My pleasure.
So, one can patent an illusionists trick without
even knowing how the illusion was created! Stunning!
There's this
assumption that you'll read the patent office's prior art. They're desperate
for you to do so, so they know patents actually promote the arts. Meanwhile
persons having ordinary skill in the art can independently invent things that
are obvious. And the remaining claims of the '922 patent should be so
considered. I'm a past practitioner of the art.
Semiotics as PolR points
out is a social science but then so is applying law. We see in Gottschalk that
the Supreme Court got it, at least when the claims contained the words signal
and representation. I can't help but think of historical accounts from the
middle ages and Renaissance relating arguments on whether the name is the thing
or not.
See Some New Ideas About Law, Zechariah Chafee, Jr., Professor of
Law at Harvard Law School, delivered before the Indiana State Bar Association at
Lake Wawasee, Indiana, July 10, 1936 (PDF, 1.2 MB) at 13:
On the
basis of Piaget's Studies in Child Psychology, Mr. Frank gives us other
parallels between lawyers and children. Children are egocentric, wishful
thinkers, and believe in word magic. The name is the thing, for lawyers as for
Plato, who also had a childish mind.
In reality there is no certainty about
law, the judges merely decide as they want.
Consider citations
we've found outrageous, SCO comes to mind though the style is also found in more
recent cases as well, counting on the difference between word matching (syntax)
over meaning (semiotics). When some of these citations are explored we find
they don't actually support the professed position. When you have people whose
livelihood depends on not recognizing the distinction you can expect resistance
to requiring the distinction be made. Thankfully we count on the judiciary to
be impartial and this is where our efforts should perhaps be directed.
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