-tech-cx_mf_0310smallbizoutlookpatent.html

Despite the surge in IP laws, it still remains that the legislative process is a long one, and innovators have been able to be a few steps ahead in today’s age.

http://www.fastcompany.com/3001169/uber-when-innovation-outpaces-law

Despite the rational thought that laws may hinder innovation, there seems to be little proof behind the accusation.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120516/03343418940/research-shows-little-relationship-between-stricter-ip-laws-innovation-economic-growth.shtml

Even in 1999, innovation and law’s effect on it was debated.  Interesting to think about how the stance brought forward in this paper has changed over the last 15 years though, and whether laws can still be opportunistic in regards to innovation.

http://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3576&context=flr

Interesting article about cigarette smuggling in Michigan. This started in the late 1990s, when the Michigan legislature decided to pass the second highest cigarette tax in the nation. (New York had the highest cigarette taxes at the time.)  Within months, people were starting to buy cigarettes in Toledo and other places across the border in Ohio and Indiana.  Party stores, gas stations and other Michigan vendors – particularly those close to the borders of other states – began complaining that they were losing revenues to stores in the other states. Whereupon the Michigan legislature passed yet another law, making it illegal to purchase more than X/cartons in other states. And then the smuggling started.

How can you enforce laws like that? You really can’t without random stops. And so that’s what the Michigan State Police started doing – randomly stopping vehicles crossing the Ohio and Indiana state lines into Michigan, and checking for what is now “contraband.”

http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/19725

More disruption to the business model of television.  Check out this quote:

“Meanwhile, the paid TV industry has been reeling from the impact of subscribers defecting in favor of piecing together their own viewing options with streaming services and devices like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Apple TV and Roku.  Last year alone, an estimated 687,000 cable subscribers canceled their accounts, according to Craig Moffett and Michael Nathanson, the eponymous Wall Street veterans at MoffettNathanson research firm in Manhattan.  All of 2013, they said in a report last year, amounted to the worst 12-month stretch in the paid television industry they had ever seen.”

http://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2014/04/comcast_launches_streaming_dvr_service_in_nj.html

… according to a Forbes article from 2013:

http://www.forbes.com/special-report/2013/disruptors/index.html

… and by ‘here’ we mean Canada.”

Great article about what’s at stake for the cable companies if the public pushes for unbundling cable channels.

http://consumerist.com/2013/10/15/a-la-carte-cable-is-here-and-by-here-we-mean-canada/

… and this article features a quote from our own Professor Mark McKenna!

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/another-case-between-apple-samsung-heads-court

Everyone’s going to be watching this case — further to my point that the Supreme Court has been wading into patent law with increasing frequency; a trend I find interesting.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/31/us-usa-court-ip-idUSBREA2U05X20140331