A few police officers were asked in an interview what was some of their weirdest excuses they heard for speeding when confronting the speedsters during traffic stops.  Here are some interesting excuses: 

·      Speeding because "I'm trying to catch that UFO.  Can you try to catch it for me?"

·      Speeding because "I have been drinking and want to get off the road quickly."

·      Speeding because "I'm going to a divorce proceeding and if you have ever met her, you would understand why I am hurrying." 

I actually used this excuse and did not get a speeding ticket:  "I am late for my softball game, which starts in 10 minutes".  However, after this incident, I unfortunately received another 3 speeding tickets. ahhhh

If you have a good speeding ticket excuse that worked, let me know.

In Autotech, Ltd. Partnership vs. Automationdirect.com, Inc., No. 05 C 5488 2008 WL 783301 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 25, 2008), an Illinois federal distrcit court held that a late "clarification" of a discovery request for metadata is insufficient to require such production.  The court reasoned that it was "a little late to ask for metadata after documents responsive to a request have been produced in both paper and electronic format.  Ordinarily, courts will not compel the production of metadata when a party did not make that a part of tis request."  See D'Onofrio, 247 F.R.D. at 48 (D.D.C. 2008); Wyeth v. Impax Labs, Inc. No. Civ. A. 06-222-JJF, 248 F.R.D. 169, ----, 2006 WL 3091331, at *1-2 (D. Dell. 2006) ("Since the parties have never agreed that electronic documents would be produced in any particular format, [Plaintiff] complied with its discovery obligation by producing image files")." 

Some of the court's definitions of METADATA are as follows "a set of data that describes and gives information about other date" or "information about a particular data set which describes how, when, and by whom it was collected, created, accessed, or modified and how it is formatted."

Per the judgment filed in a Los Angeles federal district court, Valence Media, LLC, the owner and operator of the website www.TorrentSpy.com, must shut down its website and pay to six Hollywood studios $111 million dollars for allowing its users to illegally download copyrighted movies and TV shows.  Valence Media is now seeking bankruptcy protection in the United Kingdom.  Overall, this case and judgment is not surprising because of the Hollywood studios and music companies aggressive litigation tactics that they have takend in order to protect their intellectual property.  On an end-user level, please note that you should not take piracy and copyright infringement lightly ... 

In US v. Arnold, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that Homeland Security officials could legally search a laptop belonging to a US citizen returning from an international flight without having any suspicion that the US citizen committed a crime.  What does this mean for the international business traveler?  You must travel with a laptop that does not contain any sensitive or proprietary data on it.  Otherwise, you will take the risk that such data may be seized at the border.  Upon your arrival at your international destination, then you will download your necessary encrypted data from a secure location.  In this case, the US citizen's laptop computer contained child pornography and he was arrested thereafter.  

A copy of the decision can be found at: http://www.eff.org/cases/us-v-arnold

In Orion Bancorp, Inc. v. Orion Residential Finance, LLC et al,  a Florida federal district court ordered the defendant to refrain from "purchasing or using any form of advertising including keywords or 'adwords' in internet advertising containing any mark incorporating Plaintiff's Mark, or any confusingly similar mark, and shall, when purchasing internet advertising using keywords, adwords or the like, require the activation of the term 'Orion' as negative keywords or negative adwords in any internet advertising purchased or used." 

To my knowledge, this is the first court opinion that has addressed a "negative keyword", which in accordance to the court order are "a special kind of advertiser keyword matching option that allows an advertiser to prevent its advertisement from appearing when the specific terms are a part of a given user's internet search or search string. It does not infer that the Defendant may use the specified negative keywords or adwords for any other purpose." 

Generally, it is surprising to see a court require a party to take such a preventative act to prevent future trademark infringement.  However, given the defendant's prior history of using Plaintiff's Mark in its keyword advertising, the court apparently believed it was a necessary restraint required to prevent the defendant from continuing its infringing conduct.  The court did not put a term/duration to its order restraining the defendant, so the restraint is indefinitely.  Currently (as of May 2008), courts are split in whether the use of a competitor's trademark in keyword advertising in considered "use in commerce" for trademark infringemet purposes.

A copy of the decision can be found at: http://pub.bna.com/eclr/07cv1753_032508.pdf