Too bad the patent lawyer nor the examiner of U.S. 6,299,921
were not this open.
Bill
12
I agree wholeheartedly about deletion of old stuff.
But if you look at books on biochemistry, cellular biology and the like, you will find it is just as I said – the “new stuff” was largely or completely unknown 20-30 years ago. For example, of you graduated in 1980 you would have to wait until 1983 for Kerry Mullis to come up with PCR which is now ubiquitous. And I think that genetic fingerprinting which is now feared by criminals and putative fathers around the world was invented much about the same time. So indeed it is the basics that we have to read up on to keep ourselves up to date.
11
“And when you hit the big 50 you will embarrassingly find that the textbooks used by laboratory technicians and other people with intermediate qualifications are full of stuff that was unknown when you graduated. So you need to take active steps to stop your technical skills from becoming obsolete.”
…or just go in house where you get to deal with a single invention type (electrical, biochem, etc.) and stay very good by drafting and working in a single area – hopefully your area of expertise.
10
Paul Cole wrote:”And when you hit the big 50 you will embarrassingly find that the textbooks used by laboratory technicians and other people with intermediate qualifications are full of stuff that was unknown when you graduated.”
While new discoveries can occur and be included in textbooks, it would be far more accurate to say that the “new stuff” was known, but was only available in the primary literature and not the teriary literature such as textbooks. Over time, the primary literature becomes secondary (reviews) and eventually tertiary.
At the same time, the inclusion of this “new stuff” requires the ejection of some “old stuff”. Most of the old stuff is still correct, and therefor valuble and can let you run circles around the young whups. A classic example in the field of chemical engineering is the holistic approach taken by Bird, Stewart and Lightfoot in “Transport Phenomenon”. The book is no longer used in teaching undergaduates. Instead, three separate books are used with no continuity between them. Such a loss. To me and an older generation of chemical engineers, fluid mechanics, mass transfer and heat transfer are three examples of the same basic underlying physics. To the newly minted ChemE’s, they are three separate subjects with no overlap.
In the same way, older CRC Handbooks are valuble in that they contain information that has been eliminated in newer versions.
However, I completely agree that with your bottom line: the only time to stop learning is when they bury you 6-feet under. Just don’t be so quick to sell the past short.
9
What’s all this talk about dogs, step back? Schroedinger’s cat knew QM way back in 1935! link to en.wikipedia.org
8
Reminds me Paul of all those resumes one receives, such as when law firm ABC proudly announces that illustrious Mr X is joining it. “Mr X’s practice spans patents and trademarks, and industries as diverse as pharmaceuticals, gearboxes, high temperature alloys and telecomms”. Wasn’t it Saint Edmund of Abingdon who said “Live every day as if it were your last, but study as if you are going to live for ever”
7
There is a serious comment for patent attorneys here.
If you are a physicist when you get your patent attorney qualifications, start reading some metallurgy, materials science, chemistry and biochemistry. You may come up with cases concerning bioinformatics or molecular docking and you will then need all your physics/maths skills plus an appreciation of what chemists/biochemists do. Someone from a rust-bucket state may come up with an improved steel alloy and may become very upset if you know nothing about the iron-carbon phase diagram. When you write cases about new mechanical structures your knowledge of materials science will help you avoid the trap of saying nothing about what the structure is made of.
If you are a chemist or biochemist, now is the time to learn about differential equations, Fourier and Laplace transforms, control theory and analog and digital electronics. You may even find that a knowledge of control theory gives helpful insights into biological processes.
And when you hit the big 50 you will embarrassingly find that the textbooks used by laboratory technicians and other people with intermediate qualifications are full of stuff that was unknown when you graduated. So you need to take active steps to stop your technical skills from becoming obsolete.
The wonderful think about our field is that learning is a life-long process and if you keep reading then large amounts of what you have read will crop up in your daily work and help your career later. So enjoy!
6
There is a serious comment for patent attorneys here.
If you are a physicist when you get your patent attorney qualifications, start reading some metallurgy, materials science, chemistry and biochemistry. You may come up with cases concerning bioinformatics or molecular docking and you will then need all your physics/maths skills plus an appreciation of what chemists/biochemists do. Someone from a rust-bucket state may come up with an improved steel alloy and may become very upset if you know nothing about the iron-carbon phase diagram. When you write cases about new mechanical structures your knowledge of materials science will help you avoid the trap of saying nothing about what the structure is made of.
If you are a chemist or biochemist, now is the time to learn about differential equations, Fourier and Laplace transforms, control theory and analog and digital electronics. You may even find that a knowledge of control theory gives helpful insights into biological processes.
And when you hit the big 50 you will embarrassingly find that the textbooks used by laboratory technicians and other people with intermediate qualifications are full of stuff that was unknown when you graduated. So you need to take active steps to stop your technical skills from becoming obsolete.
The wonderful think about our field is that learning is a life-long process and if you keep reading then large amounts of what you have read will crop up in your daily work and help your career later. So enjoy!
5
My dog understands Quantum Mechanics:
Although the bottom of the dinner table appears to be a solid barrier, quantums of people food nonetheless mysteriously tunnel down into the dog’s mouth every once again 😉
The other day my dog got an acceptance letter from the USPTO. Seems they had an opening for a legally qualified Assistant Commissioner of Patents.
4
That’s purty funny, OK — until you realize that you could replace the attorney with a patent examiner and it would be just as true but more frightening.
3
It’s like the dog trying to understand Quantum Mechanics — that’s why we had really late Friday problems — all the law students were out on the town
2
It seems to be irrefutable proof that Wall Street profits can grow to infinity and beyond. We have an ever expanding Pi in play here rather than a zero sum game or a diminishing returns analysis. Note the multiple poles in the denominator of the Laplacian transform. I think the patent attorney to the right understands that mathematical functions are after all, anything innovated by man under the sun, and therefore clearly patentable subject matter. 😉
1
Its fairly obvious that is the formula for a lower cost Chicken McNugget.
Easy. Unpatentable under USC 35 sec. 101.
Easy. Unpatentable under USC 35 sec. 101.
Easy. Unpatentable under USC 35 sec. 101.
Easy. Unpatentable under USC 35 sec. 101.
Too bad the patent lawyer nor the examiner of U.S. 6,299,921
were not this open.
Bill
I agree wholeheartedly about deletion of old stuff.
But if you look at books on biochemistry, cellular biology and the like, you will find it is just as I said – the “new stuff” was largely or completely unknown 20-30 years ago. For example, of you graduated in 1980 you would have to wait until 1983 for Kerry Mullis to come up with PCR which is now ubiquitous. And I think that genetic fingerprinting which is now feared by criminals and putative fathers around the world was invented much about the same time. So indeed it is the basics that we have to read up on to keep ourselves up to date.
“And when you hit the big 50 you will embarrassingly find that the textbooks used by laboratory technicians and other people with intermediate qualifications are full of stuff that was unknown when you graduated. So you need to take active steps to stop your technical skills from becoming obsolete.”
…or just go in house where you get to deal with a single invention type (electrical, biochem, etc.) and stay very good by drafting and working in a single area – hopefully your area of expertise.
Paul Cole wrote:”And when you hit the big 50 you will embarrassingly find that the textbooks used by laboratory technicians and other people with intermediate qualifications are full of stuff that was unknown when you graduated.”
While new discoveries can occur and be included in textbooks, it would be far more accurate to say that the “new stuff” was known, but was only available in the primary literature and not the teriary literature such as textbooks. Over time, the primary literature becomes secondary (reviews) and eventually tertiary.
At the same time, the inclusion of this “new stuff” requires the ejection of some “old stuff”. Most of the old stuff is still correct, and therefor valuble and can let you run circles around the young whups. A classic example in the field of chemical engineering is the holistic approach taken by Bird, Stewart and Lightfoot in “Transport Phenomenon”. The book is no longer used in teaching undergaduates. Instead, three separate books are used with no continuity between them. Such a loss. To me and an older generation of chemical engineers, fluid mechanics, mass transfer and heat transfer are three examples of the same basic underlying physics. To the newly minted ChemE’s, they are three separate subjects with no overlap.
In the same way, older CRC Handbooks are valuble in that they contain information that has been eliminated in newer versions.
However, I completely agree that with your bottom line: the only time to stop learning is when they bury you 6-feet under. Just don’t be so quick to sell the past short.
What’s all this talk about dogs, step back? Schroedinger’s cat knew QM way back in 1935! link to en.wikipedia.org
Reminds me Paul of all those resumes one receives, such as when law firm ABC proudly announces that illustrious Mr X is joining it. “Mr X’s practice spans patents and trademarks, and industries as diverse as pharmaceuticals, gearboxes, high temperature alloys and telecomms”. Wasn’t it Saint Edmund of Abingdon who said “Live every day as if it were your last, but study as if you are going to live for ever”
There is a serious comment for patent attorneys here.
If you are a physicist when you get your patent attorney qualifications, start reading some metallurgy, materials science, chemistry and biochemistry. You may come up with cases concerning bioinformatics or molecular docking and you will then need all your physics/maths skills plus an appreciation of what chemists/biochemists do. Someone from a rust-bucket state may come up with an improved steel alloy and may become very upset if you know nothing about the iron-carbon phase diagram. When you write cases about new mechanical structures your knowledge of materials science will help you avoid the trap of saying nothing about what the structure is made of.
If you are a chemist or biochemist, now is the time to learn about differential equations, Fourier and Laplace transforms, control theory and analog and digital electronics. You may even find that a knowledge of control theory gives helpful insights into biological processes.
And when you hit the big 50 you will embarrassingly find that the textbooks used by laboratory technicians and other people with intermediate qualifications are full of stuff that was unknown when you graduated. So you need to take active steps to stop your technical skills from becoming obsolete.
The wonderful think about our field is that learning is a life-long process and if you keep reading then large amounts of what you have read will crop up in your daily work and help your career later. So enjoy!
There is a serious comment for patent attorneys here.
If you are a physicist when you get your patent attorney qualifications, start reading some metallurgy, materials science, chemistry and biochemistry. You may come up with cases concerning bioinformatics or molecular docking and you will then need all your physics/maths skills plus an appreciation of what chemists/biochemists do. Someone from a rust-bucket state may come up with an improved steel alloy and may become very upset if you know nothing about the iron-carbon phase diagram. When you write cases about new mechanical structures your knowledge of materials science will help you avoid the trap of saying nothing about what the structure is made of.
If you are a chemist or biochemist, now is the time to learn about differential equations, Fourier and Laplace transforms, control theory and analog and digital electronics. You may even find that a knowledge of control theory gives helpful insights into biological processes.
And when you hit the big 50 you will embarrassingly find that the textbooks used by laboratory technicians and other people with intermediate qualifications are full of stuff that was unknown when you graduated. So you need to take active steps to stop your technical skills from becoming obsolete.
The wonderful think about our field is that learning is a life-long process and if you keep reading then large amounts of what you have read will crop up in your daily work and help your career later. So enjoy!
My dog understands Quantum Mechanics:
Although the bottom of the dinner table appears to be a solid barrier, quantums of people food nonetheless mysteriously tunnel down into the dog’s mouth every once again 😉
The other day my dog got an acceptance letter from the USPTO. Seems they had an opening for a legally qualified Assistant Commissioner of Patents.
That’s purty funny, OK — until you realize that you could replace the attorney with a patent examiner and it would be just as true but more frightening.
It’s like the dog trying to understand Quantum Mechanics — that’s why we had really late Friday problems — all the law students were out on the town
It seems to be irrefutable proof that Wall Street profits can grow to infinity and beyond. We have an ever expanding Pi in play here rather than a zero sum game or a diminishing returns analysis. Note the multiple poles in the denominator of the Laplacian transform. I think the patent attorney to the right understands that mathematical functions are after all, anything innovated by man under the sun, and therefore clearly patentable subject matter. 😉
Its fairly obvious that is the formula for a lower cost Chicken McNugget.
Comments are closed.