Today started with me spending hours trying to re-establish my identity with a host of private and public organizations.  Thanks to all - you've been great.  And I'm back.

So apart from noting a fun evening debating the implementation of Beth Noveck's spirited, worthwhile, and frankly awe-inspiring Community Patent proposal (details here), I don't have much to report.

But I do have a movie idea.  Ready?  Prior Heart.

It's the story of a fun-loving but eccentric patent examiner who runs across an invention that allows him to travel back in time -- sitting right there in his cubicle, he's transported to Mount Vernon (? -- has to be near the USPTO) in the time of Washington.  And he finds himself falling in love with the great man's niece, and suddenly in a position both to aid the General in a time of great peril (the patent examiner knows what to do because he's an amateur historian familiar with the intricacies of the renovation of the Mansion) (or something like that) AND to help the niece discover just how lovable she is.   But then, of course, at a tremendously inconvenient time he can't help having the memory of Crystal City float into his mind (those awful buildings), which jars him back into the present.  Poof!  But the niece turns out to be in the present too, as a lobbyist working on patent reform, and he looks into her eyes and remembers her.  But she doesn't remember him and she's mad about some narrow patent issue.  What to do?

Surely we need some entertainment vehicle that brings the drama of the Patent Office closer to home.

Okay, your turn.  Try these titles:  Novel and Nonobvious.  or...Examined Lives.