Is There A Difference Between Fox News And The National Enquirer?

Before you answer that question, first read this story that appeared on the Fox News website under the headline “UN agency helps North Korea with patent application for banned nerve gas chemical”. Then after you’ve read it, write me offline to explain the differences between Fox and the Enquirer.  Because from where I sit, they’re both into passing off fiction for fact.

What seems to have gotten the ire of the Fox “reporter” is the fact that North Korea is member of the PCT, and as such North Korean entities can – gasp! – file PCT applications, including this one, entitled “PROCESS FOR PRODUCTION OF SODIUM CYANIDE”, which published last December. 

Now, sodium cyanide is nasty stuff, if you ingest it. But calling it a “nerve gas chemical” – well, that’s kind of hard to picture, seeing as the stuff has a melting point of 563ºC. It’s like calling table salt a “nerve gas chemical”. If you want to get it into someone, you’re going to have to get them swallow it, or dissolve it in water and inject it. Inhalation ain’t happening.

And to say that a UN agency “helps North Korea” with a patent application…well, that seems to imply somehow WIPO helped someone in North Korea received help from WIPO to draft the application. But as we all know, that’s like saying the USPTO “helps” people with their patent applications because it lets them file those applications (for a fee).

WIPO is a neutral body that administers the PCT for citizens of member states. That’s all. If Fox has problem with the fact that North Korea met the criteria for joining the PCT, then that’s what it should be complaining about.

Not to mention that neither North Korea nor any other state needs a patent application in order to practice a chemical process. And if Mr. Funny Haircut Man has a process for making nerve gas, you'd think he'd keep that to himself, instead of publishing it the form of a PCT application.

FWIW, there are exactly 68 published PCT applications that list an inventor from North Korea (KP in WIPO terminology), dating back to 1990. Yeah, that WIPO is definitely aiding and abetting the Democratic Republic of Korea in development WMDs.