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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, June 13 2012 @ 12:40 PM EDT |
I'm pretty sure she meant that the population under consideration must be
exclusively S, thus you could only consider M that are S - meaning that all M
are S. Definitely defective cognition. ;)
I agree that you don't need to apply formal logic to the law, but legal
reasoning must still be valid (in a rhetorical sense). Just because you are in
the realm of rhetoric and not formal logic does not mean you should (or can) get
away with arguing nonsense.
You are right, lawyers do tend to resort to reasoning by analogy, which often
leads to unpredictable and ridiculous results because they use analogies when
they can't easily explain, understand, or apply the underlying reality. The law
should not (and generally doesn't) prefer an incorrect analogy over a real
understanding of the facts.
That's the part of the equation that needs to be changed wrt software patents in
the US - many members of the patent bar (and I would include the good Prof.
Risch in this category based on his responses here, even if he is not himself
conscious of it) do not want to understand the facts because their livelihoods
depend (to some degree) on not understanding them.
I share with you the hope that the US doesn't export any more of its copyright
and patent laws.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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