May 1, 2025

Wood: I’m having an identity crisis

By

Will the real Chris Wood please stand up?

Sometimes, I feel like I’m living in a multiverse, with alternate versions of me drifting in from parallel universes, reminding me of their incredible accomplishments.

It’s happened numerous times over the years, with the latest instance on April 29. As I grabbed my mail, I was intrigued by an envelope with “U.S. Patent Certificate” on the return address, alongside, an ersatz eagle emblem that sort of mimicked the Great Seal of the United States.

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My curiosity piqued, I opened the envelope to see an official-looking document that read, in part, “Congratulations from Professional Awards of America. Your patent has been issued! The United States Patent and Trademark Office records show that you have recently been granted a patent. This is a notable achievement, and we’d like to help you commemorate it.”

Included was a brochure with all sorts of plaques and trophies that I could order to commemorate the award of Patent No. 12276758 for a “Multi-beam laser scanner with programmable field of view.”

As the abstract states on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office website, the invention is for “an optical system and a method for non-mechanically (i.e., without physical movement) scanning a laser using a lens, a steering optical element, and an array of transmission paths configured to simultaneously emit a same wavelength of electromagnetic radiation.”

Huh?

Of course, this is just the latest time that I’ve been confused with another, smarter, more-talented Christopher Wood. This particular doppelganger, at the time the patent application was submitted, worked for InSight LIDAR Inc. of Lafayette. I lived in Lafayette for several years (undoubtedly confusing the good folks at Professional Awards of America.)

Chris Wood — the smart one — now operates a consulting firm specializing in AMO — atomic, molecular and optical physics — and quantum science, according to his LinkedIn profile.

If you’re going to get confused with someone else, it might as well be a quantum scientist, right?

But unbeknownst to scientist Chris Wood, it’s not the first time that I received mail directed to him. Years ago, BizWest’s predecessor, the Boulder County Business Report was headquartered at 3180 Sterling Circle in Boulder, just above a company called Precision Photonics, which — you guessed it — employed this same Christopher Wood.

I was constantly taking misdelivered mail upstairs to his office manager, and she was routinely returning the favor. It all worked very well, except for a wayward Marriott Rewards statement that I received one day. (But that’s a story for another day.)

There are other individuals named Chris Wood, of course. Spokeo counts about 8,600 in the U.S. But it’s not like it’s “John Smith” (46,000, according to some websites.)

And I have been confused with others. There’s Christopher Woods of Terrapin Care Station, Christopher Wood of the Platte River Power Authority and Chris Wood of The Wood Brothers band in Boulder.

Rocket Reach lists 35 of us in Colorado, but I’m sure there are more. There’s the prominent attorney in Denver, the endodontist in Louisville, the principal software engineer in Castle Rock, on and on.

We’re everywhere.

But, more than likely, only one of us received this particular congratulatory letter for Patent No. 12276758. And, though I’m sure that the quantum and optical-physics Christopher Wood has the real patent certificate, maybe I’ll just frame this tacky version, as it’s as close as I’m ever going to get to that level of smarts.

Now, about those royalty checks.

Christopher Wood can be reached at 303-630-1942 or via cwood@bizwest.com. If you’re trying to reach any of the other Christopher Woods, be sure you get the right one.

Will the real Chris Wood please stand up?

Sometimes, I feel like I’m living in a multiverse, with alternate versions of me drifting in from parallel universes, reminding me of their incredible accomplishments.

It’s happened numerous times over the years, with the latest instance on April 29. As I grabbed my mail, I was intrigued by an envelope with “U.S. Patent Certificate” on the return address, alongside, an ersatz eagle emblem that sort of mimicked the Great Seal of the United States.

My curiosity piqued, I opened the envelope to see an official-looking document that read, in part, “Congratulations from Professional Awards of…

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Christopher Wood
Christopher Wood is editor and publisher of BizWest, a regional business journal covering Boulder, Broomfield, Larimer and Weld counties. Wood co-founded the Northern Colorado Business Report in 1995 and served as publisher of the Boulder County Business Report until the two publications were merged to form BizWest in 2014. From 1990 to 1995, Wood served as reporter and managing editor of the Denver Business Journal. He is a Marine Corps veteran and a graduate of the University of Colorado Boulder. He has won numerous awards from the Colorado Press Association, Society of Professional Journalists and the Alliance of Area Business Publishers.
Categories: Publisher's Notebook U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
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