The loneliness of the long term patent officer

Who knew. They really are still reinventing the wheel. More than 30,000 wheel patents have been issued since 1790 and Russell Stormer has reviewed 124 of them annually for the last 23 years. The WaPo makes it sound almost a noble occupation but Stormer had more pragmatic reasons for getting in the "art of patentry." He said, "this is the only job offer I had when I graduated."

Being a patent examiner is more interesting than you might think. It struck me as being rather forensic in nature, sort of the CSI of inventions.