Sorry about the commentary.

>It's the patent office that is to blame > for much of
> this, in that they have been willing to grant patents on just about
> anything for the last 30 or so years without vetting them, but simply
> leaving it up to unsophisticated people in civil courts (or > out of court)
> to resolve issues. This has been/is terrible and needs to be > combatted.

My experience is that the Federal Circuit (however unsophisticated) does an excellent job of addressing these questions.  I agree that jury trials are nonsensical exercises, and a decent defendant's patent lawyer knows when to breeze through the trial court stage to get an appeal ready.

On the other hand, my experience has been that engineers unsophisticated in patent law tend to make wildly "wrong calls" on patent questions as often, or more often, than legally sophisticated non-technical laypersons.

Yes, the office makes wrong calls, no doubt.  And the courts are not perfect either.  (And I've defended against some very groty patents even in my short legal career, I can tell you.)  I'm not sure, however, that any of the generalizations we hear in the great "patent debates" are defensible.

My experience is that there are three kinds of arguments addressing software patents:

	(1)	Patents are Bad;
	(2)	Software Patents are Bad; and
	(3)	Bad Software Patents are Bad.

No one in their right mind would defend against proposition (3), and few can really cut a dent in (1) without losing the vast majority of most audiences.  The interesting argument is that few can really distinguish their arguments for (2) from a (1) or a (3).

Sorry, this is off-topic.  But, hey, its Friday and I'm feeling frisky.  (Just about to file a slam-dunk Summary Judgment Motion against a groty patent, too!)  :-)

Regards to all in this holiday season,
A