A FEW VERSES TO CAPTURE THE SPIRIT OF NORTH STAR'S PETITION FOR REHEARING

Thanks to co-counsel and poet-in-residence Matt Dowd who has penned the following ditty, embodying the issues in North Star’s Petition:

The Copyist’s Cloak

A shape is drawn, and then refined,
An artist’s vision, well-designed.
A patent granted. Form now shielded,
From theft, or so the law had wielded.

But bound'ries move in legal light,
Where copyists escape that right.
They tweak a curve, adjust a line,
And cry, “This shape is not like thine.”

The court then peers with narrowed frame,
And asks if diff'rence meets the claim—
Are these two forms so far apart,
That John or Janey in the mart

Would see them as the same at glance?
If yes, that ends the patent's chance.
No need to weigh the prior art,
The case ends before a start.

Yet history holds a thousand forms,
Of steps, pools, shapes, and platforms.
Prior art be gone.  The thief will win,
By hiding mimicry within.

For “sufficiently distinct” is vague,
A test that courts too oft misplague.
The mere equivalent can then slide,
While true design is cast aside.

So let us call for clearer rules,
Not tests that serve infringers’ tools.
So let prior art be the game,
To judge "substantially the same."