The last paragraph of "The battle of outsider scientists to gain mainstream acceptance," Margaret Wertheim's March 19 Book World review of Lawrence Weschler's book "Waves Passing in the Night," referred to Albert Einstein as once having been a famous patent-office clerk. Well, the term "clerk" was a bit misleading, as Einstein served as a patent examiner, which meant he read patent applications, conducted prior art searches and wrote to the applicants to let them know whether their invention would receive a patent. Use of the term "clerk" is, to be sure, understandable, as patent examiners were, in some patent offices, including the Swiss office where Einstein worked, referred to as patent clerks. But that gives American readers the impression that Einstein had a low-level administrative job, which of course was not so.
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