Cookie Cockatoo: alive and well in Chicago

As to the longevity of parrots, there are many apocryphal stories. However, one firmly documented case is the life of "Cookie Cockatoo," a Major Mitchell cockatoo who has been at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago since it opened in 1934. Thus, Cookie is at least 80 ( Cookie hatched June 30, 1933 )

Cookie is the only surviving initial animal of the Brookfield Zoo.

Wikipedia notes: Cookie is Brookfield Zoo's oldest resident and the only surviving member of the animal collection from the time of the zoo's opening in 1934

Why mention Cookie Cockatoo in an IPBiz post?

First, IPBiz is partial to cockatoos. And Major Mitchell cockatoos are distinctive:

Second, Cookie's age is a fact which may be objectively
demonstrated. This is quite unlike the "fact" at issue in Teva v. Sandoz, which is truly an opinion not subject to objective demonstration.
The issue framed by Teva in Teva v. Sandoz is


Whether a district court’s factual finding in support of its construction of a patent claim term may be reviewed de novo, as the Federal Circuit requires (and as the panel explicitly did in this case), or only for clear error, as Rule 52(a) requires.



Crediting an opinion is not finding a fact.

see previous IPBiz post
Why did the Supreme Court take Teva v. Sandoz? , including the text


The matter of "facts" in the case enters in with the testimony of Teva's expert, Dr. Grant. The gist of his argument seems to be that because only Mp can be read directly from a size exclusion curve, Mp must have been intended for the "group I" claims. One wonders "why" the ability to read a parameter directly from a graph is proof of "which parameter" was intended in a claim.


This is something like saying "Cookie Cockatoo" is old because his feathers look a bit frayed. It is an opinion which might be true, but alternative explanations are available.