Product documentation and schematics

I'm not sure that's quite it. I thought that the patent would be invalid if somebody "competent in the art" could be reasonably expected to have thought of it (but not necessarily done it) so you'll obviously never see a patent for moving a cursor by using an xor :-) The few patents I've seen try to be as broad as possible (without going quite far enough to be thrown out as too broad) and give a few specific examples. So if you find that you can make your calculator last for years on a single sunbeam if you use Peruvian Bat Guano as the keyboard membrane, what you do is patent the use of Peruvian Bat Guano as a keyboard membrane in any way shape or form. You give an example which involves a 0.1mm layer of said Guano and claim (correctly) that it improves battery life. Since your patent covers all use of such guano, you don't bother to mention that the best guano is that collected during the summer nights, that a 0.15mm layer produces much more beneficial effects and that only the guano collected by a specific tribe doesn't smell. Of course, by the time the patent agent has finished with the application you won't find simple words like "guano" or "calculator" or "keyboard" in it anywhere at all. I always assume that if I can understand anything at all about a patent on first reading, then someone made a big mistake somewhere :-) BTW: In case bat guano (peruvian or otherwise or indeed any biological waste product [babel fish anyone?]) does prove to be useful in any form of computing device, then please remember that this message counts as publication, so you are too late to make a fortune from my ideas!!! Antonio -- --------------- Antonio Carlini arcarlini(a)iee.org