(Wed, 17 Jun 2009 c. 19.49)
When Justice French, then of the Federal Court of Australia, was nominated to be Chief Justice of Australia, the quality of his extra-judicial speeches was noted. It is a rare judicial officer who can segue from declarations to Homer Simpson, or use Judge Dredd to illustrate arguments about judicial activism.
As a highlight from his recent speeches, I thought a part of his 4 April speech to the Licensing Executives Society of Australia and New Zealand bore special mention.
Despite these adventurous extensions of intellectual property law most of the words it uses remain boring. … Terms such as “inventive step”, which sounds like a dance created by a nerd … are not terms to stand your hairs on end.
