Gee, your post is a nice historical footnote on patent practice through the ages. Best one I’ve seen since David W. Maxey’s article at 80 J. Pat. & Trademark Off. Soc’y 155 titled INVENTING HISTORY: THE HOLDER OF THE FIRST U.S. PATENT. That article was about whether Samuel Hopkins, inventor of an improved method for making potash, was a resident of Vermont or (as we in the City of Brotherly Love prefer to believe) Philadelphia.

However, I’ve always told clients to consider a patent claim as being more like a computer program than an English-language text.

And, sorry, but as long as it’s fair game to bash the writer’s language in this post, I have to remind you that “flaunting” means “exhibiting ostentatiously or shamelessly” whereas you obviously meant “flouting” which of course means “showing contempt for.”

Posted by: Gerry J. Elman