About a year and a half ago Abogado and I took a course called International Political Economy. It was probably the only course that quarter that I actually was looking forward to. I had been interested in globalization for a long time, but wanted to take a class that focused on it from a nuetral economic perspective.

For whatever reason though, almost the entire course was about patents and intellectual property. Yeah, obviously there’s a link there to globalization, but I was expecting intro and this was special topic.

It was a take home midterm and, true to form, Abogado and I started it the night before it was due. In fact, technically the same morning it was due. The assignment was ridiculously vague - basically: pick a patent and demonstrate what you have learned in this class so far by explaining the patent process.

So we each opened our first Pabst and started typing away sometime around midnight. I started my paper with the requisite staleness:

The demand for an updated international regime in intellectual property is a relatively recent crusade, resulting from a US led negotiation that began at the Uruguay Round of the GATT1 in 1986 and culminated with the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) in Marrakesh, 19942. Michael P. Ryan, in Knowledge Diplomacy: Global Competition and the Politics of Intellectual Property calls TRIPS “potentially the most important legal advance for the world trading system since the establishment of the [GATT] in 1947 (1).” However, as we shall see, TRIPS was the result of an artificial consensus on IP (Intellectual Property) rights that coaxed developing countries into signing by offering other unrelated concessions such as “liberalized trade in textiles and agricultural products (Ryan, 92).” Furthermore, the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights and the enforcement of trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights exist in two separate realms; the former, a result of negotiation within the WIPO3 and GATT and the latter belonging to the jurisdiction of nations, states, and local communities. This point leads us to an important dichotomy with which to realistically view IP rights in such an economically polarized world. That is, while much of the economic and institutional arena has transcended to the post-modern era of globalization, political and military diplomacy still exists, for the time being, on the Nation-state level. Therefore, if a country, such as Brazil refuses to pay royalties on a patent protected product, say anti-retroviral drugs, what enforcement options does the holder of the patent and the issuing agent have? Such a question leads us to a journey dissecting the complicated web of international intellectual property protection.

I continued the bullshitting for another three or four pages, but I was still stuck without a model patent and Abogado and I had already toasted the six-pack. It was around 4 a.m. - six hours before class started - and I was beginning to feel delirious.

We brewed a pot of coffee and then I struck gold. Excitedly I began to write:

Let us consider, for example, British patent No. GB2289222, filed by Leakey Colin Louis Avern in 1995, which is described as “A fart collecting device. It comprises a gas-tight collecting tube (10) for insertion into the rectum of the subject. The tube (10) is connected to a gas-tight collecting bag (not shown). The end of the tube inserted into the subject is covered with a gauze filter and a gas permeable bladder (28).1”

Under British law, Avern’s (ingenious) patent is protected until the year 2015. During this time, he is granted exclusive rights to sell or license his product and may also register a trademark, such as the “Stank Bagger” or “Bowel in a Bag.” Utilizing such a catchy trademark would establish a trust between the consumer and Avern’s fart collecting device. Let’s face it, once you find a comfortable fit to your rectum, there’s no need to shop around. Furthermore, it would be strategic of Avern to trademark a phrase such as “Got Gas?” that is easily marketable and would create a pleasant association with his product. It is his brilliant innovation and the protection of the patent that will give Avern his start, but it is a well chosen trademark that will insure his future success.

Obviously my psychological stability during this time of my life was questionable. Well, both Abogado and I finished our take-home midterm about 30 minutes before class started and somehow I got suckered to delevering them to our professor while Abogado napped the day away.

We got them back the next week. I think Abogado got an A and I got a B+. There was only one comment on my paper. The sentence - “Let’s face it, once you find a comfortable fit to your rectum, there’s no need to shop around.” - was underlined with an arrow pointing to a margin comment which read in all caps, “THIS IS NOT APPROPRIATE!!”

I realize that graduate students typically do not have active sex lives and I do not hold a grudge.

Anyway, the reason I’m reminded of this whole episode is that Woojay just recently wrote a post about farting that pointed to what is probably the most informative document on the World Wide Web: Everything you wanted to know about farts.

Let me list some of the most interesting facts for you:

• On average, a person produces about half a liter of fart gas per day, distributed over an average of about fourteen daily farts.
• One may wonder why fart gas travels downward toward the anus when gas has a lower density than liquids and solids, and should therefore travel upwards. The intestine squeezes its contents toward the anus in a series of contractions, a process called peristalsis.
• A nervous person who swallows a lot of air and who moves stuff through his digestive system rapidly may have a lot of oxygen in his farts, because his body didn’t have time to absorb the oxygen.
• Generally, if the fart is not detected within a few seconds, it will be too dilute for perception and will be lost into the atmosphere forever. Exceptional conditions exist when the fart is released into a small enclosed area such as an elevator, a small room, or a car. These conditions limit the amount of dilution possible, and the fart may remain in a smellable concentration for a long period of time, until it condenses on the walls.
• Women fart just as much as men. It’s just that most men take more pride in it than most women. There is a large variation among individuals in the amount of fart gas produced per day, but the variation does not correlate with gender.
• How often have you held in a fart, intending to release it at the first appropriate opportunity, only to find that the fart has disappeared when you are ready for it? I asked several doctors where the fart goes. Does it leak out slowly without the person knowing it? Is it absorbed into the bloodstream? What happens to it? The doctors agree that the fart is neither released nor absorbed. It simply migrates back upward into the intestine and comes out later. It is reassuring to know that such farts aren’t really lost, just delayed.

By the way, today, for the first time, I learned the true intended use of the patented Fart Catcher.