Re: what does a patent restrict?

From: Michael do Rozario <mdr[_at_]abkj.com.au>
Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1999 09:16:01 +1000

On Tue, Oct 19, 1999, Andrew C. Greenberg <werdna[_at_]gate.net> wrote:
>
> On Sat, 16 Oct 1999, Jeroen Hellingman <jehe[_at_]kabelfoon.nl> wrote:
> >
> > On Fri, 15 Oct 1999, Mark Lemley <mlemley[_at_]mail.law.utexas.edu> wrote:
> > >
> > > Of course, after State Street and AT&T, it's not clear that we even
> > > need to bother with this fiction anymore. It might be that the
> > > program itself is patentable regardless of the medium in which it
> > > is embodied -- including paper. [And patent claims to computer
> > > processes are probably valid even though they don't specify a
> > > medium in which the process will occur].
> >
> > This means that the purpose of patent law (to promote public
> > availability of knowledge) has transmongled by doublespeak lawyers
>
> What is a "doublespeak lawyer"?
>
> > to obtain the total opposite, because,
>
> opposite of what?
>
> > if we cannot record what a patent claims, (in some precise knowledge,
> > for which English is not suitable) we cannot distribute the knowledge
> > at all.
>
> just read the claims (the numbered paragraphs at the end of the
> patent) if you want an idea what is covered. If the patent claims
> a medium, the medium infringes. If the patent claims an apparatus
> including a computer, the computer is necessary for direct (but not
> for contributory or induced) infringement. This "doublespeak lawyer"
> has been saying nothing but this for the past two weeks -- this *is*
> the law and has been the practice since peripheral claiming had
> existed.
>
> The only confusion derives from those who think that patent law
> infringement principles must comport with the intuitions of those who
> are familiar only with copyright law.
>
> > Laywers will be the undoing of the U.S. one day...
>
> Maybe -- but could it be worse than what the clients are presently
> doing to it?

More to the point -- what is "transmongled?" (The word certainly doesn't appear in the Oxford Australian... maybe I need a Funk & Wagnells???) - Is this more "lawyerly doublespeak??"

Michael

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Michael do Rozario
mdr[_at_]abkj.com.au Received on Wed Oct 20 1999 - 23:13:12 GMT