Fun Inc

'Tom Chatfield's Fun Inc. is the most elegant and comprehensive defence of the status of computer games in our culture I have read, as well as a helpful compendium of research ... The numbers surrounding the sector are certainly thudding. By the end of 2008, annual sales of video games - not including consoles or devices - was $40 billion, comfortably outstripping the movie business. In the same year, Nintendo's employees were more profitable per head than Google's. The sheer pervasiveness of game experience - 99 per cent of teenage boys and 94 per cent of teenage girls having played a video game - means that instant naffness falls upon those who express a musty disdain for the medium. In fact, as Fun Inc. elegantly explains, computer game-playing has a very strong claim to be one of the most vital test-beds for intellectual enquiry.' Independent

Fierce competition is a fact of life in the business world, but making a buck off someone else's patented invention is one idea that just won't float. When SwimTime notices that a longtime competitor's floating lounger bears striking resemblance to its own top-selling pool float, it files suit against Water-Fun for patent infringement. In its debut as NITA's very first case file on patent law, SwimTime Corp. v. Water-Fun, Inc., written by Administrative Patent Judge Ryan H. Flax, with the United States Patent and Trademark Office's Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), is a civil trial for patent infringement and defenses to these allegations, including invalidity and non-infringement. Students will dive deep into this complex litigation, starting first with the complaint stage and moving onto discovery, patent claim construction (known as the Markman hearing stage), summary judgment, and finally trial. Each side features three witnesses, including two technology experts who address infringement and validity. SwimTime familiarizes students not only with the challenges inherent to patent litigation and basic trial preparation in the modern, high-tech courtroom, but also to the importance of case presentation and the use of demonstrative evidence to persuasion in this sink-or-swim environment.

In this personal journey through a unique performing art, David Copperfield profiles some of the world's most groundbreaking magicians. From the sixteenth-century magistrate who wrote an early book on conjuring, to the roaring twenties and the man who fooled Houdini, to the woman who levitated, vanished, and caught bullets in her bare hands, David Copperfield's History of Magic takes you on a wild journey through the remarkable feats of some of the greatest magicians in history. The result is a sweeping tale that reveals how these astonishing performers were outsiders who used magic to escape class, challenge conventions, transform popular culture, explore the innermost workings of the human mind, and inspire scientific discovery. Their incredible stories are complemented by more than 100 never-before-seen photographs of artifacts from Copperfield's exclusive Museum of Magic, including a sixteenth-century manual on sleight-of-hand; Houdini's straitjackets, handcuffs, and water torture chamber; Dante's famous sawing-in-half apparatus; Alexander's high-tech turban that allowed him to read people's minds; and even some coins that may have magically passed through the hands of Abraham Lincoln. By the end of the book, you'll be sure to share Copperfield's passion for the power of magic. --

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Sixty-seven sure-fire mental feats to delight and mystify: mind reading with cards, instant ESP, identifying the owners of objects given to you in random order, number prediction, much more. 73 illustrations.