Patent Law

Almost Enough

By Gary Odom and Jordan Kuhn

This weblog started to promote my patent services practice. Anyone who has read my blogging for any period knows that many of my entries are hell and gone from that. The left turn was conscious and, given my character, inevitable. Digging into the patent scene was no different than my reaction to the practices of people exercising presumed power in any form, given the endless capacity for exploitation and rationalization of it. Even so, for someone so outspoken, the blog has been for me as much an exercise in biting my tongue.

The sardonic workouts were often an attempt at wit that otherwise would have rendered me as as pedantic as the bile-filled and witless Greg Ahahorian.

The reason I kept writing was a tilting at the windmill of trying to inject some thought-provoking perspective at the astonishingly corrupt niche of legal invention. Anyone who has seriously used the term "patent troll" is a danger to society, aside from being an imbecile. Congress, in its unctuous depravity, is merely a product of its citizenry. If I were to have any emotional attachment to it, what has gone down at the USPTO in recent years would make me cry, it's so pathetic. But I don't know why it even phases me, or anyone else. The PTO is, after all, a government agency. What can you possibly expect?

My biggest blogging regret was in the bloopers. My reportage was always hasty pudding, and sometimes it was badly done. My grief over my shortcomings is a constant companion.

It was the writing practice, honing the storytelling craft, that was both challenging and gratifying. That's what kept me writing.

So many of my "controversial" entries were just striking a pose, a sheer and snarky entertainment device. Some readers caught on. Many, it appears, did not. For example, and a good one: whatever you believe as to ultimate subtle forces, the Pope is saying things that need to be said. And heard. I didn't fully quote his concerns over inequality, or give the link to his paper, because I thought he was a lunatic. Quite the contrary. The Pope is a cartoon character to those who are not Catholic, myself included, but don't confuse the messenger with the message. Whether you agree with his point about patents doesn't take away his very honorable and legitimate concerns about human welfare.

No reader of this blog knows the compassion that fills me, snuggled on the psychic loveseat next to contempt. That diametric schism serves as my emotional interior decorating. An interesting place to play. Alas, compassion does not garner readership or provoke thought. It's obvious who picked up the pen day after day.

Blogging can be a grind, if treated as a responsibility. My respect to those who keep their proverbial nose to the grindstone, even if they posses all the excitement of peeling paint. Serious is good. A hat tip to you, Professor.

My grounded entries, covering court cases, have been the most rewarding for me, as they were the most informative to me. This blog will continue for that reason alone. Those entries almost never drew comments, and left me wondering whether anybody read them. I'll keep writing them because I want the ready reference. So, the Patent Prospector is not dead. It's just sobered up.

The educational experience of blogging has been grand. From the blogging perspective, I am diminished. From a writing perspective, I've just been warming up. Don't look for me in print otherwise, because I publish under pseudonyms. I despise being a public figure.

Thanks for reading. Thanks for commenting. Best to you all.

Full post as published by The Patent Prospector on July 11, 2009 (boomark / email).