🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <DAt611.1zB@granite.mv.net>, pdecker@granite.mv.net (Phil
Decker) wrote:

> I can't think of any BOOKS that involve IP.  However, a miniseries that
> ran, I think, in the fall of 1992 or 1993 called Wild Palms starred Jim
> Belushi as a patent attorney.  The IP theme was not material to the plot,
> but I thought it was a great series.
> 
> A show called The Water Engine was on PBS around the same time.  It was
> about a crooked patent attorney who screwed an innocent inventor out of a
> very good invention.  It was pretty depressing, but it would tie in with
> your Pro Res. paper.
> 
> Phil

The best literary work that I know of which deals with patent law (albeit
indirectly) is "Little Dorrit" in which The Office of Circumlocutions is
used by Dickens to illustrate how bad the UK Patent Office was at that
time. The is a short review of this and some of Dickens other work by
Jeremy Philips called, "A Poor Man's Tale of a Patent". Charles Dickens
was an active campaigner for an overhaul of British patent law and patent
office practise in the mid 19th century. I seem to remember that "Tunc" by
Lawrence Durrell also makes some reference to patents and inventions (it
has been a long time since I read this so I could be wrong)

There are two films which involve patents/inventions which immediately
spring to mind: "Static" (Mark Romanek 1985) in which one of the
characters believes that he has invented a machine which shows pictures of
Heaven, and "The Man Who Fell to Earth" (Nicholas Roeg 1976) in which an
alien starts a high-tech company to raise money to build a spaceship to
get home.

I hope that this helps.

Martin