Item — HN Reader

> (past the initial, incomprehensible-unless-you're-a-patent-lawyer "Claims" section)

On the contrary, the claims are meant to be understandable to any reasonably technical person (anyone "highly skilled in the art"). On the other hand, your average non-technical lawyer would be completely unable to read them.

This doesn't mean it won't take time to fully digest a patent's claims, as they tend to be written with a very high degree of precision.

1 comments

they tend to be written with a very high degree of obsfurcation since you are trying to both claim absolutely everything and yet be specific when it comes to the court case.

Fortunately patent cases now tend to get decided out of court based on who has the biggest portfolio, or when they do go to court it's a jury in East Texas deciding which lawyer they dislike least. this has taken a lot of the work out of trying to write elegant claims!

The obfuscation comes as a result of the patent examiners whittling down the overly broad claims made by the authors. This is a process that goes on for numerous rounds, back and forth. Personally I see the result as "precision" -- an agreement between the authors and the patent office about what has truly been invented -- rather than any kind of purposeful obfuscation. (I make no claims that this is a good process, that the patent examiners are as competent as they ought to be, or that authors in general are not trying to scam the system).

Also part of it is from the form - a series of separable claims. That way if a judge finds prior art and strikes down part of the patent, they are leaving as much leeway as possible to leave as much of the patent as possible standing.