Patent Law

Uppity

By Gary Odom and Jordan Kuhn

Capitalism is premised upon exploitation. Without that, no profit, and shareholders would be shit holders. In that spirit, slavery has been the law of the land for centuries. Not to mention the tax code. Even today, thanks to a little coercion called an employment contract, the inventions of workers belong to their paymasters. IPAdvocate.org is downright uppity about that, seeking equitable distribution of patent profits gleaned by universities for the employed researchers from whence creative inventions sprang.

IPAdvocate.org's big publicity beef is with the University of Missouri, employer of the illustrious Associate Professor Dennis Crouch. Apparently, the university, pronounced "um," is trying to screw "prominent professor and researcher" Dr. Galen J. Suppes, out of his fair share for inventing antifreeze squeezed from biodiesel production. Never mind that biodiesel is environmentally bad news all the way around, beginning with wasting valuable cropland to fuel the mobile obscenities known as motor vehicles when those wheeled polluters could be powered by crushed prehistoric plant juice sucked from the ground in sandy Arab regions. UM also forces Professor Crouch to write his blog entries using only the most bland language, and flogs Crouch to slave night and day over a hot Excel spreadsheet in preparation of marginally meaningful charts and graphs.

The shoe on the other foot, Emory University, alma mater that chewed up and spit out Patent Hawk, is lauded by IPAdvocate.org:

Emory financed millions of dollars of legal expenses in support of its academic researchers. In this case the university's involvement is reflected in its results: their intellectual property is intact, their researchers continue happily in their employment, and they have functional, ongoing relationships with their defendants and counterclaimants to facilitate and cultivate continued research that has improved the quality of life for patients both in the U.S. and worldwide.

This case presents an excellent example of what can happen when a university sides with its faculty and researchers.

Feeling liberated by a liberal education, the Hawk swoops about, twittering colorful gibberish with unctuous irreverence. Uppity indeed.

Full post as published by The Patent Prospector on July 09, 2009 (boomark / email).