3 ms·

> "It's true that if you don't practice a patent, that doesn't mean you can't collect damages for it" When an attorney nests negatives three deep, is that bril

• frezik 13y ago
  Glad I wasn't the only one who picked up on that. Usually I'd go with incompetence due to Hanlon's Razor, but given this is coming from a lawyer from a huge corporation, I'd say it's deliberate.
  • gonzo 13y ago
    Yes, he's attempting to confuse the jury. It's unlikely to work, but Samsung is out of options.
• bananas 13y ago
  That's standard practice and what they're paid to do!
• rayiner 13y ago
  The clearest way of saying the above is "you can collect damages for a patent, even if you don't practice it." While the two statements may be logically equivalent, they're not rhetorically equivalent. Samsung's lawyer probably doesn't want to start a sentence with "you can collect damages . . ." Also note: "X doesn't mean you can't Y" is logically equivalent to "can Y . . . even if X." The former phrasing is clumsier, but highlights the idea that things besides X might create a bar to Y. It places an overall negative connotation on Y, while the latter phrasing places an overall positive connotation on Y. I personally would have said: "it's true that not practicing a patent doesn't prevent you from collecting damages for it." It's not the easiest thing to read, because it just buries the double negative in the phrase "doesn't prevent" but it avoids framing things in the positive.