Dreams and Daemons

In response to a request from OldMovieGuy, MyT has started a new spot called "The Water Cooler". It's a concept I mooted here a while back (see "Notablog" )in an attempt to get away from the straitjacket blogging format - and the confrontation that it engenders. I discarded "Water Cooler" - apt, but perhaps somewhat mundane - and see, in fact, that despite a promising start, there's been little enthusiaism for OMG's idea - though I wish him well.

I chose "The Common Room" - a similar concept but perhaps a bit more ivory tower, to receive - guess what?- even less response, save for some welcome expressions of support from a couple of wellwishers. But then the waters have been muddied, due to my current (unresolved) spat with Dr.Yong-Cheng (Shi), that real-life academic at Kansas State University. He, you may recall, appears to have a blind spot to a particular practice, frowned upon in academe- known as plagiarism (see previous posts). So while I await a response from said gentleman, I shall try a re-launch of the Common Room, and see if it fares any better this time around.

On what topic shall we kick off? How about Michael Martin, Speaker of the House of Commons? Is the media being too puritanical in focusing on his lifestyle and expenditure - or that of his wife with her thousands of pounds worth of taxi claims?

The Telegraph has just put up a critical editorial, entitled: The Speaker Must Go.

Feeling somewhat mischievous, I've just submitted this comment:

Order! Order!

Waiter, where's my order? That caviar should have been here five minutes ago!

Update: Saturday March 29, 23:45

As indicated recently, "blogging", as generally understood,is something that holds no further interest for this individual. It's a recipe for sniping, put-downs, character assassination and worse. I see it as a flawed concept - the product of technology running ahead of human psychosocial development. (Now there's some hoity-toity jargon that's sure to get a few backs up).

The concept of folk standing up on an electronic equivalent of a Speakers' Corner soapbox, and spouting forth on deeply held-beliefs to a bunch of complete strangers, would seem a foolhardy enterprise, and I for one can personally vouch for the truth of that.

The sensible thing would probably be to close down this site, and retreat to my pre-electronic age pursuits and interests - but the medium still has promise for something - a constructive and fruitful way of interacting with one's fellow human beings- even if remote and faceless- but how? The last throw of the dice is the "Common Room" idea I have proposed - basically a passing of the time of day, a relaxed exchange of views- with recognition that conversation with strangers is not the same as with family or friends: one has to tread a little more carefully, one might think. Or does one? Maybe that is the fundamental source of misunderstanding - whether or not the cloak of anonymity afforded by the internet allows one to speak more freely than one might, say, in a pub in which one knows little or nothing of the background of those whose ears prick up when one touches on certain subjects - especially those that arouse strong feelings. Is the internet, especially the blog, bound by the same rules of everyday discourse with all and sundry. Or is it a whole new ballgame, played by its own rules?

Personally I believe that blogs are a minefield, and I for one prefer safer territory. "The Common Room" seems a better alternative - a free-flowing exchange of ideas in which everyone- including the site "owner" - can participate or stay silent - as one sees fit. If there's a topic that anyone wishes to raise here- then please feel free to put it forward, using the comments facility. For my part, I, as an ex-blogger, will now step back, and see what response, if any, I get to this invite to make The Common Room, previously Dreams and Daemons, the readers' site - not mine- as far as proactive initiatives are concerned. I shall hover in the wings, as a moderating influence if necessary.

If this site dies the death, so to speak, through lack of interest, then so be it. Irrespective, I for one shall be fascinated to see how the internet evolves. Will blogs survive, and if not, what will take their place?

Update: Monday March 31

Does Norfolk need saving from flooding?

Update: Monday March 31, 19:12.

Oops, methinks I might have got a bit carried away today - 4 comments on that one thread (Norfolk Broads). But seeing as how there are no takers for the "Common Room" idea, maybe that reader-friendly facility for providing feedback on the Telly's editorials might just be this singed ex-blogger's natural niche. Nope - it definitely won't be a return to MyT - been there, done it, got the charred, smouldering tee-shirt. OK, so the Telly's editorials are ephemeral - but isn't that true of everything on the internet re current affairs ? No, it's not actually, given the existence of those search engines, crawling their way through our submitted thought-processes - dispatched into cyber-space. It's a frightening thing when you think about it - that what we said two years ago, maybe in haste- is still searchable, still traceable. OMG! My real name is John Smith!

Update: Monday March 31, 22:00.

Hmmm: interesting new developments on that Telly thread! I just knew it was too quiet: a nightmarish figure from the past has reappeared! Yes, the blogging Balrog has returned with a vengeance. Time to put on that asbestos overcoat...

Tuesday April 1st

When a 60 year old - a superannuated hack* no less - invents a string of pseudonyms so he can snipe anonymously at someone even older than himself, then you know it's time to give up on the internet.

Today's announcement that he is "taking early retirement" **, with even more spare time for mischief, makes this an opportune moment to draw a line under my internet presence, including the last-throw "Common Room".

What I find particularly reprehensible is this moron repeatedly divulging my full name and geographical location - while hiding behind his various pseudonyms, like yesterday's "Reluctant Canute". As ever, the bully proves generally to be a coward too.

Shame too on the Telegraph's moderators, at any rate those who allow stalkers and trolls to operate with impunity. In so doing, they give these obsessional types a green light to persist with their hounding and personal attacks.

* http://www.personalchewtoy.com/?p=165

** http://www.francesalut.com/2008/04/forum.html
_________________________________________________________________

This is my considered reply to the email I received from Dr.Yong-Cheng (Shi). The two previous posts would need to be read to appreciate the background to the dispute that exists between said gentleman and myself. Suffice it to say that it's about intellectual property, namely the patent that he and his three colleagues took out on a method for making resistant starch based on work (unattributed) that I published in 1986.

Link to his patent: US patent issued July 25,2006 "Resistant Starch Prepared by isoamylase debranching of low amylase starch"

Ref. to my published work:

Berry, CS (1986) Journal of Cereal Science, 4, 301-314

"Resistant Starch: Formation and Measurement of Starch that Survives Exhaustive Digestion with Amylolytic Enzymes During the Determination of Dietary Fibre."

Abstract (key passage in italics):

Heat processed foods can contain appreciable amounts of resistant starch(RS) that have the ability to survive prolonged incubation with alpha-amylase and other amylolytic enzymes. The occurrence of RS has important implications for dietary fibre(DF) determination and, possibly, for human bowel physiology also. Studies using cereal and potato starches have identified three key factors that influence yields of RS after heat-processing, ie amylose content, processing temperature and water content. The highest yields of RS(20-34% of total dry weight) were obtained from amylomaize starches, either raw or processed, and from amylopectin starches (32-46% RS) after incubation with alpha -(1->6)de-branching enzyme (pullulanase)followed by heat-processing. In contrast, the lowest yields of RS (0.2-4.2%) were obtained from intact (ie non-debranched amylopectins), with or without heat-processing. Yields of RS from wheat starch were affected primarily by processing temperature, reaching levels of about 9% in a single cycle of autoclaving at 134°C with excess water and subsequent cooling (cf levels of less than 1% in uncooked wheat starch)and higher levels still (about 15%) after 5 repeated cycles of autoclaving and cooling. A similar increase in yields of RS was seen in dilute (1%) starch suspensions that were subjected to repeated cycles of heating to 100°C, followed by cooling and storage. The time of storage after gelatinisation was only important in these dilute systems: levels of RS in freshly-prepared concentrated starch gels(typically 57-67% H20) or in white bread did not alter significantly on storage.

Reply:

1. Relax, Dr. Yong-Cheng (Shi) et al* : I'm not going to challenge your patent, at least not now. Indeed, I hope it earns you and your sponsors lots of dollars through royalties and licences. I may then come back later and claim a share of the proceeds - on the grounds that your patent is a straight crib of what I published in the open literature, back in 1986.

2. Relax, Dr. Yong-Cheng(Shi): I'm not going to contact your new employers - Kansas State University- accusing you of plagiarism.

It would be easy for me to do so. After all, how many people move from industry - as you have recently done- straight into a high-level academic appointment on the strength of a few published papers as you have succeeded in doing?

One has to assume that it was your patents, to which you give prominence in your current resumé, that so impressed your new employers, knowing that they too are patent-hungry, in common with so many new-age US universities. I expect they also like the research funding that you brought with you from your previous employers: the National Starch and Chemical Company (well over a quarter of a million US dollars).

In short, there's nothing for which I can report you. Kansas State University knew exactly who/what they were getting when they offered you that appointment - a commercially-aware "business scientist" who has no qualms about patenting someone else's discoveries.

3. Relax, Dr.Yong-Cheng (Shi): I am not going to denounce you here for failing to acknowledge my discovery in your patent application. Florid example it may be of plagiarism, but you have made it ridiculously easy for me to show the way in which a man's work can be turned to commercial advantage without so much as an acknowledgement.

No, my real ire is directed at some others who have taken out patents on my work, who have simply paid lip service to my original (and some might say, including yourself, unexpected discovery) by merely including my name in a list of references, without saying why it's there. Another has cited the title of my paper, but omitted my name, making it impossible for patent assessors and others to locate and read my work. Now that's what I call sneaky!

4. So what's my next step? Options are limited, given that the system of granting patents and licences seems indifferent as to who did the original work (at least in the US, and possibly elsewhere). All the rewards go the individual and/or company that files the first patent application. This means that a discovery made in Europe say, supported in my case by public funds (UK Ministry of Agriculture,Fisheries and Food) can be commercially exploited in the USA, earning perhaps millions of dollars for the patent holder, while the discoverer and his research sponsors get nothing- not even an acknowledgement for venturing into print with news of the breakthrough. Yet who was it who took the flak at the Kelloggs' Symposium, and at an Edinburgh conference, and even from his own colleagues, for describing a way of making resistant starch that seemed to fly in the face of received wisdom at the time? "Don't you realize that retrogradation of starch requires long chain amylose?" they asked. "How can you possibly claim that short-chain linear alpha-glucan (debranched amylopectin) can retrograde to resistant starch?"

To which my response was effectively "Sod your theory- these are the results I obtained by putting aside all preconceptions about the nature of RS."

So my next step is to wait a week or two for a reply from Dr.Yong-Cheng and his commercial sponsors who filed a resistant starch patent based almost entirely on my technology. I want to know how they propose to recognize my input - in a tangible way.

If I hear nothing, then I shall contact the media, suggesting it's high time that certain patent applications, especially ones filed in the US, were exposed for what they are - legalized robbery.

*Full list of patent applicants:

Yong-Cheng Shi
Xiaoyuan Cui
Anne M. Birkett
Michael G. Thatcher

Update: Wed March 26th

Changing the subject, have you ever wondered about the National Debt? Has it been rising or falling under the present Government? You might be forgiven for thinking it was falling, given that "prudent" gesture of Gordon Brown's a few years back of using the proceeds of the auction of 3G licences (some £20 billion pounds as I recall) to reduce out National Debt.

For the full grisly picture of what has since happened, read the comment by Cheeky Monkey on the comments of a Telegraph thread (ostensibly about skilled immigrants). It will make your hair curl. It certainly made mine (see later comment in response to Cheeky Monkey.

Update Thursday March 27

Here's an interesting site I discovered yesterday through idle googling.

http://bastard-bloggers.blog.co.uk/2008/01/20/my_telegraph~3603550

Health warning: don't visit it if you are averse to expletives, or if you consider "My Telegraph" to be a shining and inviolate example of civilized behaviour.

See also: http://bastard-bloggers.blog.co.uk/ (home page)

BTW: this disillusioned ex-blogger/MyT escapee gets a walk-on part in the above link

Second update:Thursday

Sometimes you read something, and wonder if it could really have happened, so one reads it again, looking for extenuating circumstances, and finding few, if any, that could account for the horror of what occurred. Today was an example - the story about the young girl with a "phobia" for dentists.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/27/ndentist127.xml

She woke from a general anaesthetic to find that all - yes ALL- her milk teeth had been removed, and died some four weeks later after refusing to speak, or eat anything except watermelon. Is that surprising: she must have felt an immense sense of betrayal, of being "punished" for not being brave where dentists are concerned.

How could such grotesque medical decision-making have taken place in a NHS hospital? The parents want those concerned to be run out of the profession. Unless there are some clinical factors that we don't know about - then so do I.

From the archives (Daily Mail, almost two years ago):

It's very noble of Paul to be saying that Heather's no gold digger. But who needs to dig for the stuff, when there's a pantechnicon full of it, sitting on the drive way, with the keys in the ignition?

- Colin, Antibes

Yet another update (Thursday)

Sad to say, the standard of reporting in The Telegraph goes from bad to worse. Regarding yesterday's State visit by Nicolas Sarkozy and his chic new wife, the Telly shows a picture of Sarky next to Her Maj' at the State banquet. The caption reads: "The Queen sat beside the French Premier". Ouch, you just can't get the staff these days.

To add to the confusion, the article continues:

Seating arrangements were carefully planned, with the Duke of Edinburgh placed opposite the Queen and Mr.Sarkozy, between Miss Bruni and French justice minister Rachida Dati.

Anyone remember the time when Fleet St. employed people called "subeditors" ? Their job was to scrutinise copy, and deliver caustic stinging remarks to those guilty of sloppy journalism, replete with threats of imminent P45s. These days, it would seem, anything goes. What is especially irritating is the Telegraph's failure to provide contact details that would allow incorrigible dyed-in-the-wool nitpickers such as myself to report misreporting (if you see what I mean).

And so to bed, but not before posting the following:

Telegraph: Schools must take in badly behaved pupils

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/27/nschools127.xml&posted=true&_requestid=459587

Studio schools ? Good heavens! Do you mean to say that this Government has finally woken up to its obligation to train the academically less-gifted for well-paying vocational careers, like plumbing - ones that enhance status and self-respect? Gosh, before you know what, this Government, stuck for the last 10 years at the bottom of its learning curve, might just see fit to revive those old-fashioned apprenticeships. Not before time, some might say. It's maybe just as well those industrious Poles are heading back home, if those slow-learner serial botchers, Balls and Brown, have indeed finally hit on a way of replacing their sorely needed skills.

Posted by ColinB on March 27, 2008 8:24 PM

Update Friday March 28 08:42

"Colombia seizes 60lbs of depleted uranium" is an item in today's Telegraph. It goes on to say that the uranium was intended to make a dirty (radiological) bomb as a terrorist weapon for spreading radiation. Someone's got their science wrong there, methinks. Depleted uranium is uranium metal from which the fissile U-235 isotope* has been removed (for nuclear reactors or bombs) leaving the major(99%)non-fissile isotope, U-238, which is only weakly radioactive. Indeed, it's probably a greater chemical than radiological hazard.

The major use of depleted uranium has been for making the hardened tips of armour-piercing shells, due partly to its great density.

Uranium has a density of about 19 grams per cc (cf lead of 11.35 g/cc)

Readers may recall that large amounts of depleted uranium were scattered around the Iraqi and Kuwait deserts during the first Gulf War, and were considered a prime culprit (rightly or wrongly) for causing "Gulf War syndrome".

* more correctly "nuclide".

For the past few days I've been deliberating on what should be my response to the email from Dr. Yong-Cheng (see previous post).

Apologies, incidentally, for mispelling his name originally as Dr.Yong-Chen (which may have confused Google and other search engines; indeed,it is possible that he should be addressed as Dr.Shi (Yong-Cheng).)

Be that as it may, I have decided to respond, not in the manner he suggests, by contacting his legal team, but in the form of a second open letter, which will appear here next Tuesday (March 25th). The reasons for doing so, as well as for my singling out just one of the four patent applicants (which some might think unfair) will be defended then, as well as my reasons for believing his patent application for making resistant starch by enzymic de-branching should never have been granted. It was, after all, my discovery, reported in the open literature, something he and his co-applicants failed to acknowledge.

Dr.Yong-Cheng(Dr.Shi ?) now has a full-time academic appointment, as Associate Professor at Kansas State University. So he should not be surprised if researchers - including retired ones like myself- expect him to observe academic courtesies - and ignore his attempts to hide behind company lawyers. It has not escaped my attention that his generous research funding still comes from his previous employer (National Starch and Chemical Company of New Jersey, USA ) for whom he worked at the time the patent application was filed.

See Wikipedia entry on plagiarism.

Update: Saturday March 22:

Some Google searches to this site have been receiving a "Page not available" messsage, including un-controversial stuff like holiday experiences!

I'm not sure what's causing the problem: it might be the change of site name from (New)Dreams and Daemons to "The Common Room". For an experimental period I've reverted partially to the old nomenclature at the top, at least in the main title. Let's see if that does the trick. If not, I've a reserve site called, guess what, "The Common Room", pure and simple, if all else fails.

Update Sunday March 23

Today sees yet more dumbed-down, blatantly misleading "science" from the Telegraph. I refer to the item on the Home Page entitled "Even in space your boomerang comes back".

A Japanese astronaut aboard the Space Shuttle has shown that a boomerang launched into space comes back, same as on earth. Ipso facto, gravity cannot be the reason why boomerangs come back because, we are told, there's no gravity in space.

Gawd help us! I've sent Roger Highfield, the Telly's Science Editor, a barbed message to his personal website (the Telly itself making it difficult if not impossible to comment on individual articles, or even to contact the Editor, except for letters, or responses to editorials).

And would I be correct in thinking that one does not add to the "font" (sic)of human knowledge?

Second update Sunday

Sky and other news outlets are reporting that Robert Murat, whom the Portugese police had named as a suspect in the disappearance of Maddie McCann, is to have his computer and other property returned. There is speculation that he may soon have his arguido status rescinded . I drew attention to the plight of this man under Portugese law, who has been neither charged nor convicted of any crime, whose life has been on hold for the best part of a year, who has been the subject of the most lurid speculation in the Portugese and UK press. But here's a curious thing: I tried to locate my post on Robert Murat by looking in the tags on the right, and it was missing. So too was the tag for Maddie McCann. Not surprisingly, when I googled to find my own post it led to a dead link. Well, the post is still there: I tracked it down by finding that "arguido" and "Portugese law" are still in the list of tags, and I was not surprised to find that "Robert Murat" was still in my tags beneath the post.

It would appear that the hosts of this site have unilaterally deleted my tags on the Murat post, and done so without notifying me of that fact. I can understand that the issue is legally sensitive, especially in view of the half million pounds in damages that the Express was forced to pay out to the McCanns. But why the cloak and dagger MO?

Anyway, here's the link to the Robert Murat post which I will update shortly.

Update Tuesday 25 March

Have put comments up today under two of the Telegraph's leader items.

One concerns the Government's "mysterious inflation figures".

The other concerns "Michael Gove's ideas to free our failing schools".

Here is a letter that I sent to Dr.Yong-Cheng of Kansas State University on March 6th(a week ago)- to which I have so far had no reply:

Dear Dr.Yong-Cheng

I am addressing this communication to you, whose name appears first on the following online document:

US patent issued July 25,2006 "Resistant Starch Prepared by isoamylase debranching of low amylose starch

http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/7081261-claims.html

Could you explain to me how you were able to take out a patent on a procedure given that is intrinsically the same, except for differences in detail, to one that I published over 20 years ago in the open literature?

Berry,CS (1986) Journal of Cereal Science 4 301-314

"Resistant Starch: Formation and Measurement of Starch that Survives Exhaustive Digestion with Amylolytic Enymes during the determination of Dietary Fibre."

In that paper I described experiments in which low-amylose starches were gelatinized, incubated with a source of de-branching enzyme (pullulanase), then heat-processed, cooled and dried to produce products with high levels of enzyme-resistant starch. The technology you describe was essentially of my creation, yet I receive no mention whatsoever in your patent application. It's as if you are claiming my findings as your own, in which case some might consider you and your colleagues to be guilty of intellectual property theft.

Regards

Colin Berry (Dr)

Antibes

France

(previously Head of Nutrition and Food Safety at the Flour Milling and Baking Research Association, Chorleywood, UK (now part of the Campden and Chorleywood Food Research Association)

Reply,finally, March 13, from Dr.Yong-Cheng:

Dear Dr. Berry:
I am out of the office and have limited internet access and no access to some information I would like to read and confirm before I reply you.
I'll try to give a considered response your e-mails when I return next week. However, if you consider this a legal matter, maybe my colleagues and I are not the right people to response because the company owns the patent, not me or my colleagues. Please let me know about this. I could share with you my thoughts but I am not the legal person to answer the question in your previous e-mail. Thanks.

Best regards.

Yong-Cheng

My reply to the above (same day):

Dear Dr. Yong-Cheng

I am pleased to hear from you at last.

Yes, I recognize that the patent is owned by your commercial sponsors, and they will no doubt be prepared to defend it legally against the charge that the patent was (in my opinion) awarded on the basis of faulty and incomplete documentation. I believe that the latter was seriously misleading in at least one place as to the provenance of the key technology.

However, it's too soon to be passing the buck: the patent application was clearly drafted by you and your fellow academic colleagues whose names appear on the patent. That is why my complaint was addressed initially to you, the first author . You and your co-authors have succeeded in convincing the US patent authorities that it was you who devised a novel procedure for manufacturing enzyme-resistant starch in quantity. That was despite the essential technology being in my 1986 Journal of Cereal Science paper. All you have done, as far as I can see, is to scale up from laboratory to production plant scale. I do not see any new principles being employed - either scientific or technological- except on minor matters of detail. In short, you have presented my technology as if it were you own - a serious breach of academic and scientific etiquette to say the least- especially as you made no reference to my original findings, which have been widely cited in the literature.

Since it is you who has introduced the matter of "legal" issues into your reply, indicating that I may have to deal with a company and its legal advisors, then I shall now spend a few days considering carefully my course of action. I shall be taking advice from interested and other parties. When I have reached a decision I shall contact you again, as well as the co-authors of the patent application- if I can find their addresses- as well as your commercial sponsor.

You might not agree, but I consider that you and your fellow patent applicants should have approached me or my ex-employers in the first instance, inviting us to be co-applicants on the initial application for a "master" patent.

Yours sincerely

Colin Berry (Dr)

PS All my correspondence on this matter will be placed in the public domain (ie on my personal blog), since it raises important international issues re the commercial exploitation of intellectual property.

Update: Friday 14th March

If Dr.Yong-Cheng googles "yong-cheng kansas", he will find this post at the top of the list of returns.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=fr&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=yong+cheng+kansas&btnG=Rechercher

It occurs to me that there is one word that sums up the essence of my dispute with that individual and his colleagues: plagiarism. I shall be adding some more thoughts in due course on the subject of plagiarism - which I consider one of the deadliest of sins in the world of academic research.

Update Saturday March 15th

Received the following email from Dr.Yong-Cheng (to which my considered reply will appear here in due course).

Dear Dr. Berry:

As I indicated in my previous reply to you, National Starch and Chemical Company owns the patent.I was an employee at National Starch when the patent was filed.Other inventors also were employees at National Starch.

Because of my previous employment agreement with National Starch and potential legal issues, I have been advised that this patent matter must be handled by the company. Please communicate any issues you have with Ms. Karen Kaiser (copied), patent attorney at National Starch. I hope you understand that I care about my reputation as much as you do.

Best regards.

Yong-Cheng

Saturday: 2nd update:
As a holding reply, I invite Dr.Yong-Cheng to enter * Berry debranching * into a Google search.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=fr&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=berry+debranching&btnG=Recherche+Google&meta=

The first 4 returns ( and later ones too) all refer to my 1986 paper, the one that he and his co-authors omitted to acknowledge in their patent application.

Now look at the way in which Dr.Yong-Cheng et al referred to my work in their patent application:

"Surprisingly, it has now been discovered that completely linear, short chain alpha-1,4-glucans which are highly crystallized result in a starch which is resistant to amylase digestion."

"It has now been discovered..." !!! "Surprisingly"!!!!

Update Sunday March 16th

This ex-blogger spent a fair amount of time yesterday, trying to think up a catchy title for the issue that he has stumbled upon - one he will be reporting on here for some time to come.

I finally decided on "predatory patenting". Note the obligatory alliteration. Googling the "new" tag confirmed, as always, that others have got there first:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=fr&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=predatory+patenting&btnG=Recherche+Google&meta=

That suggests that the tawdry practice it represents has been around for quite a while. But how many people know that universities are now providing tenured academic posts to "predatory patenters" as a means of boosting their income? Let that serve as a warning to any blue sky academics who attend conferences to trade ideas with those whom they assume to be fellow seekers after truth. They may find on casual googling a year or two down the line that their ideas, including those published in the open literature, have been used without their knowledge to win lucrative patents for the applicant, with scant recognition, if any, of the originator's ideas or intellectual property. Incidentally, I was never a "blue sky researcher", working as I did for an industry research association, at the interface of commerce and academe. At the risk of introducing a commercial taint into my 1986 paper on resistant starch (RS), I alluded to the potential for supplementing bread and other baked products with RS as a means of boosting the dietary fibre(DF) content:

"One effect of adopting a legally binding definition of DF in terms of NSP (non-starch polysaccharides) would be to downgrade, arbitrarily, the contribution that baked cereal products, notably white bread, make to estimates of DF intake. Another consequence would be to destroy any incentive for food manufacturers to explore possible ways for raising levels of RS in processed foods as a means of generating extra dietary fibre."

So you see, I was no innocent abroad when I wrote those words, back in 86, but there are opportunist predatory patent applicants, 20 years on and more, who seem to think that they can treat me as one now, presumably because I'm retired. When challenged, they take refuge behind the legal departments of the rich corporations who employ or sponsor them. Well, they seem to have forgotten one thing: the power of the internet, especially Google , to throw the spotlight on their grubby underhand practices, ones that rob scientists of the recognition, and possibly financial reward, to which they are entitled for their discoveries.

Expect to find more here later on those predatory patenters, who, driven by the prospect of making a fast buck, both for themselves and their sponsors, file patents based on discoveries that are not their own.

Update Tuesday 18th March

"Creativity at mercy of intellectual pirates" is the headline of a feature on the BBC website today.

Here's a passage from the article:

Copying a person's ideas or products without their knowledge is known as intellectual piracy.

Intellectual property covers a number of things like patents, designs, trademarks and copyright.

Keeping ideas safe

Stephen Selby, who is the Director of Intellectual Property for the Hong Kong Government feels it is important to keep ideas safe.

"It protects the fruits of people's invention or creativeness, so that they can earn money from the things that they have done," he said....

Intellectual property accounted for around 40% of the growth of the US economy last year and in Britain it was around 10%.

Why 40% in America and only 10% in the UK? Are we really less creative than our US cousins? Our share of Nobel prizes, calculated per head of population, would suggest otherwise.

Maybe there's a simpler explanation: the predatory get-rich-quick ethos that now exists on American campuses allows anyone to file and win patents on other people's inventions. Those other folk remain blissfully unaware, especially when they don't even get an acknowledgement in the patent application, carefully written to make it seem as though it was the applicants' own work.

There are now rich rewards for hijacking other people's published work: fancy academic titles, fat research grants from industry (which may include the previous employer under whose auspices one filed the plagiarising patent).

There is now an overpowering stench of financial self-interest from at least one mid-western campus I could mention. See recipients' research awards, dated just over a year ago.

See also the IPbiz blog for "patent competition in Kansas"

It began with this comment from J (aka Louidog)
louidog [Member]
2008-02-22 @ 14:01

I am just imagining the blue skies and sun....oh and a very nice coffee too!

Oh now coffee, there's another thing that gets me thinking. Costa and Starbucks are very popular over here but why oh why are the drinks so expensive in there!!!! Overheads I know but even so.....

Next comment, from moi, ColinB, site moderator, wearing poacher's hat

Costa? Starbucks ? Well, I guess it's partly the franchise thing, with 50p a cup going to the fat cats who dish out the licences. But that's probably peanuts when you look at what they pay the Council in business tax - the original stealth tax that inflates the cost of virtually everything you buy in the UK, and in reality helps pay for all those wars and military operations for which we feel ourselves uniquely responsible. Ever wondered why the Swiss and Swedes look on us with a strange mix of admiration and pity while deciding which car to buy this year?

Next comment from Bearsy (here's an extract re coffee)Bearsy [Visitor]

2008-02-24 @ 06:55

We have followed the designer coffee idea however, and I'm not impressed. Stiff prices for an almost undrinkable product - what's wrong with the old 'flat white', I ask? Never mind, I don't have to buy it!

From ColinB

Coffee is a sore point with us right now - not café coffee but instant. We've just thrown out a virtually brand new jar of one we hadn't tried before - Nescafé "Red Cup"- that tasted of nothing, except maybe lightly roasted cardboard.

It's probably naff to be even mentioning instant, but if anyone has a favourite brand they wish to recommend, with flavour that lasts beyond the first day or two after opening, please let us know.

I'm old enough to remember "Camp Coffee". Actually, it wasn't coffee, but an ersatz wartime substitute. Folk continued to buy it during the post-war rationing period. But it was a darn site better than some of today's "genuine" coffee!

And this one arrived just a few minutes ago from J:

louidog [Member]
2008-02-24 @ 09:47

Camp Coffee!! Goodness, now that takes me back a few years. I can almost smell it now.

Bearsy, you're right, we don't have to buy the designer coffees. Can you imagine if everyone did the same and went to the little cafe on the corner and had a cup of coffee? I dare say that little cafe is struggling anyway now that Costa and the likes have set up camp in the High Street (proably next door to them too!) so would welcome everyone back with open coffee cups.

Please use the Comments if you would like to add to the thread. Newcomers are very welcome to contribute. There's just one proviso: the aim on this site is to recreate the ethos of an old-fashioned school or university Common Room - see previous post entitled "Notablog". Apologies if that sounds pompous or overbearing.

"Notablog". Ah, now there's a word to conjure with, and a possible new departure for this site. But it will need a little help from my friends. You see, this is no longer a blog, as announced in the previous post. This scribbler has wearied of the conventional blogging ethos (but does not intend to dwell at length on the reasons).

Let's look briefly at the format of the blog, as presently understood by most folk. Somebody puts up a post, invites comments, and then it's anyone guess what happens. The comments may be friendly, and addressed to the topic of the post. Or they may be unfriendly, and have little or nothing to do with the post. Or, as frequently happens, the comments thread is an informal chatroom in which a band of regulars chews the fat on this or that, and engages in occasional cat fights in which the fur starts to fly.

What I'm now proposing is the internet equivalent of what I experienced and enjoyed while doing my PhD research at a London medical school - a drop-in Common Room. Mine was situated in the basement of a building in Hunter St. It was really no different from what I believe is now referred to, post Maggie, as the water-cooler, except it was a lot more comfortable, and conducive to conversation since we were seated around all four sides of a small carpeted room that made for intimacy.

One would arrive, find one's mug, charge it with caffeine, plonk down, and then tune in to whatever was being discussed. It might be a burning issue of the moment, but as likely as not it was Yvonne and her daring new hairdo, or whether a particular film was worth seeing or not. One decided if one had anything worthwhile to contribute. If not, one stayed quiet, and was content merely to listen. Sometimes one would sense that conversation was flagging, and if there was one of those dreaded pregnant pauses, might introduce a new topic for discussion.

So what say this site be used as a testing bed for a nonblog that is simply an online Common Room, with no set pieces, merely a drop-in centre with a rolling commentary?

It will need rules, especially if it's to be an open forum. But let's not dwell on rules at the moment, more on opportunities.

The aim is not to compete head-on with any of the better known sites - merely to offer an alternative when those places flag - or one seeks something different.

I do have some ideas about making the site attractive and workable, with a small competitive element - about which more later.

But let's leave it there for now. If anyone would like to offer comments - or, better still, begin a conversation - then be my guest!