Re: "Errors" in Pressman's "Patent It Yourself"

Isaac <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
John Riley wrote:
>> From: World Patentee Org. ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
>>> I just remembered that Patent It Yourself uses "etc."
>>> (9th edition, page 8/35 second paragraph from bottom) 
>>>  so your book must be wrong :-)
>> 
>> Yes, indeed. 
>
>I think reading the fist sentence containing "etc." gives
>a perfect illustration of how little word accomplishes.
>Et cetera literally means "and others" or "and other things.
>Since the sentence already lead off by saying can have other
>shapes, adding "etc." to a list of shapes that have little
>in common communicates absolutely nothing.

The symbol :-) indicates that I'm only kidding.

However, if you don't use "etc." in this sentence you would
probably need to add the word "or" to make it sound right
and you would end up with the same number of words anyway :-)

For example, you can either say "... such as A, B or C" or
"... such as A, B, C, etc."

Of course you may argue that "or" is shorter than "etc."
but Dave may say that "etc." is more effective than "or" :-)

>> When I first read Pressman's book, the author seemed so
>> confident, and his words seemed to be straight from the
>> god of patent law.
>>
>> As I learn more, I realize how subjective and fluid all
>> of this is.
>> 
>> E.g., agents no longer use "adapted to" and "whereas"
>> the way PIY tells you.
>
>I know at least one (not myself) who was recently advised
>by an examiner to use "adapted to".
>
>> What are some of the more glaring quasi-errors that you
>> find in the latest edition of PIY?
>> 
>> One candidate:  Page 8/9.
>> Pressman's recommendation notwithstanding, including the
>> entire source code or object code is almost never done.
>
>I think the most questionable part of his recommendation
>in this area is providing object code. All he really
>says about providing source code rather than providing
>flowcharts is that providing source code is easier.
>He does say that flowcharts alone are adequate.
>
>There are any number of things that Pressman suggests
>have to be done a certain way that it turns out can be
>accomplished via multiple methods.

A couple of years ago another patent attorney told me that
I should not have included a list of reference numerals in
my application (as Patent It Yourself tells us to do) and
that the PTO would probably remove it before publication.
So I mentioned this on inventored.org forum and got the
following response from Dave:

"Not true. I have prepared at least a hundred patent
application which contained a list of parts and their
ref. #s and the list has ALWAYS been included in the
patent. See, e.g., 6,124,934; 6,114,617; 6,099,463
(my last three). I only got an objection once from
a new examiner in the bureaucratic mode. He withdrew
the objection and was on my side when I stated it
would be helpful to future examiners when they search.
There never has been an application that I prepared
with a list of ref. #s which was not published in the
patent. The list is very helpful to me, my clients,
future searchers, and litigators."

I still expect "Patent It Yourself" to contain some
errors since it must be nearly impossible to write
a book like this without any error.

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