An economic evaluation of free speech must be met with mixed reviews. There is much that a proper view of economics can bring to this field of constitutional law. Economics can be useful when it is viewed as a science which examines the decisionmaking process, the study of optimization behavious subject to constraints. Economics cannot be helpful if it is viewed as a precise tool that can mechanically and independently determine the outcomes of complex problems. As a method, economics can lend valuable insight to the technical process of constitutional decisionmaking. In this capacity it can be used to assist in the framing of issues and in isolating the appropriate factors for judicial consideration. Economics is not helpful, however, in the inherently subjective process of weighing and quantifying competing concerns. It is wrong not to recognize this limitation, and it is dangerous to assume that difficult, value-laden decision areas in areas such as free speech can be decided mechanically by appealing to an economic formula. Difficult constitutional choices cannot be avoided by viewing first amendment issues through the lens of an economic perspective.

that it exemplified "a progressive tendency to forget all of the belief except the formularies, or to give it a dull and torpid assent, as if accepting it on trust dispensed with the necessity of realising it in consciousness, or testing it by personal experience".

Computer programming languages are interesting in their own right, as they represent humanity's attempts to communicate our ideas to our machines.

Since 1948 the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has been
the most important, and the most effective, inspiration for per-
sonal, national and international efforts to secure and protect basic
rights of mankind.

It is, of course, correct that Congress, not the courts, must define the limits of patentability; but it is equally true that once Congress has spoken it is “the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.” Marbury v. Madison,1 Cranch 137, 177 (1803). Congress has performed its constitutional role in defining patentable subject matter in §101; we perform ours in construing the language Congress has employed. In so doing, our obligation is to take statutes as we find them, guided, if ambiguity appears, by the legislative history and statutory purpose. Here, we perceive no ambiguity. The subject matter provisions of the patent law have been cast in broad terms to fulfill the constitutional and statutory goal of promoting “the Progress of Science and the useful Arts” with all that means for the social and economic benefits envisioned by Jefferson. Broad general language is not necessarily ambiguous when congressional objectives require broad terms.

It is argued that this Court should weigh these potential hazards in considering whether respondent’s invention is <447 U.S. 317> patentable subject matter under §101. We disagree. The grant or denial of patents on microorganisms is not likely to put an end to genetic research or to its attendant risks. The large amount of research that has already occurred when no researcher had sure knowledge that patent protection would be available suggests that legislative or judicial fiat as to patentability will not deter the scientific mind from probing into the unknown any more than Canute could command the tides. Whether respondent’s claims are patentable may determine whether research efforts are accelerated by the hope of reward or slowed by want of incentives, but that is all. What is more important is that we are without competence to entertain these arguments – either to brush them aside as fantasies generated by fear of the unknown, or to act on them. The choice we are urged to make is a matter of high policy for resolution within the legislative process after the kind of investigation, examination, and study that legislative bodies can provide and courts cannot. That process involves the balancing of competing values and interests, which in our democratic system is the business of elected representatives. Whatever their validity, the contentions now pressed on us should be addressed to the political branches of the government, the Congress and the Executive, and not to the courts.

In order to arrive at a common understanding and remove all ambiguity from future discussion it is necessary to define the words we use. The concept of definition involves the statement of a characteristic property; that is, if we are to define a word, we must state a condition such that,

1. given any object whatsoever, we can determine whether or not that object satisfies the condition, and
2. the word being defined is attached to an object if and only if it satisfies that condition.

What we are doing, essentially, is developing a system of name tags for ideas. Thus to "define" a word merely by giving a synonym is either meaningless or useless. If we do not know what the synonym means, we have no criterion by which to apply the name; if we do know what he synonym means, it is a perfectly good name for that idea and there is no need to confuse the issue by supplying another.

• SSRN translator
• IPAC (Dynix Horizon Info Portal) translator
• Make the Lexis translator work with the URLs I see (regexp change :)
  
• OOo Integration (Perhaps refbase can show the way, or Bibus. Otherwise, CiteProc has some python bindings that might be able to do the job)
• AGLC CSL style (I've started this one!)        
  

• Rolls Royce's App
• Badger Co
• Gevers
• Slee & Harris
• Burrough's Corp
• Re GEC
• IBM
• Merrill Lynch
• IBM/Language Specification
• Gales'
• Wang Labs
• Fujitsu

• Telefon Ericsson
• Phillips' App
• IBM's App
• BP's App
• Texas Instruments' App
• IBM
• CCOM
• Philips v Mirabella
• Advanced Building v Ramset
• Welcome v Catuity
• Szabo [2005] APO 24
• Grant v Commissioner for Patents (2005) FCA 1100

• Gottschalk v Benson
• Parker v Flook
• Freeman
• Walter
• Abele
• Diehr
• Iwahashi
• Alappat
• Warmerdam
• Lowry
• Trovato
• Schrader
• Beauregard
• State Street
• AT&T v Excel
• Meyer
• Johnston
• Chakrabarty

If . . .

If you can dream and not make dreams your master;
If you can think and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear the words you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings -- nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And -- which is more -- you'll be a man, my son!

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

• http://www.hcourt.gov.au/speeches/kirbyj/kirbyj_indialt.htm
  

• http://www.law.berkeley.edu/journals/btlj/articles/vol4/Wrenn/HTML/text.html

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• Kim Weatherall's blog entry
• The Delegate's decision on Austlii
• The Szabo decision on Austlii
  

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