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Vagueness as a desired feature scope (protect as much intellectual property as possible)

Bailey, Edward P. (1996). Plain English at Work: A Guide to Business Writing and Speaking. Oxford University Press. First section of the book called Writing Clearly & Easily Page 3: By style, I mean how to write clear, readable sentences. Bazerman, Charles (1998). Emerging perspectives on the many dimensions of scientific discourse in Martin, J.R. and Veel, Robert (editors) Reading Science: Critical and Functional Perspectives of Discourses of Science. Routledge. Page 15: the role of language in the production of knowledge Dulek, Ronald E. (1991). Could you be clearer? An Examination of the Multiple Perspectives of Clarity in Beer,David F. (editor)(2003). Writing and Speaking in the Technology Professions: A practical guide. IEEE Press and John Wiley & Sons. Inc Page 30: Clarity is a favourite topic of every writing aficionado from the armchair editor to the psycholinguist. Each expert tells us: clarity is good. Page 30: Clarity is the standard of professional prose. Advocates wave, salute, line up behind, and defend it with a fervor reminiscent of the return of a victorious army. Yet despite the hoopla in its favour, including 388 articles dealing with clarity published in the last five years, the past two decades have seen few revolutionary ideas about how to achieve clarity. (los aos son desde 1986 hasta 1991) Campbel, Elaine (1995). ESL Resource Book for Engineers and Scientists. John Wiley & Sons Inc. Page 13: Clarity: The document must convey a single meaning that the reader can understand easily. Garner, Bryan A. (2001). Legal Writing in Plain English: A Text with Exercises. The University of Chicago Press. Pickett, Nell Ann & Laster, Ann A. (1996). Technical English: Writing, Reading & Speaking. Longman Page 14: In communication, clarity is of primary importance. One way to achieve clarity is to be concise. Piotrowski, Maryann V. (1991). Better Business Writing: How to give extra power and clarity to your memos, letters and reports. Judy Piatkus (Publishers) Ltd. Skwire, David & Wiener, Harvey S. (1999). Student's Book of College English: Rhetoric, Readings, Handbook. Allyn and Bacon Page 527: Writers who take seriously our 'the-more-specific-the-better' rule will find not only that their writing has more impact and meaning but also that their style as a whole their use of language has started to change significantly. Tichy, H.J. (1988). Effective Writing: for Engineers, Managers, Scientists. Wiley & Sons, Inc. Page 28: During the second reading writers should strive for clarity. The word strive is used advisedly, for clarity is not easy to attain.

Principles for all Legal Writing


According to Garner (2001) when writing any legal document the process followed is first a framing of the thoughts, then a phrasing of the sentences and finally, a choice of words. Dislikes of legal text readers: Verbosity, obscurity, clutter, failure to frame the questions, long paragraphs, repetition, too many footnotes, run-on sentences, disorganized style, unnecessary material, unclear intentions, boring writing, Latin terms, technical language, string citations, poor grammar, overstatement, hyperbole, passive voice, long decisions, boilerplate, complicated writing, longwinded philosophical discourse, stream-of-consciousness, quotations, incompleteness, witnessby-witness statement of facts, cases cited for the wrong proposition, footnotes (especially giant ones), long words, circuitous sentences, lengthiness, lack of closure, convoluted writing, spelling mistakes, disjointed ideas, cuteness, unprofessional manner, unnecessary detail, dancing around the issue, uninformative writing, overuse of procedural labels, writing you have to reread, impossibly small type, chattiness, distortions of fact or law, overcontentiousness,

sentences broken up by citations, lazy writing, clearly. (Page 144) Page 35 these legalisms do not lend any precision to legal language.

Legalism
As to Bring an action against herein Inasmuch as Instant case In the event that Not less than Prior to Pursuant to Said (adjective) Same (pronoun) Subsequent to such thereafter therein sue

Plain English
About, of, by, for, in In this (agreement, etc.) Since, because Here, this case if At least before Under, by, in accordance with The, this, that It, them after That, this, those, the later In it, in them, inside

Page 37 use strong verbs or verbs with very specific meaning, avoid the passive Page 39 substitute -ion words for verbs when possible (usually more concise) Page 40 simplify wordy phrases Bloated phrase Normal expression
An adequate number of A number of A sufficient number of At the present time At the time when At this point in time During such time as During the course of For the reason that In the event that In the near future Is able to Notwithstanding the fact that On a daily basis On the grounds that Prior to Subsequent to The majority of Until such time as enough Many, several enough now when now while during because if soon can although daily because before after most until

Page 43 Avoid doublets and triplets: alienate, transfer and convey (transfer is enough) due and payable (due)

give, devise and bequeath (give) indemnify and hold harmless (indemnify) last will and testament (will) Courts must give meaning to every word reading nothing as mere surplusage Page 47 shun new flanged acronyms DeMatteis, Bob; Gibbs, Andy & Neustel, Michael (2006). The Patent Writer: How to Write Successful Patent Applications. Squaer One Publishers. 35 USC www.patentcafe.com (terminology thesaurus) www.patenthunter.com www.patentwriter.com www.uspto.gov www.european-patent-office.org/espacenet/ http://inventors.about.com/od/patentsbasics/a/PatentClaims.htm http://www.iusmentis.com/patents/claims/ http://www.carla.umn.edu/speechacts/ http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~kbach/Spch.Prag.htm To establish first-to-invent rights publish in a scientific journal. Patent Wizard (software to write patents) Types of intellectual property: Patents, Trade Secrets, Trademarks, Copyrights and Mask
Works There are no copyright laws governing patents.

Patent Benefits: Exclusive rights exclude others from making, using or selling invention. Selling or licensing the invention. Increasing the value of business to potential purchasers and lending institutions. Increasing the marketability of products covered by patents due to uniqueness. Utility Patents: protect the function of an invention, they must be new, useful and non-obvious. They last for 20 years from the date of filing 1. There are provisional applications and permanent applications. 1. process 2. machine 3. manufacture 4. composition of matter 5. method of doing business or 6. improvement of any of the above Design Patents Plant Patents: Chandler Walnut, Flavr-Savr tomato, Chandler strawberry, Camarosa Strawberry, Douglas strawberry, Selva strawberry, Madame Alfred Carriere rose (also blueberries, tulips and blackberries). Patent Scope: depends on the amount and manner in which you disclose patentable subject matter and how you claim the patentable subject matter. Patenting only one structure limits the scope (others could patent other extended attachments. Disclosing patentable subject matter: significant detail on structure, functionality and operation so that one skilled in the art will fully understand how your invention works and may construct it. The terminology should be common to people skilled in the art of your invention. You must use broad terminology. Filing Fees: affect independent claims in excess of three, claims in excess of twenty Infringement anticipated / Rapid changing technology / Funding a start-up / Market strategies ( no en este libro) Kent Bach & Robert M.H. Effective Speech Acts: banning, bidding, censuring, dubbing, enjoining ( effect an
1 The date when a properly prepared application is officially filed with the patent office. The filing date is typically the day the patent application is mailed to the USPTO if U.S. Express Mail is utilized along with a Certificate of Express Mail. Under U.S. patent laws, this is the beginning of the twenty-year term of patent protection.

institutional state of affairs) Verdictive Speech Acts: acquitting, assessing, calling (umpires and referees), certifying, convicting, grading, judging, ranking, rating, ruling ( make an official judgement as to an institutional state of affairs ) http://www.earla.umn.edu/speechacts/sp_pragmatics/home.html Books: Ballmer, Thomas T. (). Speech Act Classification: A study or Lexical Analysis of English Speech Activity verbs. Functions of Patents: Patent Claim definition (ed. NOLO)... are statements included in a patent application that describe (or recite) the structure of an invention in precise and exact terms, using a long-established formal style and precise terminology. Claims serve as a way: for the U.S. Patent Trademark office (USPTO) to determine whether an invention is patentable, and for a court to determine whether a patent has been infringed (someone has made, used, or sold a patented device without the patent owner's permission). Most patent applications contain more than one claim, each of which describes the invention from a slightly different viewpoint. Claims may be independent (standing on their own) or dependent (referring to other claims on which they depend for some of their elements). Each claim must particularly point out and distinctly claim the invention for which the patent is being sought. To this end, the USPTO requires that each claim be: stated in one unit (a sentence fragment which can and almost always does have numerous clauses and subclauses) very specific clear distinct from other claims, and consistent with the narrative description of the patent contained in the patent application. Claims may be broad or narrow in terms of the scope of the invention they address. The greater the scope of the invention defined in the claims (that is, the broader the claims), the wider the reach of the patent. Similarly, the narrower the scope of a patent claim, the more restricted the reach of the patent and the easier it is for another inventor to come up with a somewhat similar invention that does not infringe the claim. Although broad claims promise to give the inventor more protection, there is a rub: They may preclude the issuance of a patent. To qualify for a patent, an invention must be both novel (different in some way from previous inventions) and nonobvious (produce an unexpected or surprising result). The broader the claims, the more likely that they overlap with previous developments, and the novel and nonobvious. (The writing implement discussed above is a good example.) Conversely, narrower claims for an invention provide a greater chance that the invention will be considered novel and nonobvious, because the claims are less likely to overlap with previous developments. Because claims must be narrow enough to distinguish the invention from previous developments, but broad enough to provide meaningful protection, the primary goal of all patent claim drafters is to draft claims as broadly as possible, given the constraints of the state of prior knowledge or art (inventions and developments). Classification of patents: the USPTO assigns numbered classes and subclasses to inventions for the purpose of classifying issued patents and facilitating retrieval during patent search. There are 300 main classes which with the corresponding subclasses the set amounts to 66,000 separate classifications. A patents may fit into one or several of these but only one utility patent may be issued. There are three cate of inventions which can be

patented: 1. Utility patents: it has to be novel , it has to be non-obvious, and it has to be useful plus be either a process, a machine, a manufacture, software, a composition of matter, or an improvement of an existing idea. 2. Design Patents: innovative, non-functional and ornamental part of a functional manufactured article (shapes, containers, casings) 3. Plant Patents: asexually or sexually reproducing plants both novel and nonobvious. Least frequent type.
Biological inventions Carpet design Chemical inventions Clothing accessories and designs (belts, etc) computers containers Fabric design Food inventions Chemical formulas Board games, box games, and instructions Food formulas New odors (use/process) Cosmetic formulas hardware housewares jewelry Landscape design machines Internal parts machines Magic tricks or techniques Recreational gear Scientific treatises

Manufacturing process shapes Plants and plant inventions

Mechanical inventions shoes Medical accessories, devices (splints, braces Musical instrument Furniture design packaging Photographic process New ways to make sounds software Designs sporting goods Equip. sporting goods toys

cosmetics Decorative hardware Electrical inventions Electronic inventions fabric

Apart from patents the following types of legal rights protection instruments are available: Trade Secret; Copyright; Trademark; Unfair Competition Bazerman, Charles (1997). Performatives constituting value: the case of patents in Gunnarsson, Britt-Louise; Linell, Per & Nordberg, Bengt. The Construction of Professional Discourse. Longman. (pp. 42-53) Trump value. Symbolic systems depend on the creation or designation of instances of valued symbols Within these systems utterances must be recognizable as legitimate (issued in the proper form by the proper authorities who continue to put full faith and credit behind it). Sometimes the status of the symbol must be petitioned and this is done by engaging in a set of of discursive practices of application or value seeking. The methods by which individuals, events or statements obtain status or standing in the form of powerful legal symbols are well-established in formulas encased in rules. The use of any such formula can be considered a specific speech act. If the speech act meets all the requirements, then the necessary status is obtained and the utterance with the value of a symbol enters into legal play. Patens are legal statuses granted to ideas through Danet, Brenda (1977). Speech, writing and performativity: an evolutionary view of the history of constitutive ritual in Gunnarsson, Britt-Louise; Linell, Per & Nordberg, Bengt. The Construction of Professional Discourse. Longman. (pp. 13-41)

Patents (rollo Bazerman) Writing a patent has two clear goals for the writers: (1) apply for intellectual property protection and if this is granted (2) to serve as the basis for court decision in case of a potential infringement. Beyond these, patents are an alternative source of technical knowledge to specialised peer reviewed journals. Although there is no reason to believe initially that this circumstance should be taken into account by the writers of a patent, the commercial strategies of big companies include patenting technologies that they are not going to use for the moment (lack of means, lack of commercial interest, diversion strategies) The patent section which is most relevant for the fulfilment of the goals above described is the CLAIMS section. Crystallised vague elements and vagueness-related linguistic devices (Engberg & Heller, 2008)

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