Friday Funnies: Judge Rader Tells Jokes
If Judge Randall Rader of the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals ever gets tired of hearing patent cases, he could fall back on a stand-up comedy career. Rader kicked off a luncheon keynote on Friday by telling a few jokes.
Humor that is paraphrased on a blog post is not nearly as gut-busting as hearing Rader's tales at the American Intellectual Property Law Association summit, but I'll give it a shot.
He said he recently tried a case in Oakland, Calif. and the jury was selected after a "painful process" of listening to excuses from potential jurors as to why they could not participate. An attorney in the case told Rader: "It's hard to be a trial attorney. My client's life and my future depend on 12 people who are not smart enough to avoid jury service."
The judge responded: "I thought you were going to say your future depended on a trial judge who'd never tried a criminal case before." Quickly, the lawyer fired back: "Your honor, if I'd known that, I would have selected a better jury."
He followed up with a blonde joke, but to avoid offending any goldilocks in the audience, he selected Patent and Trademark Office Solicitor John Whealan as his target. Whealan, who is blonde, was temporarily assigned to the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year to assist with patent reform legislation.
For the purpose of Rader's joke, Whealan gets on an airplane to Beijing and tells the flight attendants: "I’m blonde, I'm beautiful and I'm flying in first class." They check his ticket and he is assigned to coach, yet he insists on flying up front.
The pilot is summoned and he explains that his wife is blonde and he could handle the situation. He whispers in Whealan's ear and the PTO official quietly takes his seat in coach. The pilot then says that he told Whealan that "first class isn't going to Beijing."
After the punch-line, Rader turned to Chief Judge Paul Michel, who was seated beside him, and said: "I think I just gave away our damages provision… at least interlocutory appeals just went out the window."
Read about the rest of Rader's speech in Technology Daily's PM Edition.
Categories:
Humor
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