September 19, 2006 is primary day here in Massachusetts. In the recent Patently-O readership poll, 542 readers cast their vote (one per computer). Those results show that slightly over half of the voting readers work in law firms. Of those, two-fifths are in small firms. Twenty-two percent of readers hail from in-house jobs in corporate America while about fifteen percent come from academia. Government jobs only grabbed eight percent — although that category was not added until after 150 people had already voted. Thanks for participating!
In a related note, Patently-O reader (and creator of ToolPat) Scott Kamholz recently did his own empirical work of blue and red states. His results:
9,060 total U.S. patents issued to U.S. assignees in August 2006.
6,635 issued to assignees in "blue" states.
2,425 issued to assignees in "red" states.
Methodology:
"acn/us and isd/20060801->20060831" for total in August.
"isd/20060801->20060831 and as/(wa or ca or mn or wi or il or mi or pa or dc or ny or nj or hi or md or de or ma or me or nh or vt or ri or ct)" for "blue" states except oregon (its abbreviation is "or" and so messes up the boolean search logic) gives 6,555 hits.
"isd/20060801->20060831 and as/or" for Oregon gives 80 hits.
"isd/20060801->20060831 and acn/us andnot as/(wa or ca or mn or wi or il or mi or pa or dc or ny or nj or hi or md or de or ma or me or nh or vt or ri or ct)" for "red" states gives 2505 hits. Subtracting Oregon gives 2,425.
Finally — here is Ed Felton & his gang showing how to steal votes on a Diebold AccuVote voting machine.
