OurColony.net

Customer Rating:
Summary: Stone Cold
Comment: As an IP lawyer, I have a great type of interest in this field. I read a lot of books on this
topic, and review them as well. This is one of the worst I have ever read.

I concede
that Choate can spin a good tale, but the facts of the matter are that he knows nothing about this
field, and it shows. By page four of the introduction, he is trying to scare people about the
significance of fake or counterfeit goods by demonstrating actual cases of companies with
substandard aircraft parts. The problem?

None of the cases cited involved faked parts,
or intellectual property piracy. Make me scared to fly, sure, but even on Choate's own description,
these were just American companies making their own substandard goods and shipping them off. It
just gets worse from there.

There is all kinds of pro_America assertions, but little
back up. In fact, next to no context even. Choate, for example, rants at the Germans for enforcing
their patent rights to an anti malarial drug during WWII, at the expense of American soliders. The
fact that we were in the middle of a vicious war with Germany at the time seems rather relevant to
context and yet is never mentioned. And the fact that the USA then appropriated all of Germany's
patents at the end of the war is seen as totally justified.

Later, Choate refers to
patent examiners listening to H. Ross Perot speak at a conference as a "dedicated and patriotic
act." No mention is made of how Choate was at that time Perot's VP candidate. Or that patent
examiners listening to a non_patent trained person, or even legal or scientific trained person was
probably a complete waste of their time and the government's money.

As a reviewer, I
used every trick to get to the end of this book. I used to lie in bed at night and poke my
boyfriend and go "listen to THIS!" Even as a non-IP guy, he could easily see how bad this was,
logically and otherwise.

I could go on and on for pages about the problems with this
book and in fact I have for a professional book review. All I can say here is that if you spend
money for this book, you have paid too much.

Customer Rating:
Summary: What's Real And What's Faux?
Comment: The illlegal peddling of fake goods is about a global crime "of immmense proportions": that of
stealing ideas, creations and products. He tells of obtaining a fake Rolex in Washington, D.C. in
1990. By 2004, the vendors of fakes are located all around the White HOuse and government
buildings, and some politicos buy them, knowing full well that it is illegal. I have a fake Rolex
given to me by my son whose friend purchased a "bunch" out on the street in New York City for $10
each.

Ideas are intangible things. Yet they are the wellspring of all advances in the
arts, science, technology, even medicine. Americans make up less than 5% of the world's population.
Science, technology and innovation have been the basic engine of America's economic expansion and
national security for almost two hundred years.

The absolute financial value of global
piracy and counterfeiting is of massive proportions. The World Trade Organization is supposed to
enforce the law against such deceit but not much is deing done.

Music piracy (and video
movies) are so rampant that it threatens the future of the artists and the record companies. The
digital revolution as embodied by the Internet has threatened protections provided by copyrighted
works. Copyrights are at risk.

Customer Rating:
Summary: Hot Property, Hot Book
Comment: By way of full disclosure, the chances of me giving Pat Choate's new book, Hot Property, a bad
review are non-existent.
Of course, in fairness, the chance of Pat Choate writing a book
deserving a negative review is even less than non-existent.

Pat and I have been close
friends for more years than either of us care to count and it should say something about the
objectivity of this review that Pat contributes a weekly column to the Las Vegas weekly I publish,
The Penny Press, and we co-write the ChoateWeinbergreport.com.

That disclosure out of
the way, Pat has done his usual remarkable job of taking a subject some might think is dull and
writing a non-fiction page turner about-of all things-intellectual property.

Even
Washington lobbyists who get paid to be interested in such topics get glazed eyes when this subject
comes up.
That may well be why our laws governing such things are so poorly written. />
Maybe it's the fact that Pat has a Phd in Economics from the University of Oklahoma that
gives him an ability to explain issues in terms most folks will understand.

Real people
rarely attend schools in the Ivy League.

Maybe it's the fact that Pat grew up in
Texas.

Reality has a way of being more omnipresent in states like Texas.
/>Or, maybe it's the fact that over the years, Pat has refused to be sucked into the beltway
economist's dance-which can be very lucrative if you want to play the game.

For
whatever the reason, Pat's recounting of the saga of Eli Whitney-who sort of invented the cotton gin
and mass production-and the story of Zenith Radio frankly puts most high school history teachers to
shame.

Of course, Pat actually did the research.
Most history teachers recite
what the state approved text tells them to.

Most people who think about these things
are secure in their knowledge that the Zenith Radio Company of Chicago stopped making TV sets in the
United States because U.S. labor could no longer compete with the Japanese.

Wrong. />
The seeds of the end of TV sets being made in Illinois were planted when the Japanese not
only appropriated our trade secrets but wanted the market share in the United States badly enough to
sell the sets they did produce for far less than they cost to make.

It became a
pattern.

Steal our processes and patents. Make the sets in Japan. Sell them in the
United States for far less than it cost to make them, subsidized by both the Japanese government and
our own government's unwillingness to do anything about it.

And, eventually, the
"quality goes in before the name goes on" TV sets were being made anywhere but Chicago.
/>All of which served to further weaken innovation in the United States.

The truth is
that in just about every industry, when an idea gets stolen from its rightful owner, a huge loss
follows.
Jobs, money, industry flow out of this country because we almost go out of our way to
allow other nations to take what is rightfully ours.

In some respects, this is a
continuation of Choate's best seller, Agents of Influence, which detailed how the Japanese simply
bought their way into our political system to accomplish much of that.

Only now, it is
the Chinese which we have to watch out for.
Choate is a great story teller and for most of the
book, you almost don't realize that you're being gently force-fed a history lesson to which everyone
should pay attention.
And lest we leave anybody out, this problem doesn't only affect
manufacturers.

While Star Wars is only a movie, its creators discovered at the sequel's
release last week, that it was already on the street in DVD form.

Needless to say, they
weren't collecting any royalties on those DVDs.

Yes, this turns out to be a lesson that
must be learned even by the liberal George Lucas.

Pat Choate has always been the guy
who a former president of the University of Oklahoma (George Cross) must have been talking about
when he suggested that he wanted a University which the football team could be proud of.
/>If you read this book, and you should, you will-almost immediately-understand why.

Customer Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece
Comment: Pat Choate has written a masterpiece. Brimming with anecdotes, undergirded by superb analysis and an
overarching theme, "Hot Property" is a "must read" for anyone interested in America's financial
future. It describes how third world nations, including the fledgling United States, swiped the
inventions of more established nations. In stealing plans for the loom, colonial America was able to
free itself from dependence on British woolens. Now the shoe is on the other foot, and other
nations, including China and Japan, are unceremoniously stealing from us. Here are marvelous stories
about America's premier inventors: Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell and Eli Whitney, and how
modern-day inventors are left unprotected by their government. After all, how do you take action
against nations that hold a good chunk of the U.S. debt? Written in a lively manner, this is a book
that will enlighten, outrage and amuse.

Customer Rating:
Summary: Blew me Away
Comment: I sort of expected "Hot Property" to be another stuffy business book. However, I could not put the
book down when I began to read it. It was great!

Mr. Choate provides great insight
into the creation and growth of IP law. Colorful stories about inventors make it an entertaining
book and the strategies revealed and used by Japan and China have really opened my eyes.
/>This is a very timely book and ties in with many of the current news stories on China's attempt to
buy, steal and appropriate intellectual property from every corner of the world.

If you
are an inventor, company CEO or anyone dealing with IP, "Hot Property" is essential reading. />