29 thoughts on “GWU Students Consider IP Careers

    1. 16.1

      Look anon we all saw your little thread. It’s about the same topic MM has brought up repeatedly re the judicial exceptions. He usually used a DNA frag rather than a mineral tho as his hypo. I’ve already answered: Nobody knows if the patent gets invalidated post discovery. That issue has yet to be litigated, and frankly, so few minerals are newly discovered these days that the likelihood of a patent being in force (and actively enforced) on the mineral at the time of its discovery is so small that the issue will likely never come up re a mineral.

      Now, regarding DNA, the issue may well come up, but the chances are even then it never will.

      It’s just one of those questions that nobody knows, and nobody will likely ever know for sure since it will never be litigated.

      I’ve also said that it is my opinion that so long as it was done artificially first then the courts would likely not invalidate the patent and rather would uphold it. At least that is what the Fed. Circ. would do and this issue has a 0 percent chance of going to the supremes.

      1. 16.1.1

        (sigh) re-read Chakrabarty 6.

        (and you might try to understand just why we have silence from Malcolm)

        1. 16.1.1.1

          nt brosef. if you have something in chakrabarty that you think is interesting then you can bring it to my attention. I doubt anyone else will even give you the time of day on this issue because they don’t care about it one little bit since it won’t come up in their lifetimes.

  1. 15

    Intellectual property – is the way the hero of a book I have just started, Accelerando by Charles Stross, makes his money. He is Manfred Macx, a so-called venture altruist, who has no income, calling money a symptom of poverty; but who generate a tremendous amount of intellectual property every day, primarily by filing business method patents, and by giving his intellectual property away to others for free so that he never has to pay for anything. Everything is comped.

    In the opening pages our hero is contacted by a self-aware KGB AI who is seeking to defect. It needs help because it uploads so much potentially copyrightable information. A copyright lawsuit against an AI is a potential death sentence.

    Obviously Charles Stross mocks the patent system.

    1. 15.2

      From the wiki on “Accelerando“:

      Stross describes humanity’s situation at the start of Accelerando as dire:

      In the background of what looks like a Panglossian techno-optimist novel, horrible things are happening. Most of humanity is wiped out, then arbitrarily resurrected in mutilated form by the Vile Offspring. Capitalism eats everything then the logic of competition pushes it so far that merely human entities can no longer compete; we’re a fat, slow-moving, tasty resource – like the dodo. Our narrative perspective, Aineko, is not a talking cat: it’s a vastly superintelligent AI, coolly calculating, that has worked out that human beings are more easily manipulated if they think they’re dealing with a furry toy. The cat body is a sock puppet wielded by an abusive monster.

      LOL – gee, Big Data personified is here to save us all from the evils of Capitalism…..

      The very worst of the Right and the Left attacking the patent system.

      Ned – you really don’t need to be drinking ever more of this type of Kool Aid, do you? Can you bear the echo chamber amplifications that will result?

  2. 13

    Great production. This was intended to be satire with a sharp edge. That’s all.

    Lighten up critics.

    Good job GWU.

  3. 12

    Well, with the rip-rap lyrics, it is hard to tell what their point is, but it seems to be that law students with science and engineering undergrad degrees can get IP jobs and the rest of their classmates are envious. The IP jobholders are taunting their classmates, to boot.

    Unfortunately, other lawyers sometimes look at patent lawyers jealously, and that can lead to some unfortunate consequences. In particular, Scotus justices seem to relish sticking it to patent scriveners/drafters, demeaning our work. I have to wonder if their getting taunted earlier in their careers has not led them to relish payback…. patent system and innocent inventors be damned.

  4. 11

    Hilarious. The best part of having an engineering and math degree was being able to bounce out of law all together!

  5. 10

    A “hypothetical” for the GWU students (and any student of patent law – which should be a universal set of those interested in patent law).

    Let’s say a group of hard-working engineers (in a big firm or not – your choice), work on and create a brand new chemical composition, not known to any living person. They dutifully investigate and document the exact physical structure. They find a new and beneficial utility for the chemical composition and fully disclose and enable an invention according to the patent laws of the United States in a patent application. A patent quickly issues.

    After issue, a small child stumbles across a fully naturally occurring mineral growth in his back yard. The mineral growth turns out to be the first US finding of Putnisite, a recently named mineral just discovered (also after issue) near Lake Cowan.

    See link to news.yahoo.com

    The boy picks up and uses the mineral for the utility discussed in the patent.

    Is he guilty of patent infringement? Does the patent still cover patent eligible material, or another way of asking that question, is the patent still valid under 101? Discuss.

      1. 10.1.1

        Yes Les – the patented chemical can also be called Putnisite, as it has the identical structure to the now just discovered mineral.

    1. 10.3

      Double bonus question: just like the Nazomi case mirrors the Grand Hall Experiment and draws screams of silence from the anti’s, what are the odds that this story, which mirrors the debate with those same certain individuals pre-Myriad will likewise be actively ignored?

  6. 9

    Current law student here from a school struggling to stay ranked in the top 50. It is significantly easier to get a job (in “big law”) with a science degree than without one at the moment. Even if the firm does zero prosecution work, but handles a bunch of IP lit, they are going to take the kid with the science background over the kid without one.

    Looks better for the client and on their webpage when someone with an EE/CS degree is doing IP work.

    Source: have an undergrad in CS, got a job

  7. 7

    Hmmm. These GW students apparently cannot differentiate between patent prosecution and intellectual property.

  8. 5

    I wouldn’t hire any of these clowns.

    All the GW resumes are going straight to the circular file for the next couple years until all of the students in this video have been flushed from the career guidance office.

  9. 4

    Very clever and droll.

    Buck up lads and lasses. You are looking at only one-half the picture. Maybe you can’t PRACTICE patent law without a technical degree, but you can sit on the Federal Circuit and MAKE patent law just by being an English major.

    Irony, however unintended and blundered into, is one of the most endearing, and enduring, national traits of America.

    1. 1.1

      Blocked on your handheld device, perhaps? But not on my home computer.

      Neverthless, I feel your irony. 😉

      1. 1.1.1

        LOL – Malcolm’s post would have more impact if he did not habitually wreck himself with his lack of understanding on the different aspects covered by patent law and copyright law. 😉

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