Hyacinth macaws: on top of the law?

Sometimes, when one sees something like a statement that Gary Boone invented the integrated circuit [IC] appear in the Stanford Law Review, one gets the idea that a well-trained parrot might have a better grasp of the history of technology than a law school grad. In fact, one might learn more about IC's from the two hyacinth macaws, Noyce and Kilby, than from a 2005 article in the Stanford Law Review.


Separately, when one sees assertions that one can add new detail to a continuation patent application and still claim the priority date of the parent (as the Kintisch article in the July 28 issue of Science claimed), one gets the idea that some patent reform minded writers are literally hanging by a thin (to non-existent) thread on their knowledge of the law. It's all right to advocate change in the patent system, but it's not too much to ask a journal like Science to get its facts right (see 88 JPTOS 743). Otherwise, one has something like this Camelot Macaw hanging by its beak: