A restaurant owner in Door County Wisconsin is serious about protecting his “goats on the roof”  trademark.  Lars Johnson owner of Al Johnson’s Swedish Restaurant recently settled a suit against a Georgia grocer who allowed goats to graze on his shop as a means to draw business. See docket 2:09-CV-00192.

According to the registration Al Johnson’s began putting goats on the roof in 1973.  The Goats on the Roof trade mark may not be as famous as the Nike Swoosh.  But, having visited Door County, the goats on the roof certainly makes an impression.  In my travels around Wisconsin, everyone I met refers to this restaurant simply as the place with the “goats on the roof.” As far as I can tell, only my wife refers to the place as “Al Johnson’s.”

One research note we discussed looking into this case: You may search using standard and Compu-Mark design codes in both domestic and international registration databases. (We used ALL-TM)  Keep in mind, however, the codes are standardized.  This means that Westlaw adds in leading zeros and eliminates the periods.  This is common for IP services that include international materials.

So, the following design codes…

Compu-Mark Design Codes

TM Design Codes

..are translated by Westlaw as…

Compu-Mark Design Codes

TM Design Codes

So, one of our queries in ALL-TM, looked like this

From the “old news” file comes word that the corruption trial of former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich ended in a hung jury on all but one count.  The docket for the case, which includes the verdict form, is available here (1:08-CR-00888). 

Blagojevich was convicted only of making false statements to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a violation of 18 USCA § 1001.  That charge is outlined in the Second Superseding Indictment, which is available on Westlaw at 2010 WL 1777511.

Blagojevich has been less than elusive since the verdict, appearing at such gatherings as the Wizard World Chicago Comic Con and making several television appearances.  Among those appearances was an interview on Fox News Sunday, where he discussed his case and indicated that he may not be finished with politics:

“My adult life was serving the people as a congressman, as a governor.  It’s what I know. I’m not very good on BlackBerries or computers or anything like that.  It’s why Donald Trump fired me on Celebrity Apprentice.  But no, I — I’m not ruling myself out as coming back, because I will be vindicated in this case. ”

You can read a complete transcript of the interview (broken up into two parts) by running the following search in the ALLNEWS database:  BLAGOJEVICH & PR(FOX).  The results are ranked in reverse-chronological order, so the interview should be at or near the top of the list.

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The 9th Circuit recently considered the Stolen Valor Act, and struck it down as a facially invalid intrusion upon the 1st Amendment.  The act (18 USCA 704(b)) criminalizes a person falsely representing themselves as having received an award or medal for the Armed Forces.

The Defendant, Xavier Alvarez, had stated in front of a Water District Board of Directors (of which he was a member) the following:

“I’m a retired marine of 25 years. I retired in the year 2001. Back in 1987, I was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. I got wounded many times by the same guy. I’m still around.”

As the court stated, this was all a lie. The defendant never served in the military.  For reasons the 9thCircuit did not go into, the FBI was tasked with investigating Mr. Alvarez’s statements.  Mr. Alvarez subsequently was charged and pled guilty to violating the Stolen Valor Act.  He then appealed to the 9th Circuit. 

The 9th Circuit determined that false statements of fact in most circumstances do enjoy 1st amendment protection.  The court then went on to apply strict scrutiny to 18 USCA 704(b) and (somewhat predictably) found that the provision failed the strict scrutiny test and was facially invalid.

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Credit: Reuters/Pichi Chuang

During the Proposition 8 decision on August 4, 2010, Judge Vaughn Walker issued a temporary stay for briefing.  The motions and briefs can be found below.  Yesterday, Judge Walker ruled  that gay marriages could resume next week (Wednesday at 5 p.m. PST) in California while his landmark ruling last week that overturned a ban on same-sex matrimony is appealed.   The purpose of the delay is to give the  appeals court time to consider “in an orderly manner” whether the voter-approved ban, known as Proposition 8, should be left intact while appellate judges weigh the merits of the overall case.

Late on Thursday, the defenders of Proposition 8 filed papers asking the appellate court to block same-sex marriages for the duration of the appeal.  When we have the appeals materials available we will update this post.  You can subscribe to the RSS feed on our toolbar on the right-hand side to get an update notice.

Decision: 2010 WL 3170286

Motions:

• 2010 WL 3065298 Attorney General’s Opposition to Defendant-Intervenors’ Motion for Stay Pending Appeal (Aug. 6, 2010)
• 2010 WL 3065300 The Administration’s Opposition to Defendant-Intervenors’ Motion for Stay Pending Appeal (Aug. 6, 2010)
• 2010 WL 3065309 Plaintiffs’ and Plaintiff-Intervenor’s Joint Opposition to Defendant-Intervenors’ Motion for a Stay Pending Appeal (Aug. 6, 2010)
• 2010 WL 3054190  Defendant-Intervenors Dennis Hollingsworth, Gail J. Knight, Martin F. Gutierrez, Mark A. Jansson, and Protectmarriage.com’s Motion for Stay Pending Appeal (Aug. 3, 2010)
• 2010 WL 2629020  Plaintiffs’ and Plaintiff-Intervenor’s Opposition to Defendant Intervenors’ Motion for Administrative Relief (Jun. 29, 2010)

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On Monday, Google and Verizon unveiled their Legislative Framework Proposal.   The proposal outlines what these two key players might deem an acceptable statutory scheme for managing internet traffic.  For some, Google’s broken it’s promise to do no evil.  It’s the end of the Internet as we know it, according to the Huffington Post.   Public Knowledge says, Google sold you out.  What’s at stake here? Try searches for net neutrality:

• Database: JLR
• Query: atleast2(net-neutrality) & da(2010)

A great deal of information can be found on your existing blogroll – without a doubt.  Still, there are times I want to use boolean.  The Blogs on Demand datababase (BLOGSOD) contains text from a variety of widely-read blogs.  It’s certainly not a comprehensive list nor are comments viewable but  the text is indexed.  I can search for author, title, company, date:

• Database: BLOGSOD
• Query: net-neutrality and da(aft 06/2010)

The FCC has been net-neutral.  But, their authority to regulate doesn’t extend as far as they thought.  The Comcast v. FCC decision referred to in some of this reading is at  600 F.3d 642.

Of course, the late Senator Ted Stevens is credited with bringing net neutrality to Congress’ attention.  His proposed bill amending the Communications Act is here: 2005 CONG US S 2686. //

Amid the debate surrounding illegal immigration and the recent Arizona immigration law comes news that “birthright citizenship” may be under attack.  Birthright citizenship is the granting of United States citizenship to children born on U.S. soil, regardless of the citizenship of their parents.  The right comes from the Fourteenth Amendment:

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

 The story linked above includes quotes from Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina stemming from an appearance on Fox News.  Suppose you wanted to go further and get a transcript of the entire interview.  You can, using the news databases on Westlaw.  Westlaw not only has coverage of a large number of print news sources, but also provides transcripts from television news.  Because we know Senator Graham’s comments were made on Fox, we can search the FOX database (had we been unaware of the network involved, we could have cast a wider net with the ALLNEWS database).  A search in FOX for “LINDSEY GRAHAM” & da(7/2010) returns 13 documents, one of which is the appearance that produced the quotes mentioned above.

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Monday, A Federal District Court judge in Virginia denied a motion to dismiss the complaint challenging the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s requirement that individuals obtain a minimum level of health insurance coverage or pay a penalty.

After a thorough recitation of each sides arguments related to standing and the scope of Federal Authority under the Commerce Clause, the judge determined,

Given the presence of some authority arguably supporting the theory underlying each side’s position, this Court cannot conclude at this stage that the Complaint fails to state a cause of action.

2010 WL 2991385

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ABC News recently posted an article dealing with audio recordings and the police.  This is a trend that has garnered much attention lately, essentially the states wiretap laws break down along a couple of lines, those that require both parties consent before recording a conversation, and those that require only one parties consent (like the federal law). 

In some states police have been using statutes that require both parties consent to record a conversation to arrest and charge individuals who have audio recorded encounters with the police.

When looking for statutes such as these, it can very often be hard to find the correct sections.  We may know the topic of the statute, but not any terms that are necessarily going to occur within the section.  For this type of inquiry the statute index is the best. 

On Westlaw, if you go to the search window, or table of contents for a statutes database, you can click “Statutes Index” on the upper right.  This is different from the table of contents because it is a topical organization of the statutes, if you look under “Eavesdropping” or “Wiretapping” for instance you should be able to find these statutes that are cited as preventing audio recording. 

If you are interested in a 50 state survey that breaks down every states wiretapping laws, you can find a comprehensive breakdown here in the 50 state surveys database.

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Fracking.  I didn’t think it was a real word either.

It’s real and it’s worth a lot of money.

Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, “injects a mixture of water, sand and chemicals into rock formations at high pressure to force out oil and natural gas.”  That gas is where the money comes in.  Some studies have estimated that within the U.S. there are over 16,200 trillion cubic feet of gas.  16,200 trillion cubic feet of gas is more than 150 times the amount of natural gas the world uses in one full year.  Fracking helps to recover that gas.

Some people think fracking is great.

Some people are less sure.

The reason I mention it:  fracking litigation.

I have taken a few calls in the last few months dealing with the issue of researching fracking. 

You can access complaints and answers dealing with fracking by simply searching for the fracking or fracing in Filing-all.  The media uses fracking while the industry uses fracing (or even frac’ing).  Either way, you will find over 100 filings from around the country this issue.

According to its critics, fracking can lead to contaminated waters.  Those contaminated waters may be harmful if consumed by humans.  The more people drink potentially contaminated water, one can reason, the more lawsuits will be filed.

As those lawsuits continue to be filed, you can continue to find them in Filing-All.  Keep your eye out for an increase in litigation related to fracking.

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