Re: An IP gripe

On Wed, 25 Aug 1999, Terry Carroll <carroll[_at_]tjc.com> wrote:
>
> One reason I'm not a patent lawyer is that my CS degree predates the
> PTO's recognition of CS as a technical degree,[1] and I'm unwilling
> to go back to school for a third to get a degree I don't care about
> or to study subjects that don't interest me, just to qualify to take
> a test. The OED gave zero weight to my 12-year career in the computer
> industry, including my position as Senior Computer Architect at a
> major mainframe computer company.

Actually, having a degree predating the PTO's recognition of CS is not a total showstopper. My 1973 BA predated Rice's having a CS department, and claims to be in "Mathematical Sciences." But at the time, nearly all of the CS-type courses available were being double-listed in the EE department. So I was able to fill out the paperwork claiming the requisite number of engineering courses (which required going into the university archives and finding copies of 26-year-old course catalogs and copying the pages) by carefully documenting that even though my transcript called it Math Sciences, these courses should be counted as engineering courses. That was acceptable without any problem whatsoever, even though my transcript showed virtually no courses actually listed as engineering.

So just because your CS classes predate the recognition or your school isn't certified (Rice's CS department still isn't), don't give up hope.

Richard Schafer
Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld
Houston, Texas
<schafer[_at_]mail.utexas.edu> Received on Fri Aug 27 1999 - 04:52:14 GMT