Inadmissible

Shortly after Texas Supreme Court Justice Harriet O’Neill announced Aug. 6 that she will not seek re-election in 2010, two Republican candidates made it known they plan to run for her Place 3 seat. Justice Jim Moseley of Dallas’ 5th Court of Appeals and Justice Rick Strange of Eastland’s 11th Court of Appeals, both Republicans, indicate they plan to make the race. In 1996, then-Gov. George W. Bush appointed Moseley to the 5th Court. Before joining the court, Moseley practiced nine years with Dallas’ Locke Purnell Rain Harrell , now Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell , where he became a shareholder. Moseley served as regional director of the Federal Trade Commission in Dallas from 1983 to 1987. Strange was a shareholder in the Midland office of Cotton Bledsoe Tighe & Dawson , where he practiced for more than 20 years. Gov. Rick Perry appointed Strange to the 11th Court in 2005. Democrat Bill Moody , judge of El Paso’s 34th District Court since 1986, says he plans to run for the state Supreme Court but has not decided which seat he will seek. In 2006, Moody unsuccessfully challenged Republican Supreme Court Justice Don Willett but shone a spotlight on the race by taking a walk across Texas. Moody says he originally told supporters he would not run for O’Neill’s seat because of his respect for her. But Moody says he will take another look at the Place 3 race now that O’Neill has decided not to run again. O’Neill first won election to the state’s all-Republican Supreme Court in 1998 and is the only woman on the court. “I feel like I’ve accomplished a lot here,” O’Neill says. “It just seemed time to start something new.” O’Neill is a founding member of the Texas Access to Justice Commission and spearheaded the creation of the Supreme Court’s Permanent Commission for Children, Youth and Families. O’Neill began her judicial career in 1992, when she won election to the 152nd District Court in Houston. In 1995, Bush appointed O’Neill to the 14th Court of Appeals in Houston, and she won election to that court in 1996. So far, O’Neill is not saying what she will do next. “I haven’t made plans,” she says.

Twouble for Twitter?

On Aug. 4, Sugar land-based TechRadium filed a patent-infringement complaint against Twitter Inc., the company that owns the social networking site that allows people to share information via short messages called tweets. William Shawn Staples says his client TechRadium develops, sells and services mass notification systems and owns two patents related to digital notification systems. In its complaint in TechRadium Inc. v. Twitter Inc., TechRadium alleges Twitter infringes upon those patents by offering for sale and use TechRadium’s patented technology without licenses to do so. Also in its complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas in Houston, TechRadium seeks economic damages and a permanent injunction barring Twitter from infringing on its patents. Staples says TechRadium initiated the complaint when the company learned municipal governments were considering using Twitter for public emergency alerts. TechRadium markets its technology to municipal governments to use for emergency alert systems, Staples says. Staples also represents TechRadium in patent litigation filed in the Eastern District of Texas against Washington, D.C.-based Blackboard Inc., which makes software for school districts to communicate with students’ parents. A focus on that litigation delayed TechRadium’s attention to the Twitter allegations, Staples says. “It’s hard to work on more than one big case at a time,” he says. A call to San Francisco-based Twitter.com’s press office was not returned. Staples, an attorney who works for The Mostyn Law Firm in Houston, having moved in June from The O’Quinn Law Firm , says he does not yet know who is representing the defendant.

Lawyer Gets 20 Years