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The information on Groklaw is not intended to constitute legal advice. While Mark is a lawyer and he has asked other lawyers and law students to contribute articles, all of these articles are offered to help educate, not to provide specific legal advice. They are not your lawyers.

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maybe you need to define "semantics" | 756 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
maybe you need to define "semantics"
Authored by: PolR on Friday, July 20 2012 @ 03:31 PM EDT
Thanks. I now understand you better. I will use your suggestion about the
boundaries of the discussion.

I am working under a constraint. I am not a lawyer. I cannot venture very far in
legal argument territory without risking being wrong very quickly. Laying out
the technical facts is what I can do best.

I can discuss when the legal reasonings put in front of me are technically
wrong. But at the end of the day lawyers must do the lawyering. I can only feed
them with the technical information. It is difficult for me to speculate on
which alternative argument lawyers and judge will consider.

I agree a good legal strategy must address whether it is desirable to patent
software. But I have no ambition of playing such a broad role. I focus on what I
can do best: providing the technical information.

If software doesn't make a new machine technically speaking, does it make sense
to patent it as a machine? It is still possible to patent software as a process.
So why insist on patenting as a machine what is not a machine? perhaps this line
of thinking may address some of the broader arguments on whether the result of
these cases is desirable.

I think that there is a tactical benefit in invalidating the software patents
drawn to a machine even though the process patents are left standing. These
patents will be left in prior art. Besides this is not an argument to invalidate
all software patents. This is an argument to convince the court to use a correct
understanding of technology. I suppose this may make the argument easier to
accept.

If you need further inputs on technical matters to refine your legal views, you
may ask questions in the comment section. We have an Off-topic thread where you
may bring up your point anytime. Or perhaps better, why not contact PJ and
discuss what can be done? Perhaps she will organize something like she did
recently with Michael Risch.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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