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Whenever I've tussled with domain experts in patents here on HN, I receive these messages from them: 1) Patents are the way they are, because it's a finely hon
by stcredzero 8y ago
Whenever I've tussled with domain experts in patents here on HN, I receive these messages from them:
1) Patents are the way they are, because it's a finely honed machine.
2) You're an ignorant rube.
Perhaps that's true. On the other hand, what patents say often seems to contradict common sense. It makes me wonder if the whole field isn't ideologically subsumed.
- patentatt 8y agoThe whole field is about being absolutely precise with language, in writing and reading. It’s tough to do in English, the language just wasn’t built for it. So patent practitioners have sort of developed a way of being precise with a malleable langauage. Much of the really odd stuff can be understood through that lens. Note, that precise doesn’t mean “clear” or “easy to understand,” something may be precisely broad in just the way intended, while being precisely clear and narrow in other ways. That’s another inpedence mismatch between normal humans and patent people.