🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4513@cluster.cs.su.oz.au> 0001811496@mcimail.com (Carl Oppedahl) writes:
....
|If in "means" form, the element will be interpreted to mean 
|the structure that was given in the specification for that
|element, and its equivalents.  In the specification, then, the
|wily patent lawyer will be sure to have given all sorts of input
|devices, plus a self-serving statement that one skilled in the
|art could effortlessly name zillions of other input devices
|which, if employed, would not deviate from the spirit of the
|invention.  The set of element structures in the patent, 
|unioned with the set of equivalents thereof, will presumably
|include all the ways the would-be non-infringer would try to
|alter the input device to avoid the exact wording of the claim.

However, do remember that no matter how broadly the claims are written,
they are always implicitly read in the context of the claimed field of
invention.  Thus an ice cream maker shouldn't have to worry that a
rubber manufacturer has a rubber-making patent with broad claims,
and [probably] a computer user doesn't have to worry that a typewriter
manufacturer has secured a typewriter patent with broad typewriter-spelling-
correction claims.  The courts have been *very* negative on inventors trying
to expand their claims outside the arena of the original field of the 
granted patent.