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| Authored by: PolR on Tuesday, May 22 2012 @ 06:54 PM EDT |
Here I am just making a nitpick on terminology.
A symbol representing a quantity is properly called a numeral. The number is the
thing denoted by the numeral.
This distinction is important when discussing the syntax and semantics of
languages, especially mathematical languages. In most other circumstances this
is pedantic nitpicking.
I think that calling a numeral a "symbolic reference" on the grounds
that numerals are symbols denoting numbers would erase the distinction between
symbolic and numeric references. This can't be right. This distinction must be
meaningful if the claim construction is to make any sense. Numerals are numeric
references, not symbolic references. So terminology nitpicking aside, you are
right when you say indexes are numeric references.
One could make an argument that when one reach a symbolic reference to be
resolved by following a series of indirections and indexes this should count as
a symbolic reference. But the answers given by the judge seem to rule out this
interpretation.
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, May 22 2012 @ 08:01 PM EDT |
> So in practice a number being used as an index is not a
>symbolic reference. IMHO, it is appalling for someone
> testifying as an expert "skilled in the art" to say
> otherwise.
What he said was that a symbolic reference can be a number. This is disingenuous
but not necessarily wrong. That is to say that a number can be a name. For
example a house may have a name 'Dunroamin' or it may have on its letter box or
door '42'. This 'number' does not mean that it is the 42nd house along the road.
It will be necessary to walk down the road looking at each door until it is
found. Granted they may be in order, such as '2', '4', 'Mon Repos', '6', '6A',
.. or '49', '48', .. depending on where, how and when names/numbers were handed
out.
However, as I understand it, Java does not actually allow a symbolic reference
to start with a number, so it can't be '1A' or '42' in Java. The patent does not
mention Java.
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