I know. I plead guilty, but with an explanation. I did this intentionally because I didn’t know how it would fly. I don’t know Gurry very well. I had never met him, and really knew little about him personally, so I didn’t know whether such questions would be well received or might seem belittling. I hadn’t asked him or his press folks in advance whether some “fun” questions would be welcome, so I opted to skip them. If I get the opportunity to interview him again I will ask some fun stuff though. He seemed like an ordinary guy… or perhaps best to say an ordinary guy with deep interest in intellectual property law. Not that any of us are by any real measure “ordinary,” but he seemed to me to be much like one of us.

I also probably should have pointed out that I had not submitted questions in advance, although I did define the topic of questions being related to how Patent Offices can cooperate to address the backlog problem, and I did specifically highlight work sharing as a key issue I wanted to ask about.

-Gene

Thanks for reading. It certainly was a fun interview to do. Wasn’t sure how much we could really get into the issues that matter. I was quite impressed with Gurry and have great hope now for international cooperation.

-Gene

Thanks. My theory is that so many anchors and journalists are generalists in an ever increasingly specialized world. Knowing the industry, the law and being familiar with (or at least educable on) a variety of technologies really helps.

-Gene

I would love to see a couple of interviews with in-house patent counsel to better understand what there thinking is these days about working with outside counsel, etc.

Nils

-Gene

I’m trying! More to come, including more big names, so stay tuned!

Suggestions always welcome.

-Gene

Keep this up and you will give patent journalism a good name.

Nils