I am inside the law library... in my little room... room 352 on the third floor of the library.  I have my books stacked... and paper all over my desk.  I am currently drinking a large cup of dunkin donust iced coffee (with cream and sugar!).  Next to my coffee is a box of 25 munchkins...(actually I got 29.. I counted... 29... it's a prime number! I love prime numbers)... Next to the the munchkins is my laptop... and in front of it is a piece of US patent... the first patent I am going to review.  It took me a while to figure out what I want to review as my first patent... I've considered the dog hat... the tooth cleaning chew toy for cats... the winchester refle... and a baseball bat which you can replace the batting part if you ever break it during the game.  Well... what I end up with is "System and Process for the Recovery of Propylene and Ethylene from Refinery Offgases"!  I know I am laughing at myself and asking... WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU MAN... but the truth is when I saw the design diagram... I just couldn't resist it... the distillation column (that's something I haven't spelled for a long long time... distillation)... the reboiler... the bottom stream... the condenser... and of course the charts and equations... as I was reading it... I thought about the old days at CMU and the old Chem E friends that I haven't talked to for a while... how we used sit in the Chem E cluster for hours cursing at a diagram very much like the one in front of me... I thought about John (whom I saw just a few weeks back)... thought about Wai and how she used to try to kill me in lab classes... thought about Libby and how she drank me under the table after 1 long island ice tea (I am a lot stronger now than I used to... just wait Libby next time I see you... I'd cream your Irish/German drinking skill with my Australian drinking skill... you just wait)... and Eva who is too strange for me to describe at the moment... Earl and Diana... can't thought of one without the other... for a moment I have the urge to take my chair down to the hall way and roll around like we used to in the Chem E chair race... but then who can I race against?  I took another sip at my coffee and ate anothe munchkin and thought about how perfect this moment is... my past and my present come together in this tiny cubicle... Engineering and law exist together in harmony... maybe this is what I should do for a living... maybe..    

2 hours later...

Coffee almost gone... 14 munchkins remaining... still reading the patent... thinking about how the process is pretty cool...but can you really claim all that?  24 claims!...  it's going to be a long day (and I think this is a short patent)... thinking maybe patent isn't for me...  

2 more hours later...

Coffee is 80% gone... 8 munchkins remaining (I think I am just eatting them mindlessly now)... still looking at the claims... my conclusion... This Chem E patent is annoying... it doesn't patent the process units (coz well... they can't because it is all part of the prior art that people know about)... instead they patent the setup of the process... like pressure...temperature... the composition of the feed stream... and the feeding location in a distillation column... (I think all of the Chem E patents might all be like that)... anyway... I need a break from the claims now... )... One thing though... the definition requirement of the patent is that the disclosure must be written in a way that a person who is skilled in the art should be able to understand it... and yes I understand the process!  I guess I am skilled in the art of chemical engineering ... and those who disagree with it... well I am not going to go there.

....2 days later... Coffee is long gone... 7 munchkins gone stale... back home... in front of my computer... still looking at the patent... feels like the Boston Red Sox having problem closing the day... gone to extra 50 innings... oh well... it's been a long and fun weekend...