Artie Rai does cameo on Patent Docs

Patent Docs had analyzed a USPTO "white paper" and, subsequently, posted comments by Artie Rai.

Within the comments upon Rai's comments was the following by Noonan:

I am happy Dr. Rai took the time to respond. To clarify, the Paper itself contained three references that appeared to be unavailable to the public, which is why we asked that they be made available. As it turns out, two of the articles were available, as my intrepid editor discerned and included as links. Of course, these citations to SSRN were not in the Paper, and unfortunately left the impression (as mentioned in the post) that there was unavailable data that could be helpful in assessing the Office's position. Happily, that data is available (and while I'm sure economists and academics could find it, I'm not as sure that interested members of the public could - but that's another matter).

As it turns out, the only unlinked reference (or at least one we couldn't locate) is Dr. Graham's [Graham, 2010, "Slow courts and the cost of uncertainty: How patent post-grant reviews may offer a partial solution" ], and perhaps the Office will post that to make it available.

Thanks for all the comments, and for keeping the discussion on the merits.

Noonan later added: Actually, even if you disagree with her (and we have), Dr. Rai is hardly just another political appointee. Recent history of truly political appointees (former Congressional staffers, for example) should teach us that. Dr. Rai bears the handicap of coming from academia, and thus may believe perfectly rational ideas that just turn out, in practice, to be wrong (or at least impractical to implement).

It's rather generous of Kevin Noonan to grant Artie Rai the title of "Dr." but it doesn't seem to fit the facts of Rai's bio:

HARVARD LAW SCHOOL, J.D., cum laude, 1991
Best Brief and Team, Harvard (Ames) Moot Court Competition
Instructor, first-year Legal Methods course
Executive Editor, Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review

HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL, medical student for 1987-88 academic year
Award for research analyzing use of cost-benefit analysis in studies of biomedical
innovation (resulted in publication)

HARVARD COLLEGE, A.B., magna cum laude, in History and Science
(Biochemistry), 1987
John Harvard Scholarship for highest academic achievement
National Merit Scholar
Radcliffe science award for research on link between apolipoprotein E2
homozygosity and retinitis pigmentosa, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow,
U.K. (resulted in publication)

**Comment to Patent Docs on 28 April 2010:

"Dr." Rai?

Separately, related to the quality of the references, one notes that SSRN articles are merely postings, not refereed journal articles. Further, given that law review articles themselves are typically cite-checked but not reviewed for content, one might ask whether law review articles are "refereed" or merely comprise gray literature.

Finally, Graham's CV page does not reference the paper you are seeking ["Slow courts and the cost of uncertainty: How patent post-grant reviews may offer a partial solution" ], tho Graham has written on post-grant review in other articles.

CV: http://mgt.gatech.edu/directory/faculty/graham/graham_vita.pdf

[Life is harsh at Patent Docs. After more than 3 hours, LBE's comment is not posted.]

UPDATE on 4/29: tho LBE's comment was never published on Patent Docs, a different commenter linked to Artie Rai's bio, to show she wasn't a registered patent attorney.

UPDATE on 4/29: LBE's comment (sent via email per request of K. Noonan) was published.

**Cross-reference


Obama disappoints with picks for bioethics panel

**On Stuart Graham, from Patently-O

Stuart Graham (now Chief Economist at the PTO)

***UPDATE. From 271Blog on 27 Aug 2010:

Hal Wegner has just broke the news that Arti Rai, Administrator for External Affairs, is leaving the PTO to an unspecificed position that has not been announced by the government.