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Ansel Halliburton

@anseljh.com
1.4K followers 2.5K following 1.8K posts

Law technology & technology law. In-house trademark lawyer. Free Law Project (@free.law) board. Building in #LegalTech since 2006. Making derpy from-scratch robots for fun. @Obsidian.md nerd. DM for Signal.

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Reposted by Ansel Halliburton
Shawn Standefer @standefer.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
It's fun having a hobby that you're okay with doing at the level you do it. I have one of those too. Whenever friends find out about it, they almost all say "why aren't you better at this?" I don't need to be. I'm happy with my silly little hobby as it is.
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Ansel Halliburton @anseljh.com · 27/09/2026
Exactly 2^10 #Jev requests 🤓
A screenshot of the TypeSafe AI console's usage page, showing I've made exactly 1024 Jev requests.
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Free Law Project ⚖ @free.law · 22/09/2026
Yesterday, as part of our scanning project, we scanned our two-millionth page of case law. Woo! free.law/2026/04/16/s...
free.law
Free Law Project Is Scanning America's Case Law
Free Law Project is scanning and digitizing millions of pages of published case law reporters, picking up where Harvard Law Library left off, to make CourtListener a complete and authoritative free so...
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Ansel Halliburton @anseljh.com · 18/09/2026
The tech here is quite interesting. But also: the wardrobe changes are fantastic. More joy, less doom!
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Kendra Albert @kendraserra.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Person to their partner: "But really, what are you going to use that darth vader costume for after the con?" Partner: "I find your lack of faith disturbing." 6 months later: bsky.app/profile/pale...
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Ansel Halliburton @anseljh.com · 20/08/2026
tfw your reranking evaluation doesn't know the difference between trademark and copyright 💀
Screenshot of an eager and willing evaluation harness. It presents the query "When does a revised edition of a book count as a new creative work rather than the same work for trademark registration purposes?", and then shows an excerpt from a Copyright Office publication.
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Mike Lissner @michaeljaylissner.com · 12/08/2026
We're attempting some leadership here and really did put a lot of effort into these policies. Give a look!
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Ansel Halliburton @anseljh.com · 09/08/2026
Hi @sfgov.sf.gov! How about I will do whatever I want with these free and uncopyrightable edicts of government, and you will remove these very silly and incorrect copyright claims?Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, Inc., 590 U.S. 255 (2020).
A screenshot of San Francisco's Housing Code. There is a cool city seal, immediately below which is proclaimed confidently, yet wrongly, "Copyright © 2026 by THE CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO". Below that, there is a box with text which also proclaims, again wrongly, "All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed by any means or stored in a database or retrieval system without prior written permission of the City and County of San Francisco." EDICTS OF GOVERNMENT!!!
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Free Law Project ⚖ @free.law · 04/08/2026
Some recent reviews of the RECAP extension are incredibly kind — thank you! If you haven't tried RECAP and you know what PACER is, give it a shot. It takes 1 minute to install, literally, and then you'll save money while helping others. free.law/recap/
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Gabriel Malor @gabrielmalor.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
9th Cir. holds that the Bad Spaniels parody toy of a Jack Daniel's bottle is unlikely to harm the reputation of Jack Daniel's trademarks *because* it is parody. Held: no dilution by tarnishment; remanded for entry of judgment in favor of Bad Spaniels maker. cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/op...
After all, no matter how similar to its famous counterpart, a parodic junior mark ultimately “relies upon a difference from the original mark, presumably a humorous difference, in order to produce its desired effect.”  Jordache Enters. v. Hogg Wyld, Ltd., 828 F.2d 1482, 1486 (10th Cir. 1987).  Dr. Simonson’s analysis ignored the effect of a “humorous difference” on whether Bad Spaniels harms the reputation of JDPI’s famous marks.  To be sure, the district court credited Dr. Simonson’s conclusion that the first step of his dilution analysis was satisfied “because the point of VIP’s product was to bring Jack Daniel’s whiskey to mind”; that conclusion was based on VIP’s transparently parodic use.  But there is no evidence that Dr. Simonson considered the parodic nature of VIP’s junior marks when building Jack Daniel’s ANM, or that satire otherwise factored into his analysis of the mental association between the disputed marks.  Parody, however, is inherent in the Bad Spaniels product—indeed, as Dr. Simonson recognized, it was the “whole point.”  Failing to consider the effect of VIP’s obvious parody on the likelihood of tarnishment was a critical misstep, and the district court erred in adopting the conclusions that followed.
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Ansel Halliburton @anseljh.com · 04/08/2026
Bumping for the people who sleep at night and are now awake
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lastpositivist.bsky.social @lastpositivist.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Future utilitarians living in a solar punk utopia having anguished debates about the credit owed to President Trump for supercharging green transition.
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Ansel Halliburton @anseljh.com · 04/08/2026
I haven’t posted much lately because I’ve been busy building. What have I been building, you ask? I have been building Nomolith. Long thread follows! 🧵
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Ansel Halliburton @anseljh.com · 10/07/2026
yo new ship impoundment just dropped www.courtlistener.com/docket/73589...
courtlistener.com
United States v. MOTOR TANKER PHONIX WITH INTERNATIONAL MARITIME ORGANIZATION NUMBER 9198317, AND..., 1:26-cv-01405 - CourtListener.com
Docket for United States v. MOTOR TANKER PHONIX WITH INTERNATIONAL MARITIME ORGANIZATION NUMBER 9198317, AND..., 1:26-cv-01405 — Brought to you by Free Law Project, a non-profit dedicated to creating high quality open legal information.
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Ansel Halliburton @anseljh.com · 05/07/2026
Legal research... like a pirate!
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Free Law Project ⚖ @free.law · 01/07/2026
Our co-founder and director, @michaeljaylissner.com and our AI developer, Nathan Dahlberg sat down with @bobambrogi.bsky.social for his podcast. They talked about the effort to bring good, solid legal research to everyone — not just lawyers. Everyone: www.lawnext.com/2026/07/on-l...
lawnext.com
On LawNext: Legal Research for Everyone: Inside the CourtListener-Claude Partnership
Last month, when Anthropic, developer of the popular AI assistant Claude, announced a major push into legal, much of the coverage in the media and the buzz on social media focused on what the announce...
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Rebecca Fordon @thefordon.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
SHOUT IT FROM THE ROOFTOPS. Thank you @joepatrice.bsky.social for this great piece. abovethelaw.com/2026/06/thos...
abovethelaw.com
Those 'WL' Citations Are An Open Invitation To AI Hallucinations - Above the Law
Those proprietary citations carry risks for the publishers.
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Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
A big surprise of Chatrie: Kavanaugh provides the 5th vote for a broad privacy-based reading of the Fourth Amendment, extending Carpenter. So we get a Kagan majority with Roberts, Kavanaugh, Sotomayor, and Jackson, taking a broad view of Carpenter. Gorsuch is a 6th vote, but on property grounds.
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Hoodlum 🇺🇸 @nothoodlum.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
Breaching what was once considered the most heavily defended airspace in the world, a Ukrainian drone flew through downtown Moscow in broad daylight.
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Ansel Halliburton @anseljh.com · 20/06/2026
I made a very thin Python client for the EUIPO's #trademark search APIs in 90 minutes flat. github.com/anseljh/euip...
github.com
GitHub - anseljh/euipo-tm-client: Minimal Python client for EUIPO trademark search API
Minimal Python client for EUIPO trademark search API - anseljh/euipo-tm-client
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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 19/06/2026
I have a wild idea. When we have factual disputes about possible misconduct by government officials, we pick a small group of random citizens, maybe 12, tell them what the rules are, and ask them to listen to the evidence and make a decision about who’s right.
Screenshot from article in quoted skeet:

Earlier this month, Sarsour's attorneys also said that staff at the jail had impeded his religious liberties by interrupting or blocking his ability to pray. Jail staff offered Sarsour pork rinds - a food that is forbidden under Muslim dietary laws - his attorneys and family say, and did not provide adequate treatment for his type 2 diabetes, causing him to lose over 30 pounds while in detention. The Department of Homeland Security has denied the accusations.
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MAKS 26 👀🇺🇦 @maks23.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
And another video 😅😅😅
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Daniel Pomarède @pomarede.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
Mastcam mosaic captured by Curiosity on that same day and location Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/fredk #Mars 🧪🔭
A rust toned mosaic of 15 images capturing the terrain in the immediate vicinity of the Mars rover Curiosity. Acquired June 17, 2026 (Sol 4928).
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Ansel Halliburton @anseljh.com · 19/06/2026
I made a weird thing! It's a small, incomplete LLM wiki about space law. You're welcome! github.com/anseljh/spac...
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Free Law Project ⚖ @free.law · 10/06/2026
Update on our case law scanning project: 606 volumes and 655,631 pages are scanned. From here they go through our redaction system and get digitized for inclusion in CourtListener. Earlier blog post: free.law/2026/04/16/s...
free.law
Free Law Project Is Scanning America's Case Law
Free Law Project is scanning and digitizing millions of pages of published case law reporters, picking up where Harvard Law Library left off, to make CourtListener a complete and authoritative free so...
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Ansel Halliburton @anseljh.com · 10/06/2026
Rebecca just keeps churning out cool itch-scratchers like this!
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Free Law Project ⚖ @free.law · 09/06/2026
We and @facoalition.bsky.social fought an overbroad unconstitutional order telling the "public" at large to pull down a court record. With (copious and generous!) help from @volokhc.bsky.social and @megangray.bsky.social, we won. reason.com/volokh/2026/...
reason.com
Attempt to Seal Court Filing, and to Order Members of the Public to Destroy Their Copies, Withdrawn
A couple of weeks ago, the litigants in the Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Products Liability Litigation multi-district case tried...
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Ansel Halliburton @anseljh.com · 03/06/2026
Don’t dehumanize the humanities. Words matter, and “content“ is a crappy word.
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Anton Gerashchenko @antongerashchenko.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Ukraine officially opens the St Petersburg Economic Forum. Warm memories and hot impressions guaranteed.
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Ansel Halliburton @anseljh.com · 30/05/2026
TIL John Wick runs Linux
Photo of a big John Wick arcade game with two seats. A technician is seated on the right, basking in the signature purple glow of the Ubuntu Linux desktop as he debugs things in a terminal window.
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Ansel Halliburton @anseljh.com · 29/05/2026
Is this better or worse than nothing?
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dell cameron @dell.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
decided my rss reader would function better w/ a winamp skin
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Ansel Halliburton @anseljh.com · 22/05/2026
Is this a lot for a side project? It seems like a lot for a side project.
Screenshot of a count of lines of code, summing up to 32053 lines, which seems like a lot.
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Ansel Halliburton @anseljh.com · 22/05/2026
New Ninth Circuit oral argument in everyone's favorite forever #trademark case, VIP Products, LLC v. Jack Daniel's Properties, Inc. 🔉 www.courtlistener.com/audio/105037...
courtlistener.com
Oral Argument for VIP Products, LLC v. Jack Daniel's Properties, Inc. – CourtListener.com
Oral Argument for VIP Products, LLC v. Jack Daniel's Properties, Inc.
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Ansel Halliburton @anseljh.com · 22/05/2026
Is this a lot for a side project? It seems like a lot for a side project.
Screenshot of a count of lines of code, summing up to 32053 lines, which seems like a lot.
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Ansel Halliburton @anseljh.com · 15/05/2026
I submitted a pull request to the Claude for Legal skills repo while listening to the Claude for Legal webinar today. Hey #trademarks people, this isn't so hard - chime in! github.com/anthropics/c...
github.com
ip-legal clearance skill improvements by anseljh · Pull Request #31 · anthropics/claude-for-legal
This PR makes a few small improvements to the trademark clearance skill. Main changes: Adds context about trademark classes Trademark lingo tweaks (e.g., prefer "register" to "regis...
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Ansel Halliburton @anseljh.com · 14/05/2026
Cope cages, but for submarines 👀
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Eddie Yang @eddieyang.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
New paper in Nature. The more a government controls its domestic media, the more it dominates AI training data, the more pro-regime outputs we get from AI. By scraping the open web, LLMs are unwittingly laundering state-coordinated narratives into seemingly objective answers.
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Mike Lissner @michaeljaylissner.com · 12/05/2026
Finally our news is out. Legal research is changing today. It really is. This stuff is unreal.
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Mike Lissner @michaeljaylissner.com · 12/05/2026
I'm convinced every court, firm, and lawyer in the country should use our x-ray tool. It's a Python library now, but we'll make an API and pay to get SOC 2 compliance so y'all can send us your filings. If somebody sponsors this, we'll make it free for courts and pennies otherwise. How about that?
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Ed Timberlake @trademarksaremagic.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
The mark consists of: "the stylized number "6" composed of a breaded appetizer bite . . . positioned above a yellow hand and the number "7" composed of a breaded appetizer bite . . . positioned above the other hand" tsdr.uspto.gov#caseNumber=9...
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Mekka Okereke @mekka.mekka-tech.com · 06/05/2026
The Dem governor debate was held at Pomona College's Bridges auditorium. I loved my time at Pomona! Chirp! I've been pulled over for driving while Black many times near Bridges. That I did not enjoy. And while I was at Pomona, a friend was killed by cops near there too. I didn't enjoy that either.
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ceej @ceej.online · 12/02/2025
haha that’s so crazy (pulling out a giant feather quill and adding your name to a book labeled COLLABORATORS)
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Ansel Halliburton @anseljh.com · 04/05/2026
“Unpaid labor”, hm is there a pithier single word for that, I wonder
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Yael Grauer @yaelwrites.com · 04/05/2026
I am honored to share the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Best International Reporting with Dake Kang, Byron Tau, Aniruddha Ghosal and Garance Burke for our reporting revealing how Silicon Valley largely designed and built China's surveillance state and enabled human rights abuses.
The 2026 Pulitzer Prize Announcement
International Reporting
Winner: Dake Kang, Garance Burke, Byron Tau, Aniruddha Ghosal of the Associated Press and Yael Grauer, contributor.

US government allowed and even helped US firms sell tech used for surveillance in China, AP finds.
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Ansel Halliburton @anseljh.com · 24/04/2026
There is so much going on in just this signature block.
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
I wish the United States was conducting a war with a strategy more complex than my seven year old responding to his older brother with "Oh yeah?!? Then I would..." -I'd block your shipping. -Then I'd block *your* shipping. -So what, I'll mine the strait. -Oh yeah?!? Then I would shoot your boats!
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Ansel Halliburton @anseljh.com · 23/04/2026
I spent half an hour tonight whipping up a pre-filing citation checker. I ran it on the Sullivan & Cromwell brief from this story, and it works. Time to raise the bar, folks.
Screenshot of an ugly program called "Pre-filing Brief Checker". There's a button that says "Select File" and that's about it.Output from the aforementioned program, showing a mismatch between a name as cited in a brief, and the name of the actual case with that citation. The citation is "821 F.3d 161".
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Ansel Halliburton @anseljh.com · 22/04/2026
While I was drinking my morning coffee, I got two legal MCP servers working together: FOLIO to identify which area of law a question is in, and then my own to do hybrid search on a collection of legal materials, scoped to that area. It works. ✨ FOLIO: openlegalstandard.org
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