I am a lawyer. Where most people talk about lying, we lawyers tend to use the terms "fraud" and "deception". Intentionally leaving something out to give a false impression is just as much fraud and deception as saying something that is flat-out false. Lawyers that are party to such conduct can lose their right to practice law.

The only exception to that is giving an answer to a direct question that does not seek the additional information - if the question has a "yes" or "no" answer, you can give that answer without further clarification. Of course you cannot normally ask such direct ("leading") questions of your own witness.

Good to see another lawyer here. Of course we normally use the term "fraud".

Come on, I can't be the only one that has a problem with a reference to vaporising an atmosphere.

This article is a mess, so I doubt this will be heard above the noise, but I'll try anyway.

1. There is nothing new or surprising in this. Copyright covers the instructions in the code, not the functionality. While it shouldn't have needed to be stated explicitly, it does go back to the Apple look and feel suits in the late 80s.
2. As others have pointed out, copyrights and patents are not the same thing.
3. While this is a non-binding Advocate-General opinion, most of the time the ECJ adopts the Advocate-General opinion.
4. This opinion is in the "duh" category. Nothing interesting or newsworthy here whatsoever.

IAAL, but probably not your lawyer.

Then you're probably not an "inventor" of the thing, let alone "the original inventor", and are probably signing a false declaration (punishable by imprisonment) if you sign the patent as an inventor, and you have a positive obligation (even if you don't sign) to tell the PTO everything you know that might invalidate the patent. See 37 FCR 1.57 and 1.63.

Any contrary direction by your employer is unlawful and of no effect.

Given the piss-poor quality of American software patent applications, these obligations are blatantly ignored in the vast majority of applications.

At least then the software industry would be getting screwed by professionals.

Not true. Most people with a complete lack of empathy constrain their behaviour for rational reasons. In fact high-empathy people without that rational self-control can be far more dangerous to people who are not close to them, than somebody who lacks empathy.

Technically we never stop accelerating. The consequences of ceasing to accelerate, given our velocity (with respect to the point at around the centre of the earth) of around 230 metres per second at the equator, would be rather unfortunate. Even if you were standing precisely on one of the poles, bits of you would be accelerating in different directions. Then there's the roughly 15,000 metres per second with respect to the centre of the Sun. Then there's the roughly 220,000 metres per second with respect to the centre of the galaxy. Which is just one of the reasons a certain automobile manufacturer had to concede that gravity is rather important.

Google is as much into patenting stuff as anybody else. They aproached me a few years ago to join. When I told them I would only do so if I had a term in my contract saying I had no obligation to assist in obtaining any software patents, they said they could not do that because they have a policy of protecting their developments with patents. I wasn't prepared to compromise my ethcs that much, so now I'm a lawyer. The pay's lower, but at least I have my self-respect.

2. Suppliers must consider all types of available software when dealing with Australian Government agencies.