BLAWG-Review

Table of Contents

Concurring Opinions ....................................................................................... 3 PatentlyO .................................................................................................... 3 iPhoneJD .................................................................................................... 4 Appendix Notes ............................................................................................. 4 Appendix A: Blog Web Site Traffic Rankings ........................................................... 5 Appendix B: Concurring Opinions Authors .............................................................. 6

Page 2 of 7

Concurring Opinions Concurring Opinions blog is a group blog run by the Pennsylvanian company, Concurring Opinions, LLC. Twelve regular bloggers and few guest contributors pen articles and opinions on this blog. The blog is frequently published and there are publication(s) every couple of days. The resumes of authors are impressive, with all of them being faculty members of eminent US law universities. The layout is well done. There are tools on the sides to quickly access past archives or to search articles by authors or categories. I am impressed by the width and depth of the subjects covered in the blog. It was almost impossible for me, who never had any law training, to keep up with all the different law topics analyzed and discussed. If one follows this blog, one will never miss any significant happenings in political, financial and most importantly, in the law world. The blog publishes articles about law in general. It recurrent coverage on relevant issues such as Should Judges be elected, Judicial Conservatism, Liberalism, Activism & Restraint, Executive Powers, Federal Powers, Contract Law, etc. It also publishes reviews on sociopolitical, and law related book reviews regularly. Some of the books reviewed in last forty five days were "Empire of Liberty", "The Buyout of America", "The Theory and Practice of Statutory Interpretation", "The People Themselves: Popular Constitutionalism and Judicial Review", and "International Criminal Law and Philosophy". The web-site also links articles to important law journals as they get published. In the past two months it has had links to articles from the following journal The University of Toronto Law Journal, The Virginia Law Review, The George Washington Law Review. I even found an interview of authors Professors Bonneau and Hall, who penned In Defense of Judicial Elections, which enlightened me on my contrary belief that judges should not be elected. Although it is impossible to list what I have found in the blog in such a short space, I must say that Concurring Opinions is a valuable tool for who wants to keep in touch with important happenings in the world of law and how it touches our lives. The blog is available at http://www.concurringopinions.com/.

PatentlyO Patently is a blog published by Dennis D. Crouch, an Associate Professor of Law at the University Of Missouri School Of Law. The blog covers U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and Federal Circuit Rulings; patent related legislative changes; and any jobs in the field of patent law. The articles published on this blog are top notch and require both technical and legal aptitude to understand the content. The blog also maintains a Patent Law Journal at http://www.patentlyo.com/lawjournal/ and Patent Law related jobs at http://www.patentlyo.com/jobs/. The blog itself is hosted at http://www.patentlyo.com/. The layout is very professional. The author provides around twenty links on the right side to recent posts on the site. Underneath these links are more links for 90 subject categories. These links, such as Vitiation, Takings, Obviousness, etc, provide an easy reach towards finding articles of interest, while the links to recent comments by visitors help readers to quickly find the articles most discussed about.

Page 3 of 7

After reading this blog, I came to learn about what goes on with patents and how law impacts innovation. The blog is covering the recent case Bilski v. Kappos very well. There are eight different opinions on this topic alone covering all aspects of recent US Supreme Court rulings. I felt elated to learn that the abstract ideas could not be patented, and became perplexed by all the various issues which went with it. It will take while for me to digest all the aspects related to the ruling, but I am sure that this is website where I can find all information on this law suit. The most interesting part in this blog for me is patent related graphs and statistics. I learned what the rates of rejection in different patent fields were. The blog also informed me that the US innovation engine is still churning patents, and as an example, in June of this year 4500 Utility patents alone were granted, and the numbers showed an increase of 1,300 patents grants per week over the past several weeks. The author also writes about various ongoing legal processes to improve patent filing processes. As a side note, I was surprised to learn that there was backlog of 750,000 pending patents. My overall impression of the site impressed me, and I thought that the blog really has something to offer for serious patent enthusiasts. I am sure that many patent law attorneys use this web site regularly.

iPhoneJD This was the blog I really loved and understood well. The blog is about law related use of iPhone. Jeff Richardson is the author of this blog. He completed his J.D. with High Honors from Georgetown University Law Center and has been an attorney since 1994 at the New Orleans office of Adams and Reese LLP. The author makes no attempts to hide his love for the iPhone and all issues related to it. The website seems to be done reasonably well. There are links to other iPhone and law sites. There is search link, recent posts links and archive links just like any professional site should have. The blog covers all the new features for iPhone 3 and now the iPhone 4. The issues and problems with both old and new models are well covered. Even the different plans AT&T offers with the iPhone are discussed at great length. After going through this blog, I am certain that one can learn all the aspects of an iPhone. The author also provides information about the insides of an iPhone, art works devoted to the iPhone, and application/games available on the iPhone. The author also enthusiastically talks about various lawyerly applications available on the iPhone. I learned for the first time about iPhone applications such as Courtroom Objections, Mobile Transcript, Law Stack, and Legal Reference. These applications are meant to make lawyers productive and allow lawyers to access information quickly and when it is needed most. The author also shows how to use these applications graphically and describes in great detail on what to do with these. I feel that Jeff really spent time learning about the iPhone and is very happy to share what he learned with the whole world. I felt that this blog was 75% about iPhone and 25% about the law related usage of iPhone. The author iPhones at http://www.iphonejd.com/iphone_jd/. Appendix Notes I have two appendices. Appendix A shows how the blogs reviewed here stand in web traffic and how they are linked from other web sites. I have also shown the statistics for these websites compared to most popular law blog http://www.abovethelaw.com/. More a website is linked, more popular and useful it is. Append B shows the authors of concurring opinions.

Page 4 of 7

Appendix A: Blog Web Site Traffic Rankings AlexaTraffic Site Name www.concurringopinions.com www.patentlyo.com 209,357 www.iphonejd.com/iphone_jd 436,831 www.harvardlawreview.org 951,272 becker-posner-blog.com 410,380 thefacultylounge.org 622,207 www.abovethelaw.com 27,804 www.blawg.com 377,251 162,956 206 #8 in Law Blog 7,359 1,457 #1 in Law Blog 403,582 155 #99 in Law Blog 385,469 1,638 #25 in Economics Blog 635,881 359 #1 in Law Reviews 163,317 141 #28 in Law Office 63,478 620 #10 in Patents Rank 275,566 Traffic Rank in US 158,736 Sites Linking In 942

Xmarks Rankings #17 in Law Blog

It is not an exhaustive comparison list. I have showed it to show how relevant the reviewed blogs are.

Page 5 of 7

Appendix B: Concurring Opinions Authors Picture Author

Daniel J. Solove

Occupation
Professor of law at the George Washington University Law School Assistant professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law

Brief Introduction
Author & Essayist. Clerked at U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and U.S. Court of Appeals. Professor Wenger practiced law for three years with Cravath, Swaine, & Moore LLP in New York City Teaches contracts, law and economics, law and human behavior and business associations. Practiced law as an attorney at Arnold & Porter LLP Primary research interest is in contract law and the philosophy of private law. practiced law in the Washington, DC office of Sidley Austin LLP Practiced law with Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges in Los Angeles.

Interests.
Privacy, Technology, National Security, Law and Literature, Social Network Sites, Government Surveillance, First Amendment, Constitutional Theory, Sociology, Philosophy (especially pragmatism and philosophy of law), Criminal Procedure Race, Civil Rights, Slavery, Corporate Law, Securities, Trusts and Estates, Property and Takings, Mormonism

Kaimipono Wenger

David Hoffman

Frank Pasquale

An associate professor of law at Temple Universitys Beasley School of Law Professor of Law at Seton Hall

Behavioral Law and Economics, Contract Law, Securities Law, Dispute Resolution, Corporate Law, Legal Theory, Empirical Studies

Intellectual Property, Health Law, Economics, Philosophy, Social Science, Technology, Search Engines Contract, Philosophy of Private Law, Moral Theory, Economic Theory, Law and Religion, Mormonism

Nate Oman

Assistant professor at the MarshallWythe School of Law at The College of William & Mary.

Deven Desai

Associate professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law

Information Theory, Intellectual Property, Trademark and Brand Theory, Marketing, Creativity Theory, Privacy, Technology, Philosophy, Rhetoric, History, Biography, Science Fiction, Pop Culture

Page 6 of 7

Picture

Author Danielle Citron

Occupation Professor of law at the University of Maryland School of Law

Brief Introduction Clerked at the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and worked as a litigation associate at Willkie, Farr & Gallagher Teaches and writes in field of corporate and securities law. Author of a dozen books and 35 law review articles Focused on the connections between law and cultural norms.

Interests. Privacy, Information Security, Administrative Law, Automated Systems, Government Transparency, Civil Rights, and Constitutional Theory Accounting, Auditing, Contracts, Corporate Law, Finance, Investing, Legal Education, Securities Regulation Estates and Trusts, Cultural Property, Law and Behavior, Law and Social Norms, Philanthropy, University Endowment and Financial Aid Policies, Economics and the Family Immigration Law, International Human Rights Law, Transitional Justice, Feminism and Gender, Race, Civil Procedure, Evidence, Administrative Law, International Criminal Law, Empirical Studies, and National Security Family Law, Race, International Family Law, Torts, Law and Emotions, Feminism and Gender, Estates and Trusts, Legal Education.

Lawrence Cunningham

Professor of law at the George Washington University Law School Professor of law at Seton Hall University

Sarah Waldeck

Jaya RamjiNogales

Assistant Professor of Law at Temple Universitys Beasley School of Law

Teaches Civil Procedure, Evidence, Refugee Law and Policy, and Transitional Justice

Solangel Maldonado

Professor of Law at Seton Hall University School of Law

Gerard Magliocca

Professor of law at Indiana University Indianapolis

She was a litigation associate at Sidley, Austin, Brown & Wood and at Kaye, Scholer, Fierman, Hays & Handler, LLP, both in New York City. Author and expert in constitutional law and intellectual property.

Constitutional Law, Legal History, Intellectual Property, Admiralty, Torts

Page 7 of 7