Noonan on Wegner on "Besson"

In a comment on 29 April 2010 to his post USPTO Administrator Arti Rai Responds to Patent Docs Post on PTO White Paper, Kevin Noonan writes:

Hal Wegner earlier today cited Besson & Meurer's "evidence" that most innovation is done by big companies; since he cites their paper "supporting" this assertion, it is possible to review it and its conclusions that fly in the face of most patent practitioners' experiences. But it probably depends mightly on how "innovation," "success" and "large" companies are "defined."

Mentioning Wegner in the context of the words --it is possible to review it --, might seem a bit ironic -->


One recalls that Wegner was involved in the Quillen/Webster business:

If one looks at the second paper of Quillen and Webster (wherein the 97% grant figure is "qualified", 12 Fed. Cir. B.J. 35) there is text:

Numerous authors have addressed the problem of USPTO quality. referencing among other papers Harold C. Wegner, Enronesque Patent Bookkeeping: Two-For-One Continuation Double Counting and American Patent Flooding (June 14, 2002) (unpublished manuscript, on file with author at Foley & Lardner).

This paper, seemingly existing only in a footnote of Quillen and Webster, otherwise lives a Sikahema existence, apart from the "reference by imagery" of John R. Thomas.


from the 2008 post
Harold Wegner takes a walk on the dark side

Of Noonan's allusion to Besson [sic: Bessen], see


Wegner on Bessen/Meurer in LA Times

http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2008/10/iam-features-bessenmeurer-again.html