"Collective failure by a number of people"

Although the text --collective failure by a number of people -- might be apt to describe positions on patent reform by a number of IP professors, the phrase came from Dr Rajendra Pachauri about a section on the IPCC report on glaciers, now known to be inaccurate.

As the TimesOnLine noted:

The IPCC’s 2007 report, which won it the Nobel Peace Prize, said that the probability of Himalayan glaciers “disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high”.

But it emerged last week that the forecast was based not on a consensus among climate change experts, but on a media interview with a single Indian glaciologist in 1999.

One remembers the Quillen/Webster assertion of a 97% patent allowance rate at the USPTO, relied upon by a number of patent
"reformers."

Of the IPCC, see also


Himalaya horror story from New Scientist now questioned