From Luuk.van.Dijk@xs4all.nl  Fri Jun 29 15:19:37 2001
From: Luuk.van.Dijk@xs4all.nl (Luuk van Dijk)
Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2001 16:19:37 +0200
Subject: [Patents] are claims OR'ed or AND'ed?
Message-ID: <20010629161937.A1626@wonder>

L.S.

As a complete amateur in these matters, I'm a 
bit confused about the list of claims that accompany 
a patent. 

http://swpat.ffii.org/vreji/pikta/index.en.html says
 'Each claim defines one class of prohibited objects'
which I interpret as meaning that I am prohibited to
make and sell anything that fits claim 1 OR  that fits claim2 OR ...

However, ffii.org is not universally regarded as
a source of ultimate wisdom concerning patents, and I've
just, in a private correspondence with someone rather 
well informed, been told that subsequent claims /refine/ eachother,
so that, e.g.

 http://swpat.ffii.org/vreji/pikta/mupli/ep487110/claims.html

is not as dangerous as I thought, prohibiting all computer assisted
diagnosis, but only disallowing anything that fits /all/ claims.
Given that explanation, I find claim 1 and 3 partly redundantly formulated,
but hey, wtf am i.  

Short and clear explanation by someone with a legal degree would be
much appreciated.

Luuk van Dijk

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Mind over Matter                     lvd@mndmttr.nl
The Netherlands                tel +31 6 224 97 227
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