Switching to E-Books Would Save Our Children’s Backs

It is amazing that in this day and age we still see students hauling around backpacks full of heavy school textbooks. This is true not only for college and high schools students, but also for much younger students in middle school and elementary school.

With the technology available such that many voluminous books can be loaded electronically onto an electronic book reader, a laptop, an iPad, or even a PDA, there seems no reason why kids should have to shoulder the heavy weight of books.

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E-Discovery Is More Costly, Burdensome Than You Think

Once upon a time, it was widely believed that electronic discovery would streamline litigation, making it faster, easier, less burdensome, and less expensive. So, now that we are some years into the e-discovery experience, has the prediction come true? Sadly, not necessarily.

While it is true that it can be easier to retrieve information electronically by using search terms, rather than sending teams of associates into warehouses to rummage through boxes of documents, that is just the tip of the iceberg when considering the overall e-discovery effort. And even if vast quantities of electronic information can be brought up based on a simple search, that information had to be harvested at the front-end, and ultimately will need to be reviewed at the back-end.

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Nationwide Electronic Surveillance Plan Revived In UK

The UK is working on proposals for national electronic surveillance that could monitor every electronic message sent and received by its citizens.

This follows the 2008 abandonment of a gigantic government database that would have tracked UK phone and email communications, the AP reports. It appears that the UK government is back at it now, but perhaps with a somewhat different approach.

Recent plans were reportedly disclosed to the Internet Service Providers’ Association by Britain’s Home Office. The Home Office has not said much other than to say that an announcement would initially need to come from Parliament — and perhaps relatively soon. There have not been disclosures about how a new government surveillance service would function, or whether it would be subject to judicial oversight.

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Controlling E-Discovery Costs In Patent Cases

Electronic discovery can be time-consuming, burdensome and expensive. Indeed, at times, e-discovery can be the tail that wags the litigation dog.
As a consequence, Chief Judge Randall Rader of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, on behalf of an E-Discovery Committee, recently introduced a Model Order for Patent E-Discovery.

The Committee’s discussion underpinning the Model Order notes that federal district courts have inherent power to control their dockets in the interests of time and economy. Accordingly, it is the Committee’s view that the Model Order may be a “helpful starting point for district courts to use in requiring the responsible, targeted use of e-discovery in patent cases.”

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The opinions expressed on this blog are those of the author and are not to be construed as legal advice.

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