B Y STEPHEN B. JENKINS

provide a lower-cost way to challenge the validity of questionable patents.

Whelan has not been the only “bad” IP hack in the past two decades. Another one was MAI v. Peak, which opined that temporary copies made in RAM when a computer is booted are reproductions of copyrighted software that can give rise to infringement claims if the machine was turned on by an unlicensed person.

But good hacks have been more common. Religious Technology Center v. Netcom, for instance, rejected an MAI v. Peak-like theory of liability against an Internet access provider. The judge decided that an Internet access provider should not be held liable for infringing copies of user postings on Usenet because copyright liability should be imposed only for volitional acts, not for automatic copies made by servers.

Another good hack was the Supreme Court’s decision in MGM v. Grokster, which retained the Sony safe harbor for technologies having substantial non-infringing uses and held that peer-to-peer file-sharing firms should only be liable for infringement if they have induced users to infringe.

There is no way to foretell hacking of intellectual property law will be necessary to further adapt it in response to advances in computing technologies. More innovation is surely on the way—along with more lawsuits. Thus, a third decade of “Legally Speaking” columns may still be needed to translate what these lawsuits will mean for CACM readers. ^c

PAMELA SAMUELSON ( [e-mail]) is the Richard M. Sherman Distinguished Professor of Law and Information at the University of California, Berkeley.

ODE TO CODE

Much have I travell’d in the realms of code, And many goodly programs have I seen. I’ve voyaged far to conferences umpteen, Attending to the wisdom there bestowed.

Yet as I’ve moved along the winding road
Of my career (a journey not serene),
Only one source of knowledge has there been
Of worth enough to prompt of me an ode.

Communications has for 50 years,
Been there to help each of us on our way,
By giving us the writings of our peers,
And telling us the things they had to say.
So as the start of its sixth decade nears
Please join me wishing it “Happy Birthday.”

STEPHEN B. JENKINS ( [e-mail]) is the senior programmer/analyst at the Aerodynamics Laboratory of the Institute for Aerospace Research, National Research Council Canada.