Yeah it does the more I read it. It's pretty incredibly broad to the point where you have to wonder why it was even granted in the first place.
The patents I've gotten, worked on, have dealt with, were all very tight in the language. In one of my earliest ones I drafted the phrase, "including but not limited to" because that's common language in requirements and also contracts, btw.
My attorney all but slapped me. I had to list each embodiment so that there was no doubt what my claim was.
Yet, here is a post-dot-com patent, and that phrase is there:
including but not limited to.
And this is not a small point and I'm not nit-picking.
I believe that individuals and companies ought to be able to seek legal protection against infringement of their intellectual property.
However - for that to work, the definitions of the property have to be clear. Not from a nit-picking legal sense - to the patent examiner. Old school, you and your attorney searched for prior art according to enumerated claims - and then the examiner searched even more deeply, taking sometimes years just on the search.
I think when the language is broad, the examiners are limited in their search - and what isn't refuted in patents is granted.
I've been wondering how we could have gotten so many patents granted in the last decade and with that language, I can see why.
I often am involved with contracts for our company. My attorney says repeatedly, leave nothing vague, because anything vague hurts both parties later if we have to go to court.
And what are we seeing today? In my opinion, vaguely worded patents in court getting dragged out and only then cross-referenced to reality and all of the arguments that entails.
Does Android infringe on the Apple patent or was it too broad or covered by prior art?
Much of this could have been avoided - either the bad patent, the infringement if it did happen, or the protracted court battle that's apparently coming.
As who pays for this?
Taxpayers, shareholders and consumers.
In other words, everyone except the guilty parties.
That's how I see it, anyways. Your mileage may vary.