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Goldstein's "A patent lie," and other IP-themed literature

By Lawrence B. Ebert, Esq.

Patent Baristas gives a thorough discussion of the book ?A Patent Lie,? written by Professor Paul Goldstein. The protagonist is forty-seven year old attorney Michael Seeley, a solo practitioner patent attorney in Buffalo, NY [Tim Russert would have liked this.]

After finishing with the discussion of Goldstein's work, Baristas writes:

If you want patent law in more pulp fiction packaging, try Mission: Impossible 2 where IMF member Ethan Hunt must stop the villainous Sean Ambrose, a former fellow-agent gone bad who?s trying to make billions of dollars by unleashing a deadly virus on society while holding the patent on the antidote.

In the end, this fictional plot was not unrelated to what was actually going on in the real anthrax scare.

Baristas also relates MI2 to patent trolls:

In the only movie I can think of where the super-villain in a (so-called) patent troll, director John Woo delivers all the explosions, bullet fire, car crashes and adrenaline-fueled visuals without being bogged down with details like plot lines and dialog.

If one were to take the definition of patent troll within the New York Times of 28 Sept 08, then Robert Kearns was a patent troll. The movie "Flash of Genius" (scheduled for release in Oct. 08) might then be the first movie wherein a patent troll is the hero and the big corporate infringer the villain. [see IPBiz post of SATURDAY, JULY 19, 2008 Story of intermittent wiper patent becomes a movie

Of course, various intellectual property themes are to be found in many older movies.

Elvis Presley was a virtual professor of trademark law in his role as Vince Everett in Jailhouse Rock.

Tyrone Power was cast as inventor Leonard Vole in "Witness for the Prosecution," in which he proved to be a better legal inventor than a technical inventor. See IPBiz post
"Twenty plot twists" misses the boat: Witness for the Prosecution

And, if one really wants to learn how bio/pharma research works, Arrowsmith remains a good starting point.

Full post as published by IPBiz on September 29, 2008 (boomark / email).