A patent for a new crankshaft might cover if it's 5% larger; it depends on how specific the claims are. There's a balance between too specific (thus useless) a

A patent for a new crankshaft might cover if it's 5% larger; it depends on how specific the claims are. There's a balance between too specific (thus useless) and too broad (thus not granted unless it's for freaking software); for machines this seems to be understandable, while for software the PTO just throws caution out the window, takes the money, and runs. The thing is, only a court decision will determine whether a patent covers a given use or not; I see a lot of documents written from both perspectives, and the real winners in the patent industry are lawyers (and, when all goes well and the case is sufficiently international, we translators get some nice money out of it, too).