Westlaw tip: Have you found a headnote that states the rule of law you want and you’d like to find more cases supporting that rule? Click on the “Most Cited Cases” link next to that headnote to run a search that will retrieve more cases.

(Provided by West Reference Attorneys)

“To America, one schoolmaster is worth a dozen poets, and the invention of a machine or the improvement of an implement is of more importance than a masterpiece of Raphael.” – Benjamin Franklin

“America is a nation that conceives many odd inventions for getting somewhere, but it can think of nothing to do once it gets there.” – Will Rogers

America has always prided itself as a land of innovation, with numbers to back up that claim. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office approved more than 167,000 utility patents in 2009 – a rate of more than 19 patents an hour, 24 hours a day.

If your work involves patent prosecution or litigation, Westlaw Patents has the content and tools to help you keep pace. And now there’s a quick, easy way to get up to speed on Westlaw Patents content and tools: Short online lessons for our most popular products.

We came up with the eLearning series after hearing a handful of customers confess that they don’t always understand what some of our patent products are intended to do or how to use them. And we took their advice and kept the lessons short and sweet: Most lessons require just 2 or 3 minutes of your time.

To access these lessons, sign on to the West eLearning Center, then click on the Westlaw Patents link on the left side of the page. (It’s the last item in the list.)

We’ve divided the self-paced lessons into two categories – litigation and prosecution – with several choices in each list. Two of the most popular modules include

• Using KeyCite to Verify and Expand Patent Research – Learn how to use KeyCite to go beyond the text of a patent and view its context.
• Searching Markman Orders – Save hours of work and frustration by searching and finding claim construction orders on Westlaw.

And check back later this summer for a new self-paced lesson on Claims Locator, our latest “invention” that will enable you to search for claims without knowing the exact terminology.

More info on Westlaw Patents is available on the West website. And we didn’t invent the quotes above – we found them in Uncle Anthony’s Unabridged Analogies, which is available at a 10% discount to Westlaw Insider readers. Check it out!

Today is the last day for those Segway-riding, beverage-wielding Westlaw brand ambassadors to hit the streets of downtown Chicago (see our previous post), where they’ve dispensed more than 1,000 cups of coffee and lemonade since Monday.

The days have been warm and sunny, and so have the hundreds of Chicagoans who’ve stopped by to chat with team members about Westlaw Deposition Services, a new offering that provides court reporting and legal videography services, and to enter a drawing to win an Apple iPad.

Overheard on the streets of Chicago:

• “I just attended a meeting where we were talking about how Westlaw does everything, then I come downstairs and you guys hand me coffee You really do do everything!”
• “So you guys are doing deps now? That’s definitely good to know.”
• “I had no idea you had court reporting services.”
• “I’m looking for a replacement for our current depo service, so you guys couldn’t have showed up at a better time. Thanks!”
• “I have used their services in the past, actually, and they are stellar.”
• “I’m gonna try that IM feature on LiveNote when I get back to the office – I had no idea that was such a useful feature.”
• “We use Westlaw for everything – there’s nothing better out there. Thanks again for the lemonade, too!”

Thank you, Chicago, for the kind words.

Know everything about a case but its citation? Here’s a quick way to track it down: Click on the “Find & Print” link at the top of your screen and then the “Find a Case by Party Name” link on the left.

Enter the information that you have, and a list of matching cases will be displayed. Then you can just scroll down the list to find the appropriate case.

(Provided by West Reference Attorneys)

Using jetpacks filled with piping hot coffee early in the morning and branded Segways carrying refreshingly cool lemonade to beat the afternoon heat, a team of Westlaw brand ambassadors has inundated the sidewalks of downtown Chicago to spread the word about Westlaw Deposition Services, which provides court reporting and legal videography services to legal secretaries, paralegals and attorneys.

On Monday, the team was on Wacker Drive, near the entrances of several prominent Chicago law firms in the vicinity of Madison, Adams, and Monroe streets.  On Tuesday, the team could be spotted bright and early on Kinzie and Clark streets with their hot coffee.  Later they were spotted, again, near Wacker Drive.

The Westlaw Deposition Services team will be in Chicago for the rest of the week – and you can follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more photos and updates!

Take a FREE webinar on Tuesday, July 27. We’ll send you a $5 Starbucks card.

See how West litigation solutions help you better locate, analyze, organize, and share all the law and information involved in a case:

• West Case Notebook – Everything important to your case. In one place.
• Westlaw PeopleMap – Quickly discover relevant information about people and their connections.
• West Case Timelines – Create professional timelines. Easily import data from Westlaw People Map and West Case Notebook.

Register now to reserve your place at the FREE webinar, to be held July 27, 2010 at 2:00 p.m. CT.

Instead of waiting for new lawsuits to hit the docket, wouldn’t it be great to hear about them as soon as the complaint is made available by the court?

Whether you need to protect an organization, defend the legal interests of a client or develop new business, you know how hard it can be to stay on top of new litigation that can pop up just about anywhere in the country.

By combining cutting-edge technology with some good old-fashioned shoe leather, Westlaw has developed a new service that can deliver relevant new litigation filings directly to your computer or smartphone, almost as soon as they’re filed.

Westlaw Court Wire accomplishes this with a team of staff editors who constantly monitor 136 key state and federal courts around the country. Thanks to their efforts, users can get daily email reports and continuous notification alerts on new complaints for search terms they select.

Scannable archives of past feeds are available via a Westlaw tab, and new case notifications link right into Westlaw, which means you can download copies of complaints and request notification of ongoing developments in specific matters.

If you’re looking for flexibility in determining which cases are reported to you – and how they’re distributed to others within your organization – Westlaw Court Wire could be the key. Check it out at west.thomson.com/courtwire.

Do you have a one-time research assignment and need to learn more about the topic? Westlaw has a tab that can help.

You can display a topical tab for one research session without having to save the tab. To try it, click on the “Add a Tab” link on the right-hand side of your Westlaw window. Click on “Add Westlaw Tabs,” scroll down to the topical tabs section and you will see tabs on topics ranging from Animals to Medical Malpractice to Public Utilities.

If you click the blue underlined name of the tab, it will display the tab for this research session and the tab will be removed when you log off. To keep the tab around, you can use the checkbox next to the tab’s name.

(Provided by West Reference Attorneys)

Westlaw tip: How popular can a name be if no one knows where to find it? Congress assigns many pieces of legislation a “popular name.” These may be as well known as the USA PATRIOT Act, or as obscure as the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Restoration Act of 2000.

Westlaw has useful tools to help you find where these acts have been codified. Go to the USCA database search screen and choose the “Pop. Name Table” link in the upper right-hand corner. Then select the letter your act starts with and scroll down, clicking to the next part if necessary.

When you click the name of the act, a table will display showing where the sections of the act were codified. It also shows the Public Law number, which you can use to do a Find of the entire act.

(Provided by West Reference Attorneys)

In many parts of the country, June and July are the prime months for thunderstorms – and since heavy downpours often lead to rapidly rising  water levels in rivers and streams, the stormy months of summer are also prime time for flash floods.

A few flash-flood facts from the U.S. Geological Survey:

• Most flood-related deaths are caused by flash floods.
• Urban areas are vulnerable to flash flooding due to the amount of surface area covered by parking lots, rooftops and other impermeable surfaces.
• Canyons and narrow river valleys with steep banks are also high-risk areas, acting like funnels to concentrate the volume and velocity of water.
• Private homeowners’ insurance policies typically don’t cover floodwater damage.

Whether you’re drafting a flood insurance clause for a real estate contract or a complaint, FormFinder on Westlaw has dozens of documents to help you find the right language to use.

With FormFinder’s recent improvements, pinpointing the perfect document is easier than ever. And you can use the new content from Miller’s Standard Insurance Policies Annotated to support your litigation strategy by quickly finding insurance precedent for policies where flood coverage has been litigated. Miller’s provides easy access to standard property and casualty insurance policies, with convenient links to editorial annotations for all U.S. caselaw interpreting policy language of interest to you. (You can learn more about Miller’s content on the West website.)

More FormFinder info: You can read more, view a demo, and buy it online.

Try it yourself: To see forms for today’s topic, try these template paths:

• Topic = Real Estate
  Search Terms = flood /s insurance “National Flood Insurance”
• Topic = All Topics Included | Filter = Litigation Forms
  Search Terms = flood /s insurance
• Topic = Insurance Policies
  Search Terms = flood