I'll quote from the paper by University of Minnesota law professor Jim Chen.

"The Patent act's definiton of prior art embraces patenting or publication in nay country, but includes publi use or sale soley "in this country" To be exact:

'A person shall be entitled to patent unless ... the invention was known or used by others in this coutnry, or patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country, before the invention thereof by the applicatn for patent, or ... the invention was patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country or in public use or on sale in this country, more than one year prior to the date of the application for patent in the United States.'

In other words, "whil almost all domestic prior knowledge, use or invention is considered against a later United States patent, almost all similar foreign activity is not."

Anonymous' definition of prior art in other countries would appear to be limited to prior patents or explicit publication.

Nope, I'm not an endorsers of Singaporean style government, but that doesn't mean I don't appreciate the forthright way Yew answers questions, or his obvious intelligence.

Much appreciated. I'll keep following up on that...

Hey jesup -- (if you are who I think you are, an elementary school shout out to you) -- I think it was pretty clear from the interview with the study's author that corn-based ethanol is by no means the ideal solution.

as for algae-derived biodiesel --- well, looky here:

http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2005/12/16/algae/

I don't know the details on how debt/savings are calculated, I have to admit. I'll look into it.

I think anyway you calculate it though, when consumption is rising faster than income there's a long term problem. As least that's how it's always worked out for me!

Hey, coming in late to this great conversation, which, regardless of what you think about biofuels, really ratifies my own interest in trying to learn more and extend the coverage in this space with more and more detail.

I am embarassed to note, however, that I goofed up a bit in my post, and misrepresented the findings a little bit. Alex Farrell contacted me over the weekend -- I've added a clarification to the text of the post, and I'll repeat that here:

[UPDATE: Alex Farrell informed me over the weekend that I goofed a bit here. It wasn't solely the co-products that altered the energy-efficiency stats. Farrell and his co-authors also identified problems with "data that is obsolete or of dubious and unverifiable quality. In terms of net energy, the most important of these data are the energy required to manufacture the farm machinery." Thus, it was the combination of the co-products and the data adjustments that led to the new, positive values for ethanol.]

I'm not saying the middle class has to accept decline. My interest is learning what the best way to get the middle class to thrive is. Part of what I mean by the richest country playing by different rules from poorer countries, is that theoretically speaking, the U.S. is the best situated economy to be able to dynamically allocate resources and funding and human capital to new markets. We are not striving to get a leg up -- we're at the top, and we should be able to adjust agile to new competition.

Of course, theory is a long way from reality, and theis country's government has been captured by a political party that appears to have no interest in helping the middle class deal with a tough transition. But say the economy crashes in the next ten months, and democrats retake congress, and the first thing they do is slap a 25 percent tarrif on all goods from China. Does that actually fix things? Or does that set of a debilitating trade war that crushes retailers in the U.S., regressively taxes the poorest people in the country by raising prices on basic necessities, and enflames international tensions.

Again, I don't know what the answer is. But I bring up the sugar and cotton issue, because it seems like the answers are different depending on what industry you're looking at. And is it really impossible to have a modern economy the size of the U.S.'s that is fundamentall built on providing services, rather than manufacturing or agriculture? I don't know the answer to that one either.

Great post, Timothy, but I think you underestimate just how deeply the cultural memory of the Opium War and the foreign concessions resonates in China.

Thanks for the pointer, Mr. No Name Given. I've updated the item to add that link, which is informative.