Class Cancelled Due To Congress

There are areas of law that reach back in to the misty depths of time; areas of law that make you wonder whether Congress or King Henry has more influence on your daily activities.  The definitions of the intentional torts (Battery, Assault, False Imprisonment, Trespass to Land, Trespass to Chattel, and Conversion, or BAFITTC) go back hundreds of years.  The most basic form of property ownership, that of the fee simple absolute, and many of the considerations of reversion go back to Henry the 8th.  In fact some day I'll do a whole post on how Henry the 8th effects how you own your house.  They seem eternal, rocks that weather the changing societies they inhabit; sure they might change (so women can own things, rather than being owned things), but the underlying principles remain the same.

And then...there are those other areas, those subjects on the wrong side of the legal tracks.  They like to play fast and loose, and you never know when someone might come along and mess their **** right up.  Constitutional Law is one such rough rider, where any given supreme Court case can send publishers scrambling to send out a supplement to explain the changes, and professors will watch cases tumble through the gears of justice wondering if their outlines will survive the court's term.  Who knows, maybe next year substantive due process with teeth will be fully codified, but apply only to Lithuanians with political connections.

But the most fun comes when a staid and stodgy, well established area of law gets thrown to the wolves by judicial fiat or congressional whim.  Which leads to fun classes where, a couple of weeks ago, my Intellectual Property professor comes in and says "You know all that time we spent discussing how the US has a first to invent system rather than a first to file system?  Well, that was before Thursday."  She set down a mildly desk destroying sheaf of papers as she said this.

Yes, thanks to the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, my patent class is now divided into 'Before Thursday' and 'After Thursday'.  Information on the bill can be found by following this Fine and Elegantly Crafted Link (AIA Bill).  Important to note is that the last time the patent system was changed was in 1952; the rules had stood for all but 60 years, until I was taking an IP class.

It is, in short, revolutionary.  Everywhere else in the world (before Thursday) the first person to file a patent got it, presumably with exceptions being made for fraud or forgery.  In the U.S. the first person to file had a prima facie right to the patent, but if someone came along and could show they had actually invented it first and satisfied certain requirements they could get the patent instead.  Now the U.S. has moved to the first to file system, meaning the patent litigation process no longer cares if someone else invented it first if they did not file.  And this is only one of the changes.

It is also revolutionary because 1/3rd of my $200 book is now irrelevant and outdated.  Not just has Congress clarified some of the ambiguities that it mentions having never been clarified, but the entire basis for the system has been radically altered.

Welcome to law school, kids, where you spend three times as much for a book as you should and they might last about four months less than you'd hope.  If they decide to change copyright law before November, I'm going to have to find a liquor store and drink it.