Idea Lawyer Blog

Intro: it is 8:30 a.m.- I sit cross-legged (seiza is for the first hour; I've been here for 3 hours now - serviant (is that a word- if you take off the oft pre-pended "sub"? Google spell checker says no, but no time now to check the OED. mea culpa.) to clients whose faces turn to their own chariot-drawn suns, their own glowing monitor altars).
My thoughts want "out" like the dog I wish I had - so let's go for a little stroll. And let's have a story!. I relish allegory and metaphor: plots that teach, don't you? Blame, if you will, my indulging before retiring at night in the Gutenberg Project's human read audios of Charles Dicken's "A Christmas Carol" (www.gutenberg.org) who blames Marley's ghost on a undigested bit of beef. Or blame my parochial education and the tradition of Aesop's Fables and parables of Loaves and Fishes, decades before our friend, the warmly remembered Julia Childs, before the congregated faithful studio audience, hoisted a poultry carcass, eyes to the camera and not precisely heaven-ward, leading the prayer "First you take a chicken...". Or specifically blame the snow storm in Schenectady in the winter of, hmm, 1976 when my three teenage brothers and I each had bookmarks in a single copy of three volume paperback Lord of The Rings from the public library - scout's honor not to move your sibling's marker when their turn to shovel snow for fun and profit- and to share if other's were free to read and you were "hogging it" or getting too far ahead.
Ah, the warm slush of nostalgia in the sulci of my wetware ...back to - (or should i say "on with" ) the story:
If Tolkein wrote Lord of the Rings with intellectual property in mind, how would the characters shake out? Try this: let's assume for a blasphemous and profane moment that patents are one or THE ONE "Ring of Power'. (Sorry JRR). Yes, the common household patent - the revered or reviled 20 year exclusive right to prevent others from making, using, or selling any "thing" that falls within the scope of the patent "claims" [bored yet?- not nearly shining enough, is it?]. Why would we imagine such a hideous chimera of (arguably) edifying literature and commecial vulgarity? Why, to backlight by absurdity and to throw into relief the silhouette of the thorny ethical questions faced by companies genuinely interested in the best possible position in relation to intellectual property rights. Because true leaders in business know their values are visible not only by what their website says, but by their actions. So what does applying for a patent say about a company whose Values are grounded in, for example, the principles of Open Source?
,,,,Readers: here's the abrupt finish for today (conference call with another client I don't type and talk - mono-tasking is the new multi-tasking!) ....
If patents are a/the "ring of power" : will you be Boromir: well-intended but self deceived; thwarted from his noble intentions by his impotence in harnessing the power of the Ring, and, consequently, destined to be corrupted by it?
Or can you be (n.b. this is not in the movie) Tom Bombadil? The Ring cool and harmless in your palm....to do with as you choose - safely outside the control of the corrupting power of the object of power itself?
........To Be Continued......Bye for Now! dn