Federal Agency Humor?

Thanks to Dan asking me back to Prawfsblawg.  

I'm an Intellectual Property prawf, with a focus on patents. This recent post at the Hollywood Reporter caught my eye this morning, noting that a U.S. PTO Examiner recently rejected a 2008 patent application for a male support garment. In support of the rejection, the Examiner cited the 2006 film Borat, in which Sacha Baron Cohen wore a similar garment. This is apparently not an April Fool's joke, as I was able to find the Examiner's rejection on the US PTO's website.

Well, really, what else can be said about this? I guess it's nice to see more examples of the agency opening up its examination of patents to well-known information. The days of limited searches (prior art patents and a few well-known articles) seems to be over.

The last time I remember the agency citing a film was the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences' citation to a line from the Pirates the Carribean "the code is more what you call guidelines than actual rules" when discussing its authority to interpret the law in a very early proceeding in In re Bilski. As IP prawfs will note, Bilski later made its way all the way to the Supreme Court, which stayed well clear of the Pirates genre in its citation to authority.

Looking forward to a great month here at Prawfsblawg.