This week we had a guest lecturer, Uzi Aloush, who really took us to the depth of what patent's look and read like. It was interesting that awkward language was used as a strategic maneuver to confuse those looking for infringements and leave loopholes for patent holders to disallow other patents from forming. A single word, as in the patent we looked in the class the word "LAN" allowed technologies and services like Skype which runs on WAN escape having to pay up for the video conferencing patent we were discussing in class. I didn't realize how the language and terminology written in patents is essentially another language one must learn how to read and interpret. Mr.Aloush gave an interesting example of peeling an onion to its core--as many patent lawyers do to find the heart of the invention. And then layers and elements are added to pad the core and encompass all variations of the invention so they are protected. This information was definitely a great asset to build upon!
I agree! The knowledge we received this week was definitely worthwhile. Also the fact that one word in a long claim can change the entire ability for someone else to infringe is mind blowing. Hope we can keep learning more specifically about patents.
ReplyDeleteI had never gone over a patent claim before so it was interesting going through this new experience as you said. It goes to show just how technical and tricky these patents can get and as Vineet stated, how changing one word can alter the ability to infringe.
ReplyDeleteI see myself using the similar techniques Uzi taught me when I am going over dense material for my own blog.
ReplyDeleteUzi also spoke to our class in my year, 2014. His insight into the language of claim construction was extremely interesting and useful, although we talked about a Cisco Telepresence patent rather than this one. It seems that, to one well versed in the engineering behind patents, that a great deal of expertise and thought needs to go into making patents ambiguous enough to cover wide ground while specific enough to dive deep into what the technical implications of the patent might be. I think it would be fascinating to read about other cases such as the one that you described, however.
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