The Crossed Pond

He so rarely disappoints. Here he is questioning on a patent case (that probably won’t be important but has many people scared because it could bust software patents law wide open):

Scalia: You know, you mention that there are all these – these new areas that didn’t exist in the past because of modern business and what-not, but there are also areas that existed in the past that don’t exist today. Let’s take training horses. Don’t you think that – that some people, horse whisperers or others, had some, you know, some insights into the best way to train horses? And that should have been patentable on your theory.

Jakes: They might have, yes.

Scalia: Well, why didn’t anybody patent those things?

Jakes: I think our economy was based on industrial process.

Scalia: It was based on horses, for Pete’s sake.

It can’t be a great deal of fun prepping your cases for hundreds or thousands of hours, to get to the highest court in the land, and then to be laughed at.

On the other hand, they’re all lawyers. I don’t think there’ll be any weeping from the gallery.