Flicker photo by Extra Ketchup

By Mark Edwards

A new nontraditional method of education has emerged through free online education websites.  While education costs are steadily rising, these websites serve as a method to overcome the financial barrier that prevents many people from receiving an effective education.  The lessons are presented in a variety of formats such as: online videos, audio recordings, blackboard illustrations, and many more.  Here is a list of some of these websites:

Khan’s Academy (https://www.khanacademy.org/) – uses Yahoo Doodle images on a blackboard in combination with a voiceover to teach over 4,000 micro lessons.  Subjects include: mathematics, history, healthcare, medicine, finance, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, economics, cosmology, and organic chemistry, American civics, art history, macroeconomics, microeconomics, and computer science.

Open Yale Courses (http://oyc.yale.edu/) – is a project of Yale University to share full video and course materials from its undergraduate courses.  All lectures were recorded in the Yale College classroom and are available in video, audio, and text transcript formats.

U.C. Berkeley (http://webcast.berkeley.edu/) – is a database of video of undergraduate lectures recorded by professors of U.C. Berkeley.

MIT OpenCourseWare (http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm) – is an initiative of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to put all of the educational materials from its undergraduate- and graduate-level courses online, partly free and openly available to anyone, anywhere. MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a large-scale, web-based publication of MIT course materials.

Wikiversity (http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Main_Page) – is a collaborative learning community in which the internet community creates and edits the lessons.

Coursera – (https://www.coursera.org/) – offers courses from various universities around the county.  Courses include engineering, humanities, medicine, biology, social sciences, mathematics, business, computer science, and other areas.

This could be you!

The Law Library is hiring Reference and Research GRAs for Summer and Fall 2013. Reference GRAs work at the reference desk and report to Deborah Schander; more information on the position is available in the job description. Research GRAs perform research and document delivery for law faculty and report to Pam Brannon; more information on the position is available in the job description.

Summer GRAs receive a 1/2 tuition waiver and a $500 stipend; Fall GRAs receive a 1/2 tuition waiver and $1000 stipend.

If you are interested in either position, please apply! To apply for the Reference position, please submit a cover letter, your resume, and a completed availability statement to Deborah Schander at dschander@gsu.edu. To apply for a Research position, please submit a cover letter and your resume to Pam Brannon at pbrannon@gsu.edu. Please submit your information as one file with your last name as the filename. To be considered, applications must be received by 5 p.m. on April 10, 2013.

by Joshua Kahn

Image Used By Permission Under Creative Commons License

Ohio prosecutor Michael Gmoser has filed an indictment against groundhog-prognosticator Punxsutawney Phil, accusing the varmint of purposely misrepresenting an early spring. The charges are extremely serious and carry a potential death penalty.

The prosecution’s case is likely to rest on the groundhog’s purported “incapab[ility] of error” which, the prosecution will say, shows his clearly erroneous prediction was an intentional misrepresentation.

We here at Georgia State believe it is critical that the voiceless be given their day in court, and are therefore asking students to help us draft an amicus curiae brief in the case on behalf of Georgia groundhog—and holder of an honorary doctorate from GSU—General Beauregard Lee.

General “Beau” Lee seeks to argue his Yankee colleague simply is not very accurate, that Punxsutawney Phil’s most recent wrong prediction was just another in a long series of mistakes, and, therefore, he should be spared a grisly demise at the hands of overzealous prosecutors.

Beau is also willing to offer expert testimony that his predictions are more accurate than “cousin” Phil’s.

Any interested students should contact the library staff.

h/t Ohio State Law Library

Photo by Mark Piggott, U.S. Navy.

Today, March 16, 2013, marks a major change in U.S. patent law. Until today, the United States has operated under a unique first-to-invent system.Today, thanks to the America Invents Act, the U.S. changes to the system used by the rest of the world, a first-to-file system. What does this mean?

Under a first-to-invent system, if two people file patent applications on the same invention, the patent office awards the patent to the person who is able to prove that they invented (conceived and reduced to practice) the invention first, regardless of who filed their patent application first. In a first-to-file system, however, priority is given to the applicant who filed first, creating what is popularly called a “race to the patent office.” There are ways that the first inventor can retain priority, however, even if they file second. The USPTO is ready for the change, having released its final rule and examination guidelines implementing the new system.

The first-to-file system has been criticized, particularly by those who argue that the system is unconstitutional. The constitutionality of the America Invents Act has also been challenged in court, in MadStad Engineering, Inc. v. United States Patent & Trademark Office.

Without a court ruling blocking the implementation of the Act, however, the system is set to change today. Get your running shoes on!

Take a walk through United States history using the National Archives and Records Administration’s “100 Milestone Documents.”  The website, www.ourdocuments.gov, provides PDF access to documents from 1776 – 1965.

In addition to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, there are several documents that have both historical and legal significance.  Below is a list of a few documents contained in the 100 Milestone Documents that may be of interest to law students:

• Bill of Rights (1791)
• Marbury v. Madison (1803)
• Emancipation Proclamation (1863)
• Executive Order 9981: Desegregation of the Armed Forces (1948)
• Armistice Agreement for the Restoration of the South Korean State (1953)
• Executive Order 10730: Desegregation of Central High School (1957)
• Voting Rights Act (1965)

by Joshua Kahn

Image by Crosa

March 8th is national Be Nasty Day (do not ask us how this got started) and a wonderful occasion to review a few defamation lawsuits.

We all know that somewhere deep in the bowels of case reporters lurk some outrageous cases, and here are a few for your procrastinatory enjoyment:

Newman v. Delahunty, 681 A.2d 671 (1994)
Apparently, it’s not impossible to defame a political candidate.

Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46 (1988)
The name pretty much says it all.

Burnett v. National Enquirer, Inc, 144 Cal.App. 3d 991 (1983)
Did “a boisterous Carol Burnett had a loud argument with another diner, Henry Kissinger. . . traipse around the place offering everyone a bite of her dessert. . . [then] accidentally knocked a glass of wine over one diner and start giggling instead of apologizing?”

If you want to learn more about defamation law, we have a number of good books on the topic in the library stacks.

By Joshua Kahn

Public domain image from Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearing

Interested in the Supreme Court Nomination process?  The law library’s History of Supreme Court Nominations database gives you access to transcripts and reports on both successful and unsuccessful Supreme Court Nominations. [Off-Campus Link | On-Campus Link]

Or maybe you want to learn more about the Justices before they became Justices?  The archive includes their previous writing, decisions and even transcripts of oral arguments made as attorneys.

For example, you can find Justice Elena Kagan’s  old law review articles, briefs and oral arguments before the Supreme Court while working as Solicitor General.

Look smart in front of Professor Segall in next year’s Con Law class.

If you have paid attention to news outlets, television, or the radio at all in the past few weeks, you have probably heard about the potential federal government budget sequestration.  News has picked up steadily about potential across the board budget cuts that will take place if Congress fails to come to a deal by March 1, 2013.

For those of you who are interested in learning more about the sequestration, the following resources should give you a better understanding of the timeline and the potential effects.

Overview of Budget Sequestration

• CNN Explains: Sequestration by Matt Smith (CNN)
• When does sequestration start? by Darren Samuelsohn (Politico)
• The sequester: A Q&A (CBS News)

Effects

• Estimated Impact of Automatic Budget Enforcement Procedures Specified in the Budget Control Act – Highlights (Congressional Budget Office)
• Estimated Impact of Automatic Budget Enforcement Procedures Specified in the Budget Control Act – Full Document (Congressional Budget Office)
• Impact of March 1st Cuts on Middle Class Families, Jobs and Economic Security: Georgia (The White House)

The Laws

• Budget Control Act of 2011, P.L. 112 – 25 (Government Printing Office) – This act created the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction to produce deficit reduction legislation.  The act also stipulated that if Congress failed to produce a deficit reduction bill with at least $1.2 trillion in cuts, then it would trigger across the board cuts as of January 2, 2013.
• American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, P.L. 112-240 (Government Printing Office) – This act delayed the start of sequestration from January 2, 2013 to March 1, 2013.

Live Coverage

• C-SPAN – Live Senate and House coverage, along with archived videos of debates and hearings related to the budget sequestration.

First we started offering you free coffee during exams. Then we gave you tea during Library Abridged. Now, ladies and gents, the library has a hot and cold water fountain! As you can see from the lack of paint and the bits of drywall on the carpet, we didn’t wait long to tell you about it either. This swanky new contraption is located where the old drinking fountain used to be (just next to the Book Exchange and across from the Reference collection). You can get cool tap water and heated water for your tea and instant coffee. Heck, you could make your Ramen.

Enjoy!

The President’s Dream of a Successful Hunt, by Clifford Kennedy Berryman, 1907.

In the beginning of this year, the Federal Trade Commission concluded a 20-month-long investigation into whether Google violated federal antitrust laws, an action which has met with mixed reactions. When most people think of antitrust law, they think of trust-busting Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, the Sherman and Clayton Acts, or more recent events such as the Microsoft case. They don’t really think of Alabama.

Which is unfortunate, because Alabama has a number of ties to antitrust law. Alabama holds the distinction of being the first state to pass an antitrust law in the United States, on February 23rd, 1883, seven years prior to the passage of the first federal antitrust law, the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. The Alabama law prohibited railroads from forming agreements to divide the market and fix prices in the freight industry in Alabama.

Henry De Lamar Clayton, Jr., the sponsor and namesake of the Clayton Act of 1914, was a representative from Alabama. The Clayton Act added significant features to federal antitrust law, including restrictions on price discrimination and interlocking directorates.

Want more information on antitrust laws? The Law and University Libraries have some materials that may be of interest, such as:

• The Informant!, a film starring Matt Damon as the whistleblower in the Archer Daniels Midland lysine price fixing case.
• The Art of the Steal: Inside the Sotheby’s-Christie’s Auction House Scandal
• The Deal of the Century: The Breakup of AT&T
• Pride Before the Fall: The Trials of Bill Gates and the End of the Microsoft Era