The Invent Blog®

A few years ago I had a post discussing the “mechanically separated chicken” ingredient found on a package of hot dogs.  

Thanks to Wikipedia, now we have a picture:

A reader (who is writing a book on patents (historical/humor)) has asked me to post this:

I am looking into purchasing liability insurance and one of the things I need to submit with my application is a written opinion of an attorney regarding the book’s content and legal exposure. Do you or any of your associates have experience doing this kind of thing? Do you have any idea what this might cost? (The book is a short read–225 pages long (9″x9″) with lots of pictures and VERY entertaining!).

If anyone has a recommendation for a referral, please send me an email: nipper@inventblog.com and I’ll forward it to him.

Matt Buchanan’s new blog on “Friday fun – Edison’s mark” (referring to terms and conditions Edison used on a marking plate for his Amberola Phonograph).

Above the Law has a post up on “Where the Lawyers Eat Out” which contains a list of “recommendations for restaurants in various Biglaw cities.”

Something tells me that ‘if’ Boise was a “Biglaw city” that this local restaurant would probably not make the list: The Crescent “NO LAWYERS” Bar & Grill. Not because of the food/service, but because of their “no lawyers” policy. Their menu (menu link: here) includes:

LAWYER FRIES — “You know that lawyers don’t have any!” Some people call them Rocky Mtn. Oysters or Bull Fries. We “lovingly” call them lawyer fries. Served with hot mustard. $8.95

The menu even explains that the restaurant’s name came after a legal dispute with a neighbor (attorney) over the bar owner wanting to build a swimming pool in his backyard (and the attorney fighting him over it). Only in Idaho….

For a few years we have irregularly updated one of our side projects…the patent humor site “IP Funny.” Thanks to those of you who have put up with our childish senses of humor (and provided your own funny patents for us to post) over the past couple years.

Recently, we decided it was time to finally get the project its own domain, namely www.wtfpatents.com. The “What the Funny…Patents” site is up already. As soon as I get caught up at home and work, maybe I’ll start irregularly posting again. [The RSS feed remains the same, no need to update.]

One of the shout-outs I’ve been meaning to give has been to the very funny Lisa Solomon at The Billable Hour Company. I met her at ABA TechShow a few months ago (on the Matt Homann Pub Crawl). After chatting about legal humor, particularly our IP Funny blog (which will soon be moving to version 2.0), she gave me one of her business cards, pulling it out of the cutest miniature briefcase/business card holder. It cracked me up.

A month ago I ordered some of their greeting cards…which I frequently send out as my “Thank You” notes to clients/friends.

Whether it is clocks/watches with six-minute increments or any other lawyer gift, their store is worth checking out.

Apparently, the CAFC recently found that if the reason you didn’t pay your maintenance fee was that your wife refused to permit you to, that isn’t enough…

As Norm McDonald would say on SNL, “note to self…“

Strongbad with a little lawyer and IP humor.

Three lawyer’s are riding to court together one day and, unfortunately, are killed in a horrible traffic accident.

When they reach the pearly gates, St. Peter welcomes them in turn, and says to the first “welcome to heaven. Can you tell me what you did while you were on earth?”, to which he replied “I was a divorce lawyer, and tried to help couples who had difficulties in their relationship”. Well, St. Peter thought about this and said “I see, you were taking advantage of people who were willing to pay anything to get back at their partner”, and he swiftly pulled the lever dropping the hapless lawyer into everlasting hell.

Along comes the second lawyer, and of course St. Peter asks the same thing, the reply being “I was a personal injury attorney, trying to assist those who had been unfairly injured”. St. Peter just said “Ah yes, that’s what we call an ambulance chaser up here”, and sent him to the same fiery fate as the first attorney.

Alas, finally the third attorney approaches and tells St. Peter he was a patent attorney. St. Peter says “come on in!” and shows him to heaven’s finest suite, just to the right of God, the most lovely angels in attendance, you get the picture. After a few minutes of this, the patent lawyer finally asks “but St. Peter, you’ve sent my friends to a fiery eternity, but you welcome me?” “Ah” says St. Peter, “but you’re a patent attorney, you don’t know enough law to hurt anybody!”

The comments are open if you have other patent attorney jokes to share…

Barista Stephen tagged me with “Five Things You Didn’t Know About Me,” so here you go..
1. I can clap with one hand.
2. I had fourteen fish tanks in my college bedroom when my wife met me…and she still married me. Number of fish tanks currently in the Nipper household? Zero.
3. I am hyper organized at work, but the exact opposite at home. Secretaries love me, my wife wishes I was more like I am at work.
4. I was a radio station DJ once…
5. In High School I turned down a chance to be one of those “photo opp” kids standing behind a politician (namely President George Bush, Sr.) because I didn’t want to miss football practice. Looking back I wish I would have chosen otherwise (I don’t remember a thing about that day of practice, but probably would have forever remembered meeting a President).

I pass this “Five Things” onto the Internet Lawyer Brad Frazer (friend of mine, attorney, blogger), Kempton, Ed at BlawgReview, Bob Shaver at the Patent Pending Blog, and Mitch at the MyTroops.com blog.