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Chemistry expert witness Edward Funk, Ph. D., presented this short course to senior level chemical engineers on patents:

Fourth, the MOI should stand on its own for judgment. Some inventors include a section on the planned experiments to help define the invention. This often leads to the memo receiving a low rating and held for the next patent committee meeting. The MOI should be written when there is sufficient data or the concept is sufficiently complete for an evaluation.

At most companies, a highly rated MOI has been carefully “lobbied” by the inventor.

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Eli Lilly & Co. won in a ruling to prevent a “critical” pharmacology expert witness from testifying on behalf of plaintiffs in cases involving the company’s Zyprexa drug. Bloomsberg.com reports:

U.S. District Court Judge Jack B. Weinstein in Brooklyn, New York, said he will exclude the expert testimony of Dr. Stephen Hamburger. The doctor has offered testimony in some 20 individual Zyprexa cases, seven of which now have pending summary judgment motions before Weinstein, the judge said in a decision issued yesterday.

The Indianapolis-based drugmaker had moved to prevent Hamburger from testifying as an expert witness in the cases. Zyprexa is approved to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The plaintiffs claim Lilly urged doctors to prescribe Zyprexa for uses not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

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Chemistry expert witness Edward Funk, Ph. D., presented this short course to senior level chemical engineers on patents:

Now, a few things that should not be in the MOI.

First, the potential inventor should not express legal opinions concerning the potential invention. Attorneys are superb at sternly warning that such opinions can come back to haunt the inventor at a deposition or, more traumatically, on the witness stand.

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Document examination expert witness Ronald N. Morris is a certified forensic document examiner and in this excerpt from Submitting a Handwriting Case for Examination, he answers the question:

What is known, sample, or specimen writing?

Regardless of what it is called, this is the known and verifiable writing of an individual that is to be compared to the questioned writing to try and determine whether the writer of the known wrote the questioned writing. Known writing falls into one of the following categories:

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Chemistry expert witness Edward Funk, Ph. D., presented this short course to senior level chemical engineers on patents:

Third, the MOI should include a reasonable summary of the prior art. This gives the reviewers a warm feeling that the writer of the memo has some reasonable appreciation concerning the novelty of the invention. In many cases, the inventor knows the prior art quite well. Some arguments why the MOI isn’t obvious in light of the prior art can be very helpful to a patent committee.

Fourth, the memo should have the correct administrative details such as references to lab books and the names of the inventors. Including a colleague who did not contribute to the invention raises a flag indicating possible future problems and undermines the credibility of the MOI as a legal document. An easy reason to lower the priority; someone will need to straighten out the inventors.

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While there are many cases of child abuse each year, Shaken Baby Syndrome is a hot topic right now and child abuse experts are taking a second look at cases that put people in prison for shaking a baby. Some medical professionals and lawyers say there’s just not enough known about Shaken Baby Syndrome to make convictions.

Audrey Edmunds was accused of shaking seven month old Natalie Beard on October 16, 1995. In 1996, Edmunds was sentenced to 18 years in prison. She always maintained her innocence. The expert witnesses in her case later said the child’s symptoms could be linked to other causes. The Wisconsin District IV Court of Appeals granted Edmunds a new trial in March 2007, after she’d been incarcerated for ten years. Edmunds walked free in February of 2008 after a decade behind bars.
Excerpted from Komu.com.

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Document examination expert witness Ronald N. Morris is a certified forensic document examiner and in this excerpt from Submitting a Handwriting Case for Examination, he answers the question:

What is questioned writing?

A questioned writing is any writing written by an unknown writer whose identity must be determined. The questioned writing may consist of a single or multiple signatures, numerals, cursive, or hand printing in the form of letters, forms, etc.

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Chemistry expert witness Edward Funk, Ph. D., presented this short course to senior level chemical engineers on patents:

Scientists and engineers are taught to maintain laboratory notebooks as an important first step in the invention process. They know, but often don’t follow carefully, the rules of including a reasonable description of an experiment and the data, an idea with a diagram, or a possible new process or device. The lab book usually has some coffee stains that give some authenticity. The book is signed by a colleague who usually signs about 100 pages with a single date. More on this later, but this is the beginning, even if somewhat flawed, beginning of the invention process.

At a certain point, the scientist may decide to submit a “memo of invention” (MOI). This is the basic request to have a patent application filed. The form of this is quite different from company to company but the purpose is the same. Most companies have a patent committee of technical people, and at times a patent attorney and business people, who rate the MOI’s. Typically the rating is 1 to 5, with 5 being for important cases for immediate attention. The rating of 1 usually means “no interest to the company”-release to the inventor. Some MOIs are not rated for various political or technical reasons, and are held for review at the next meeting.

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OSHA has inspected the Cowboys indoor practice facility that collapsed Saturday and has up to six months to conclude an investigation. Summit Structures LLC of Allentown, Pa., built the $4 million facility in 2003. A Pennsylvania court ruled in 2007 that Summit was negligent in the design and construction of a membrane-covered warehouse that collapsed when a major snowstorm struck Philadelphia in 2003.

The building was constructed for the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority, which brought the lawsuit. In his ruling, Judge Allan Tereshko wrote that structure came down “under the weight of the (year’s) first significant snowfall.” Those conditions, Tereshko wrote, “would have been easily tolerated by the building had it been properly designed and constructed.” Pennsylvania-based structural engineering expert witness Charles Timbie testified that the reasons for the collapse included miscalculating how much snow the roof could hold and a failure to install the required number of “king pins.”

Excerpted from MySACowboys.com.