Amdocs v. Openet (Fed. Cir. 2016)
In the end, I don’t know how important Amdocs will be, but it offers an interesting split decision on the eligibility of software patent claims. Senior Judge Plager and Judge Newman were in the majority — finding the claims eligible — with Judge Reyna in dissent. One takeaway is that the Federal Circuit continues to be divided on the issues. By luck-of-the-panel in this case, the minority on the court as a whole were the majority on the panel (pushing against Alice & Mayo). Going forward, the split can be reconciled by another Supreme Court opinion, a forceful Federal Circuit en banc decision, or perhaps by future judicial appointments by President Trump. I expect 2-3 vacancies on the court during Trump’s first term.
In a 2014 post I described the Amdocs district court decision invalidating the claims. The four patents at issue all stem from the same original application relating to a software and network structure for computing the bill for network communications usage. One benefit imparted by the invention is associated with its physically distributed architecture that “minimizes the impact on network and system resources” by allowing “data to reside close to the information sources.” According to the majority opinion, “each patent explains that this is an advantage over prior art systems that stored information in one location, which made it difficult to keep up with massive record flows from the network devices and which required huge databases.” The nexus with the tated benefit is difficult to find in many of the claims themselve. See Claim 1 below, which was taken as representative of the asserted claims of Amdocs ‘065 patent:
1. A computer program product embodied on a computer readable storage medium for processing network accounting information comprising:
computer code for receiving from a first source a first network accounting record;
computer code for correlating the first network accounting record with accounting information available from a second source; and
computer code for using the accounting information with which the first network accounting record is correlated to enhance the first network accounting record.
You’ll note that the claim is an almost pure software claim — requiring “computer code” “embodied on a computer readable storage medium.” The code has three functions: (1) receiving a network accounting record; (2) correlating the record with additional accounting information; and (3) using the accounting information to “enhance” the original network accounting record. The claim term “enhance” is construed narrowly than you might imagine as the addition of one or more fields to the record. An example of an added field would be a user’s name that might be added to the accounting record that previously used a numeric identifier. The court also found that the term “enhance” should be interpreted as requiring that – and doing so in a “a distributed fashion … close to their sources” rather than at a centralized location. This narrow interpretation of the term “enhance” do not flow naturally from the claim language, but do turn out to be crucial to the outcome.
In reviewing the claim, the court noted that “somewhat facially-similar claims” have been alternatively invalidated as abstract ideas and found eligible. Compare, for example, Digitech with Enfish and DDR. Here, the court wrote that the claims are “much closer” to the ones found eligible. I might rewrite their opinion to say that the judges in the majority prefer the decisions finding eligibility over those invalidating software patent claims.
The two recent Supreme Court cases of Alice and Mayo spell out the court’s two-step framework for determining whether a patent is improperly directed to one of the excluded categories of abstract ideas, natural phenomena, and laws of nature. Briefly, the court first determines whether “the claims at issue are directed to one of those patent-ineligible concepts.” If so, the decision-maker must then determine whether any particular elements in the claim “transform the nature of the claim into a patent-eligible application.” This second step requires consideration of additional elements both individually and in combination in search for an “inventive concept . . . sufficient to ensure that the patent in practice amounts to significantly more than a patent upon the [ineligible concept] itself.” [Quoting Mayo and Alice throughout].
In making its eligibility conclusion in Amdocs, the appellate majority focused on the claim requirement (as construed) that processing be done in a distributed fashion. According to the court, “enhancing data in a distributed fashion” is “an unconventional technological solution . . . to a technological problem (massive record flows which previously required massive databases).” Remember here though that we are not talking about patenting a distributed system, but rather patenting a “computer program product embodied on a computer readable storage medium” used to implement the features.
Rather than taking Alice/Mayo steps in turn, the majority accepted “for argument’s sake” that the claims were directed to abstract ideas. However, the claim adds “something more” beyond an abstract idea. Here, the court notes that the claims require “distributed architecture—an architecture providing a technological solution to a technological problem. This provides the requisite ‘something more’ than the performance of “well-understood, routine, [and] conventional activities previously known to the industry.”
Despite being the stated “unconventional” idea of using a distributed architecture, the court noted that the patent may still fail on anticipation or obviousnesss grounds.
Writing in dissent, Judge Reyna offered several different arguments. First, Reyna argue that the court’s skipping of Alice/Mayo Step 1 helped lead to an incorrect result. If you do not define the abstract idea at issue, how do you know whether the claim includes something more? Reyna also argued that the “distribution architecture … is insufficient to satisfy Alice step two” because the limitation is not actually found in the claims and, even as interpreted provide only a functional result. Reyna does note that the specification provides sufficient description of a distributed architecture, but that the claims themselves lack the requisite detail.
The specifications disclose a distributed system architecture comprising special-purpose components configured to cooperate with one another according to defined protocols in a user-configurable manner for the purpose of deriving useful accounting records in a more scalable and efficient manner than previously possible. The disclosed system improves upon prior art systems by creating a specific “distributed filtering and aggregation system . . . [that] eliminates capacity bottlenecks” through distributed processing. ’ The disclosed system is patent eligible. But the inquiry is not whether the specifications disclose a patent-eligible system, but whether the claims are directed to a patent ineligible concept.
Of what use – besides the obvious propaganda effect of “look at me look at me – on top” is the blatant re-post that Malcolm (singularly) so often engaged in?
Prof. Crouch – this is on you.
Happy Decade.
f “look at me look at me – on top”
Yes, there you are “anon”! Well done! Here’s your cookie.
You missed the “re-post” part of my message – your usual mischaracterization of another’s post.
Yay ecosystem.
RKS: a “correlation” per se is not a useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter.
Yay! In other words, it’s ineligible (please note that information and logic are also none of things — we’ll get back to that later). It’s also an abstraction, being devoid of physical structure.
Okay, baby steps: how about a method of thinking about that correlation?
Thinking is a process, and it’s definitely useful. I’ve basically just scrivened a bit around the subject matter that you already identified as ineligible. So, is that method ineligible for patenting or not?
Yes or no, and a single sentence explanation. Step up, RKS! We’re showing everyone that you know what Mayo is about! Yay!
Les the art of phone/network billing
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
Another jeer post. Dennis why do you allow a paid poster to dominate your comment section?
Happy Decade of Decadence
And Happy Birthday to the Bobbsy Twins! We all love you, too.
Can you do the “Patent Reformers Are Like K-llers in Iraq” cheer for us again? Wave those p0mp0ms!
Now if you’ll excuse me I’ve got to depose this guy who’s an expert in the art of emailing people DVD preferences.
Another odd edit.
Who would have thought that the single character of “?” would ever be considered offensive….
RKS whatever you may think Mayo was secretly “about,” it wasn’t about determining whether something is or is not an unpatentable “abstract idea.”
Apparently RKS has some serious difficulty telling everybody what Mayo was about. Gee, I wonder what that’s the case? Here’s two possibilities: (1) RKS doesn’t know what Mayo was about and/or (2) RKS doesn’t want to talk about what Mayo was about because it undermines his story about how subject matter eligibility under Mayo/Alice is soooooooo hard to understand and apply.
Let’s help RKS out here.
Simple question for RKS: can I patent a correlation? Are correlations eligible subject matter? i.e., can I get a claim like this one:
1. A correlation, where the correlation is a correlation between the number of pencils in my pencil cup and the likelihood that my dog will die of a flea-born disease.
Is that claim eligible under 101?
Yes or no, and give a one sentence explanation.
I won’t be making a habit of indulging you, MM, so please don’t expect a reply from me just because you invoke my name, but a “correlation” per se is not a useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter.
If you want my opinion, however, a conventional machine modified to make use of a newly discovered correlation should be patent-eligible, irrespective of the conventionality of whatever elements might be in a corresponding claim that do not relate to the point of novelty. A ‘puter programmed to produce and provide pooch prognoses predicated on pencil pitcher perceptions is useful and, provided it would not be obvious, is deserving of a patent.
Courts–or rather, certain authors–have strained to hold that it should not be possible to “draft around” judicial-exception ineligibility. But why not? Such a position is at odds with the precept that “the claim is the name of the game.” Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 permits Congress to reward discovery, and there is no indication that Congress has not intended to do so. Let discoverers be rewarded their bona fide discoveries when drafted as useful machines, processes, etc.
RKS: a “correlation” per se is not a useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter.
Yay! In other words, it’s ineligible (please note that information and logic are also none of things — we’ll get back to that later).
Okay, baby steps: how about a method of thinking about that correlation?
Thinking is a process, and it’s definitely useful. I’ve basically just scrivened a bit around the subject matter that you already identified as ineligible. So, is that method ineligible for patenting or not?
Yes or no, and a single sentence explanation.
Because things TOTALLY in the mind is not like moving goalposts or anything…
RKS – try to use the word anthropomorphication into your answer.
(Give Malcolm the hint that machines really do not think, so his “thoughts” meme comes up short)
(it is like the difference between math and applied math)
RKS a “correlation” per se is not a useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter.
Also just in case nobody is confused: correlations are certainly useful and they are certainly “made by man”. So apparently your definition of “manufacture” is a bit more limited. The gates are already closing as we look closer at RKS’s assumptions. Nobody could have predicted …
Maybe RKS can tell us why Congress chose to not include useful correlations made by man in 101. Was it an accidental ommission, RKS? Or was Congress perhaps constrained by something else? Tell everybody. Feel free to type an entire paragraph.
You are moving the goalposts…
But you already knew that, eh pumpkin?
A “correlation” like the Arrhenius equation comes to mind.
What did the Ciurt say about your that again?
Oh wait, you have already shared your feelings that Diego was not decided correctly…
Diego ==> Diehr
Also can I just point out that the Fed Cir just *destroyed* anon’s “optional claim format” in two sentences (with no fanfare, as it required none):
The dissent offers a different paradigm for identifying an abstract idea: “it is apparent that a desired goal (i.e., a ‘result or effect’), absent structural or procedural means for achieving that goal, is an abstract idea.” Dissent at 6–7. The dissent focuses on the difference between ‘means’ and ‘ends.’ Id. at 6. We note that, though not in terms of ‘abstract idea’ but rather adequacy of definition, years ago the Supreme Court outlawed such broad ‘ends’ or function
claiming as inconsistent with the purposes of the Patent Statute.3 Congress, however, a few years later softened the rule. Patentees could write claim language to broadly describe the purpose or function of their invention, and when they did the claim would not cover the bare function or goal, however performed, but only as limited to the particular means (and equivalents) for implementing that function or goal as described by the patentee in the patent’s
“specification.”
3 See Halliburton Oil Well Cementing Co. v. Walker, 329 U.S. 1 (1946).
This is the federal circuit agreeing that Halliburton stated that the law is that functional claiming outside of means-plus is improper. i.e. there is no “optional” ability to acquire a claim scope by novel functionality rather than novel structure, there is only the option to refer to structure within the claim itself or to “call” the structure from the specification by using particular calling language (means-plus) in the claim.
The majority then goes on to explicitly state:
This, of course, is the “means-plus-function” practice codified in 35 U.S.C. § 112 ¶ 6 (now § 112(f)). The dissent’s paradigm would seem similar, but differs in significant respects. Though § 112 ¶ 6 permits the ‘means’ to be found in the patentee’s “specification,” meaning the written description and the claims of the patent, the dissent would save the patent’s eligibility under § 101 only if the claim at issue itself explicitly states the necessary ‘means.’
Of course, nobody is suggesting that the claims in front of them invoke means-plus . The paragraph directly above is true but completely irrelevant to the conclusion of *this* case. Instead, since means-plus isn’t invoked, the majority has just stated that the claims fail to be definite under 112b (granted, not an issue before them).
The same is, of course, true for all other claims and of particular relevance to computer software, which is routinely claimed in non-means-plus functional terminology where the functional result is asserted to be a novelty in the claim.
As I have stated before in analyzing Morse – the definiteness/goal dichotomy is one basis of the abstract idea rejections. The test was very simple – if the argument was that the claim was directed to a particular manner of achieving the result, but the claim failed to limit itself to that particular manner, the claim was indefinite under 112b for failing to particularly claim the subject matter. If the argument was that the claim was directed to the general result, the claim was ineligible under 101. Either way, a claim limited only by functional result rather than particular means for achievement was invalid. Because the federal circuit failed to appreciate either the Morse abstract idea analysis or the 112b particularly pointing out requirement in a post-52 world, the federal circuit had to go and invent written description 112a to cabin functional language that was partially, but not fully, enabled.
The test under 112a is more lax than the previous abstract idea/particularly pointing out dichotomy. That excess lax is improper. The chief distinction is that the 112a test places the burden upon the defendant to show that the specification fails to prove possession of the full scope, while the 101/112b dichotomy places the burden on the patentee to show that there are no other ways of achievement other than those described in the specification. Cases obviously turn on this, as for a large range of functionality it is simply impossible to prove one way or another whether other possible means outside of the specification exist. Someday someone will be smart enough to raise this issue when confronted with functional claims.
the Fed Cir just *destroyed* anon’s “optional claim format” in two sentences (with no fanfare, as it required none):
And not for the first time either.
But we all knew that. Also, we can safely predict that it will have no effect on “anon”‘s script because a big part of his strategery is simply throwing as many meaningless self-serving statements as possible. Pointing out that those statements are incoherent or irrelevant or just plain wrong has no effect. That’s one of the awesome features of his excellent — and totally not intellectually bankrupt! — secrets to …. erm … success.
Lol – both of you are incorrect.
But thanks anyway.
No, we’re not incorrect, “anon.”
Maybe you can get Steve Bannon to chime in and lend you a hand? Or “Milo”?
Because they’re very serious people. Just like you.
Yes, Malcolm you both remain incorrect.
You want to point to the explicit words with which the court stated that an optional form of claim formatting is no longer optional…?
Hint: you will not because you can not.
You also have the “option” of writing your claim in the form of a series of static equations. NWPA told us!
It’s okay, “anon.” Your games are transparent. We can all see them. Just slink away with your wonderful “options” and we’ll try not disturb your rock.
I am not the one with the transparent games Malcolm.
Yay! More:
A
O
O
T
W
M
D
To call it anon’s is a bit unfair: Crouch’s past posts appear to accept non 112 6th functional claiming as a matter beyond questioning.
Is there any explanation what 112 6th does if structure ‘sounding in function’ was previously acceptable?
Not only Prof. Crouch, but the courts, Federico and Congress as well.
The difference of course is what Prof. Crouch coined as the Vast Middle Ground.
Rather important points Ben – and ones explained in great detail many times now.
Is there any explanation what 112 6th does if structure ‘sounding in function’ was previously acceptable?
112f was and is never anything other than a procedural interpretation allowance, not a substantive rule of valid scopes. Scriveners wanted a manner of referring to complicated specification parts from a claim, and 112f allows for that. There is no difference whatsoever between a claim that has the explicit structure in it and a claim that “calls” definite structure from the specification, which is why what the majority says in that second paragraph is correct.
None of that has anything to do with a claim to describing “something new in purely functional terms” which is what Wabash denied and still denies. If functionality is novel, you can’t claim only the function.
Ex: Cars do not normally fly. A claim directed to “a flying car” or “a car configured to fly” either fails 101, because it is claiming the field of flying cars without significantly more, or it fails 112b because “a flying car” does not particularly point out what the device which causes the car to fly (i.e the invention) is. “Means for causing a car to fly” however, is valid (assuming its part of a combination so that 112f can properly be invoked) because it is limited by statute to the structure in the specification, which is clearly posited and possessed.
The Federal Circuit’s 112a test would have a factfinder ask if the disclosure in the specification sufficiently “fills the scope” of all devices which cause a car to fly. That analysis is, frankly, bs. It asks the factfinder to become a super-inventor and conclude that we have reached the limits of flying car technology based upon the disclosure of the specification. One can virtually never answer that question in the affirmative, because by definition we don’t know what we don’t know. Maybe some facts allow us to answer it in some cases (for example, when an infringer literally infringes “a flying car” but does so by entirely different means from the specification) but generally it’s just guesswork. The Supremes in Morse said that because that analysis can’t really be done, the conclusion is that the claim is ineligible. They place the burden on the patentee.
To call it anon’s is a bit unfair: Crouch’s past posts appear to accept non 112 6th functional claiming as a matter beyond questioning.
I have read Crouch’s past posts as saying that referring to old things by function is okay (and it generally is) and that new things that include some measure of structure are okay on a case by case basis. If that is what he is saying, that is correct. But what can’t be done is some recitation of a known thing (i.e. a car) and some new functionality (i.e. flying) without some level of a structure disclosure which causes the old thing to perform the new function. This comes up often in computers where there is a computer that performs a new function with no structure (i.e. no algorithm for performing the functionality) and a claim that the functionality is novel.
Move the goal post back from the PURELY functional claim, Random.
Thanks.
There is no difference whatsoever between a claim that has the explicit structure in it and a claim that “calls” definite structure from the specification, which is why what the majority says in that second paragraph is correct.
Absolutely disagree to this extent: the novel subject matter HAS to be in the claim and not just in the specification.
People reading the claim must know what is new — that is the whole point of claims, notice. The lack of notice of what is patented was the major concern of the Supreme Court in Halliburton.
Evans v. Eaton. The vice there was not that there was no invention, but that the specification and claims together did not distinguish old from new.
In this case, the invention described was enhancing in the context of a distributed network. But one cannot tell that from the claim, not at all.
This claim fails 112(b) big time.
Absolutely disagree to this extent: the novel subject matter HAS to be in the claim and not just in the specification.
If its being called via means-plus it IS in the claim, that’s what 112f does, it construes “means for” as the subject matter from the spec.
The use of functional language is simply not constrained to 112(f).
112(f) provided for the TOTALLY functional claim element.
Prof. Crouch succinctly pointed this out with his coined term of Vast Middle Ground.
Why are you trying to pretend this is all something else?
Crouch’s past posts appear to accept non 112 6th functional claiming as a matter beyond questioning.
What are you talking about? Do you understand the issue here?
Nobody has ever disputed (except in “anon”‘s bizarr0 world brain) that you can use functional language in a claim and that you can use means-plus language in a claim. The issue is functional claiming at the point of novelty without any corresponding “structure”* in the specification. That was never authorized by Congress, and I’m not aware of Dennis ever trying to promote otherwise. What posts are you referring to?
*the CAFC, of course, has elevated non-structure to fake “structure” status as part of its back-breaking effort to coddle s0ftware patentees
“What are you talking about? Do you understand the issue here?”
You stopped short in your reading, Malcolm, as I provided the answer: Prof. Crouch’s coined term of Vast Middle Ground.
How have you forgotten already?
The use of functional terms outside of 112(f) is fully recognized (except for the PURELY functional elements).
…and it is unclear exactly how you are attempting to use “Point of Novelty.”
Please clarify.
…and yet again, no answer (note: answer, not the meaningless “response” that Malcolm often provides).
“Go figure Folks”
The Court was explicit in the post-1952 world that Morse was not a 112 case…
The Court was explicit in the post-1952 world that Morse was not a 112 case…
That’s right, because Morse explicitly argued that he was entitled to all manner of achieving the function, hence 101. Compare that with, for example, Wabash or Perkin’s Glue, where the argument was that the thing invented was a particular thing – a particular type of crystal or a particular type of glue – while the claim was directed to the functionality resultant from the use of those particular things. Those are 112b cases.
Again, I can’t invent the bow and describe it by the functionality of “firing projectiles” even though that is what a bow does. I can claim the particular structure of the bow. A claim to a machine that fires projectiles reads on a gun. I didn’t invent the gun, which makes it fail under 112a. But even before the gun is invented to make the 112a argument work, the fact that the gun or something like it *could conceivably be invented in the future* triggers the 101/112b dichotomy. An argument that “I invented firing projectiles” is abstract, and an argument that “My claim to firing projectiles is referring to the structure of my bow” fails to particularly point out the invention. It’s only by invoking 112f that “My claim to firing projectiles is referring to the structure of my bow” becomes a valid argument, but that has the effect of limiting the scope of the claim to exclude the gun.
You keep on making up this thing that you label “101/112b dichotomy.”
It’s not there.
Sure, if you ignore the caselaw it isn’t. So do you think that in a 101 case the majority is bringing up definiteness just for giggles, or is it because they’ve been connected before and are being connected again?
I am the one pointing out to you that the case law does not support your dichotomy, Random.
Random, you just have absolutely no clue what you are talking about–you almost never do.
If you want to change, start from the basic principles of patent law. Elements of the claim. You are little better than a jeering bully type of boy in the playground.
Except he does not even have the stature of a bully.
He is more like the bully’s toady.
But seriously though, “enhancing” data, as Prof Crouch states, could constitute adding one field of data to another field of data, i.e. Exactly what Digitech was.
So the question is if doing it “in a distributed fashion” constitutes significantly more such that one can break it from the Digitech holding of ineligibility. In order to conclude that distributed processing was unconventional, one would have to ignore the entire field of computer networking.
The earliest patent in this case was filed in 2001. Without reviewing the file history, one can see it claims continuation in part priority to 1999. You don’t really need expertise in the computer networking realm to know computer networking and thus “processing…in a distributed fashion” was conventional in 1999. America Online sent out all those CDs and transitioned to a monthly fee service in 1996, and it was doing hourly for years before that, and it wasn’t even the first *commercial* distributed processing and data storage system. You don’t even need an engineering degree for this one, you just had to be alive and have a physical mailbox sometime in the 90s.
Seriously, DARPAnet was active in the 70s and allowed for processing in a distributed fashion.
What am I missing here? Does anyone actually think this case was correctly decided?
What am I missing here?
Nothing.
Does anyone actually think this case was correctly decided?
Thinking is such an iron age thing. This is the computer age. Greg told us that computers could be doing our lawyering for us within 20 years.
But software isn’t logic! Nope. And logic is totally eligible for patenting. It’s right there in the statute.
And Steve Bannon isn’t a white nationalist dirtb@g, and Trump loves everybody. I read it on the Internets!
Wow – Malcolm being an arse appears to be an automatic entry on any thread…
(much like a virus)
Like I said, “anon”: this isn’t going to stop. I’m not going to be the guy who sits back and watches the most disgusting l0wlifes in the world drag my country into the t0i let.
Dennis can be that guy if he wants, though.
[shrugs]
You are the toilet…
Maybe if you constrain yourself to actual patent topics…
See 1.1.1.
What you are missing is that the state of the art has no bearing on the 101 question.
DARPA comes into play under 102 and 103. Not 101.
What you are missing is that the state of the art has no bearing on the 101 question.
That’s a nice statement that has no basis in law. The law requires a look into what is conventional. What is conventional requires looking at what the state of the art was. Again, a computer is clearly a machine, if recitation of the computer was sufficient to render it eligible, then Alice would have come out differently. Do you have an argument based upon what the law actually is?
Yes. Under 102, not 101.
Alice is wrong.
Alice is wrong.
So everything “on a computer” is eligible?
Because “on a computer”?
What part of Alice is “wrong”, Les? That’s a rhetorical question, by the way. Nobody cares what you think about Alice because you’ve demonstrated repeatedly over the years that you can’t follow the simplest logical propositions, nor do you have any interest in having an adult conversation about any aspect of subject matter eligibility.
All you seem to want to do is tell us that “nothing is eligible!” (because you say so) or that because you would buy it, then it should be eligible. Sorry, Les. Alice isn’t going anywhere.
MM:”All you seem to want to do is tell us that “nothing is eligible!” ”
Take a breath. That’s all YOU seem to want to do.
Among the things I want to do is to get you to understand that 101 is about categories and yes, computers fall within at least the machine category, so any claim to an invention that is a variation of a computer is patent eligible.
Of course to be grant-able, the claimed invention also has to be new and not obvious to one of ordinary skill in which ever art the invention would fall under.
<i.MM:”All you seem to want to do is tell us that “nothing is eligible!” ”
Take a breath. That’s all YOU seem to want to do.
And there we are with the path 0l0gical l ying. Gee, it never takes long.
Lol
The irony is stultifying.
MM:”Sorry, Les. Alice isn’t going anywhere.”
Well, if you really believed that, you wouldn’t be here foaming, ranting and calling people “very serious” persons.
if you really believed that
Not really a “belief”. It was a 9-0 case. How many of those get reversed within a person’s li fetime?
It’s not like there’s a shortage of ju nky “do it on a computer” claims or anything. Plus the folks who can’t stand Alice are some of the least appealing, least symp@thetic, and least intelligent patent attorneys on the planet. Congress didn’t come running to save you, in case you hadn’t noticed.
You’ve got a bit of an uphill battle, to say the least. And for what? Better bingo management? LOL “Computerized lawyers”? Double LOL
“And for what?”
At a minimum, for you to leave behind that self-appointed Field of Rye watching that you do.
Alice is wrong.
I don’t think that position will help your clients much. Run that argument up the flagpole and see how it works for you on either the fed cir or supreme level.
You are correct here Random.
But you remain astray as you do not realize that the bigger issue is the fact that the score board is broken.
“The law requires a look into what is conventional.”
Where did Congress write that?
They didn’t have to write it.
It’s common sense. You know: reason. Basic logic.
Do you want me to break it down to a kindergarten level for you again? For the thousandth time?
Just ask. I’m happy to oblige.
Or we can all pretend to be born yesterday. Up is down. Black is white. And “anon” is all about “what Congress said” and totally against what judges say. Except when he isn’t.
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
C’mon, “anon.” Just ask.
Last time I checked, statutory law has to be – you know – written by Congress in the statute.
That would be a critical thing for you as a professed attorney to know.
What you are missing is that the state of the art has no bearing on the 101 question.
That’s both absurd and false.