He wrote the rules, adjudicated the validity of claims and approved all financial payments: he was judge, jury and exchequer.

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Now that there is research validity to these claims, the working world is starting to take notice.

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U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said officials were working to determine the validity of the claims made in the e-mail.

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In classic David versus Goliath style, the activists worked out of their living rooms to prove the validity of their claims in British courts.

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But after doubts were raised about the conduct of police officers in the row and the validity of the claims against Mr Mitchell, Mr McKeever said he would apologise if Mr Mitchell was found to have been wrongly accused.

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This conclusion does not rely on the validity of the economic claims.

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So, too, is the risk of overlap: a recent study by M-CAM, a consultancy which studies intellectual property, found that more than 30% of patents make duplicate claims, raising questions about their validity.

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