A patent owner’s lawyer waves the flag for the jury – or is it the bloody shirt?

From Law.com, here’s an excerpt from the closing argument of counsel for DataTreasury in its successful lawsuit against U.S. Bank:

But we protect our inventors. We protect our inventors. And that’s why we’re ahead of the game. We’re ahead of the game, because the United States Patent Office — and the first Patent Examiner, by the way, was Thomas Jefferson [sic]. The United States Patent Office protects inventors.

It’s the only way we can prevent — we can protect them. And they make America strong. They keep America the strongest country in the world, because people in America have incentives to create. Because if they create and they make something new and different, then they have a chance to get ahead.

That’s the American dream. That’s what we all believe in, is the American dream. And that’s why we are the strongest country in the world. We’re not [the] strongest country in the world because big banks have the power to try to steal intellectual property…

Now, [defense lawyer] Mr. [John] Gutkoski, he said to you this is just a piece of paper. That’s the seal of the United States Patent & Trademark Office. That means something. I wonder if Mr. Gutkoski thinks that the Declaration of Independence is just a piece of paper. And I wonder if he just thinks that the United States Constitution is just a piece of paper. There are boys in Iraq and Afghanistan that are dying for that piece of paper. It’s not a piece of paper. It’s what the piece of paper represents.

This represents the disinterested, the unbiased evaluation of four experts who have evaluated the Ballard technology. And they have told you that this invention is real; it’s new; it’s novel; and it needs to be protected. Trust the Patent Office, folks. Trust the Patent Office.

(Emphasis added; hat tip: Stanford law prof Mark Lemley)