I wouldn't doubt your lawyers! They were probably right in a context that does not generalize exactly. I am not a lawyer and speak from no authority but curios

I wouldn't doubt your lawyers! They were probably right in a context that does not generalize exactly. I am not a lawyer and speak from no authority but curiosity, so I could be completely wrong or misleadingly close to being right, but I think the main point is confirmed by this, from the "Claims" section of the first result for "how to read a patent" (http://www.bpmlegal.com/howtopat5.html http://www.bpmlegal.com/howtopat5.html): "Each dependent claim must be narrower than the claim upon which it depends." The full example is too long to quote, but I encourage you to read it. The obvious problem with this is that it is an implicit convention in an otherwise very explicit kind of document. It's no wonder at all that it is not widely understood.