55

## How Vague Can Your Patent Be? Vagueness Strategies in U.S. Patents 1

## Abstract

Patent claims defi  ne the protection scope of the intellectual property sought by the patent applicant or patentee. Broad claims are valuable as they can describe more expansive rights to the invention. Therefore, if these claims are too broad a potential infringer will more easily argue against them. But if the claims are too narrow the scope of protection of the intellectual property is greatly reduced. Patent claims have to be, on the one hand, determinate and precise enough and, on the other hand, as inclusive as possible. Therefore patent applicants must fi  nd a balance in the broadness of the scope defi  ned by their claims. This balance can be achieved by the choice of words with a convenient degree of semantic indeterminacy, by the choice of modifi  ers or other strategies. In fact, vagueness in patent claims is a desirable characteristic for such documents. A quantitative and qualitative analysis of a corpus of 350 U.S. patents provides a promising starting point to understand the linguistic instruments used to achieve the balance between property claim scope and precision of property description. To conclude, some issues relating vagueness and pragmatics are suggested as a line of further research.

## 1. Introduction

Bertrand Russell (1923: 84-92) 2 said that language is inherently vague. Vagueness is seen often as a problem when it comes to interpret legal language (Mellinkoff, 1963; Dascal/Wróblewsky, 1988; Kennedy, 2002; Solan, 2005). But if we approach vagueness from the point of view of the drafter of legal documents, then it becomes a useful and desirable feature (Endicott 2001, Frade 2002, Adams 2004, Butt/Castle 2006, Anesa 2007, Engberg/Heller 2008). This paper proposes, following Prampolini (1998: 98) and Williamson (1996: 86), that vagueness allows a fl  exible use of the required precision 3 to meet the communicative purposes of the U.S. patent genre. Therefore, the main goal of this document is to describe the vagueness strategies used by patent applicants to balance their commercial interests with the requirements to obtain a patent. More specifi  cally, as Myers (1996: 6) explains, the intentional marked choice of words allows referring to a range of referents instead of selecting a more specifi  c form. Therefore, Myers (1996: 6) and Quine (1963: 128) see this choice as a communication strategy and not a failure in the use of explicitness.

1 This paper is the extended version of a paper presented at the 2 nd International Conference in the 360º Series held at the Aarhus School of Business and Social Sciences. I wish to thank the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid for its partial funding of the conference attendance; Dr. Engberg for suggesting that I presented on this topic; Dr. Pierucci for her help with the bibliography; Dr. Anesa for her comments on one of the drafts; and the reviewers for their very useful comments.

2 Although, as Mark Colyvan reminds us in his 2001 paper 'Russell on Metaphysical Vagueness'(Principia, Vol 5, Nº 1-2, pp. 87-98), the debate of whether vagueness is a feature of language or a feature of the world ( ontological or metaphysical vagueness ) is still open and alive.

3 Title 37, Code of Federal Regulations §1.57.c.1 and §1.71.a-b.

* Ismael Arinas Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, E.T.S. Ingenieros Industriales Dept. Lingüística Aplicada C.T. José Gutiérrez Abascal 2 Madrid 28006, SPAIN ismael.arinas@upm.es - ismael.arinas@gmail.com

For this research, I compiled a corpus of 350 U.S. electromechanical patents 4 granted between 1999 and 2009. For the analysis of the corpus, I used the freeware Antconc 3.2.1w 5 . The corpus amounts to about 3 million tokens and 31,219 token types.

I will begin with an overview of the U.S. patent genre to provide a relevant context that explains the communicative need for vagueness and its use limitations. This overview is followed by a description of the methodology used to analyse the patent corpus. Then, I will present Manfred Pinkal's (1985/1995) taxonomy of vagueness and how this semantic trait can become a useful tool for the communicative purposes of some legal genres. I will base my corpus queries on Channell´s (1994: 42-163) classifi  cation of vague language. Channell's approach (1994: 165-194) is also used to explain the possible reasons for using vagueness in patents.

## 2. U.S. Patents and Patentability Requirements

Patents are a genre that combines features of technical and juridical texts, in other words, they are interdisciplinary in their use of language (Brugnoli, 2007: 44). Up to now more than 7.5 million have been issued and during 2009 the United States Patent and Trademark Offi  ce (USPTO) granted 191,474 6 patents (96,678 to foreign applicants). Of these, 167,349 were utility patents, 23,116 were design patents, and 1,009 were plant patents. Utility patents include processes, machines, manufactures and composition of matter. For this study, I have only considered utility patents.

Bazerman (1999: 90) sees patents as being part of a process institutionalised to obtain a property:

To create profi  t from an idea, the idea has to be transformed into an ownable piece of property assigned to an individual. The procedure for this transformation must identify an idea as an invention, establish the limits of the idea (that is, identify the size of the property), establish the period of ownership, and designate the owner […].

This property-obtention process consists of words and symbols (Bazerman, 1999: 90). Essentially, the information contained in a patent could be the same as that contained in a technical journal. But switching from writing journal articles to writing patents does not seem to be a straightforward transition (Myers 1995: 63). The discourse communities of patents and journal articles are somewhat different, so are their communicative conventions and purposes. Again, the whole process leading to a patent grant is very different from that leading to the publication of a paper. According to Myers (1995: 58), there is a dichotomy between science/discovery/knowledge and technology/invention/property which would explain why the same information can exhibit such important differences when embodied in either a journal paper or a patent.

However the patent status is only gained through the successful completion of certain acts that must go through regulatory tests within a highly developed social system. Moreover, once the regulatory agency grants the patent there are other parties (such as competitive producers) who would wish to undo the patent, limit it, or otherwise contest it - thereby making what has been determined indeterminate again, so that it might be redetermined in a way more favourable to the competitor's interests. (Bazerman 1993: 6)

A patent application containing, among other data, a legally and technically meaningful description of the property claimed is an essential step of those acts mentioned above by Bazerman. Before being granted, this application will be tested by professional examiners on its persuasiveness regarding the novelty , non-obviousness 7 and utility of the property being described (Frobert-Adamo, 2000: 161). The rules to interpret the breadth of the scope of the property claimed in the application are spelled out in section 2100 of the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) 8 .

4 They can be obtained for free from the US Patent and Trademark Offi  ce website: http://www.uspto.gov .

5 Developed by Laurence Anthony and downloadable from: http://www.antlab.sci.waseda.ac.jp/software.html

6 http://www.uspto.gov/web/offi  ces/ac/ido/oeip/taf/reports.htm

7 Known as Inventive Step in the European patent system.

8 Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) on: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offi  ces/pac/mpep/mpep.htm

Still, all this happens at the risk of losing totally or partially the grant of the property to a competitor (Bazerman, 1990: 90). Roberts (2007: 7-9) explains that a patent has to satisfy several stakeholders in the patenting process: the validity people and the infringement people .

With the validity people, Roberts refers to the patent examiners of the USPTO (pre-grant assessment), some courts, and the U.S. Re-examination Forum (post-grant assessment). Patent examiners are the fi  rst to assess a patent application and they are not concerned with the fi  nancial feasibility of a pending patent. They check that the invention meets the legal requirements to be considered patentable, that the invention is suffi  ciently described, and that this description is clear and supported. By suffi  ciently described ,  the legislation (Consolidated Rules, Title 37 Code of Federal Regulations, § 1.71 9 ) requires the description of at least one preferred embodiment of the invention in a way that enables a person skilled in the art to make it and use it. This description has to show that the invention is new and non-obvious. The courts and the U.S. Re-examination Forum use a slightly different set of criteria to assess the validity of granted patents: now there are commercial interests at stake. This post-grant validity assessment is centred on newly unearthed prior art issues (evidence questioning the novelty of the granted patent).

The infringement people class is made up by those affected commercially by a specifi  c patent. They are essentially licensees and competitors whose commercial behaviour may be controlled by the strategic issue of patents. In the words of Roberts (2007: 9), the patentees, the licensees, and the competitors are interested in 'how much does the patent cover?' The reason is that we are talking about the protection of intellectual property. The more it is protected, the greater fi  nancial potential there is for the patentees. The less scope covered, the more business opportunities that remain unclaimed and available to competitors and licensees. It is in the interest of competitors to fi  nd evidence of intellectual property trespassing (infringement of valid existing patents). Licensees are interested in discovering unclaimed patches of intellectual property so they can carry out their activities without licensing costs.

The fi  rst article of the U.S. 10 Constitution (section 8) states that inventors should be rewarded in exchange for the disclosure of their discoveries. To obtain this reward, or status as Bazerman (1993: 6) explains, the State allows for the possibility of transforming a particular idea into exclusive property. This transformation is achieved through words and symbols that identify an invention as the claimed property, establish the size of this property, determine the duration of this property, and assign it to an owner (Bazerman, 1999: 90). So by granting the status of private property to an inventive idea, the State is providing the patent applicants the right to exclude others from producing, selling, and using that property during 20 years. In this period, the patentees should be able to profi  t from the exclusive rights over their inventions. It is in the interest of the inventors to be as vague as allowed by the patent examiners and courts when it comes to defi  ne the limits of their property.

## 3. What is Meant by Vagueness

I will consider here vagueness as opposed to precision. As Adams (2005: 85) states when referring to contract drafting:

Vagueness derives from imprecision. It is to be distinguished from ambiguity, which derives from alternative inconsistent meanings. While ambiguity is always a detriment to good drafting, vagueness is a standard drafting tool. The odds are that any given contract will contain one or more vague provisions.

Arntz/Sandrini (2007: 135) and Bhatia (2005: 337) tell us that there is a tension between precision and indeterminacy in legal language. These authors explain that in specialist communication precision is crucial to avoid any form of ambiguity, but laws and statutes defi  ne general rules which must be comprehensible and adaptable to changing circumstances. Arntz/Sandrini conclude that as a result, regulations incorporate varying degrees of indeterminacy in the different legal systems, which is coherent with Bhatia's (1993: 103) description of legal language as having an allinclusive nature. The problem when interpreting these vague regulations would derive from what Kennedy (2002: 1) calls a lack of specifi  cation of the implicit standard in the lexical entries. For example, in (1) and (2) below, the implications of preferably and desirably are not defi  ned against any recognized technical standard.

9 United States Code of Federal Regulations Title 37 - Patents, Trademarks and Copyrights available on: http://www. uspto.gov/web/offi  ces/pac/mpep/consolidated\_rules.pdf

10 http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#A1Sec8

- (1) Such welds are preferably not continuous, but rather are short welds, spaced approximately one foot apart. (United States Patent 6,763,635)
- (2) The connectors desirably have a diameter of no more than 2.75 inches and, preferably , no more than 2.05 inches. (United States Patent 6,745,854)

According to Pinkal (1995: 12-15), we can distinguish between communicative underdeterminacy (when the receiver receives less information than expected in a given situation) and semantic indeterminacy (when the receiver cannot decide whether the utterance is true or false). The two concepts are compatible as they represent two views of the same problem. Pinkal further distinguishes two categories within semantic indeterminacy: ambiguity (see example 3 below) which arises when receivers require more precision to understand an utterance; and vagueness (see example 4 below) which takes place when an utterance, although imprecise, can be understood without further detail. Both ambiguity and vagueness refer to borderline concepts or words (Van Deemter, 2010: 8). Endicott (2001: 379) defi  nes these borderline concepts as 'cases in which the application of the standards of the law is subject to doubt and disagreement'.

- (3) Thus a modifi  ed tractor hitch and corresponding modifi  ed implement pinning structure solving the aforementioned problems is desired. (United States Patent 6,679,512)
- (4) The brake lining 26 is preferably made up of four (4) brake lining block segments … (United States Patent 6,169,441)

From the point of view of philosophy, Quine (1960: 127) provides a justifi  cation for the use of vagueness:

Vagueness is not incompatible with precision. As Richards has remarked, a painter with a limited palette can achieve more precise representations by thinning and combining his colors than a mosaic worker can achieve with his limited variety of tiles, and the skillful superimposing of vagueness has similar advantages over the fi  tting together of precise technical terms.

As Prampolini (1998: 97) and Williamson (1996: 85) observe, vagueness provides language with a needed fl  exibility and therefore vagueness is gradable according to the communicative needs of the document. Quine (1960: 128) specifi  cally identifi  es the relationship between vagueness and the goals of legal language:

Sentence values whose truth values hinge on vagueness usually command interest only in specialized studies, if at all, and the rulings adopted to resolve the obstructive vagueness are adopted only locally for the purposes in hand. One fertile fi  eld of illustrations is law; another is that of almanac fi  rsts.

Vagueness should not be confused with wordiness. As Mellinkoff (1963: 401) reminds us, precision does not depend on the number of words: sometimes, to be precise one needs to use many words. Examples (5), (6) and (7) illustrate an increasing level of precision but the verbosity varies independently from the vagueness degree. In (5) vagueness is the result of the generality required by a defi  nition. In (6) precision increases and wordiness decreases, but there is still a range of values that makes the statement true. Example (7) is the most precise of the three, but also the one that uses more words.

- (5) Hysteresis is a phenomenon where a measured quantity depends on the direction of a process. (U.S. Patent 6,738,220).

- (6) The inside diameter of a 5-inch casing can range from 4.5 to 4.8 inches. (U.S. Patent 6,679,341).
- (7) A 10 HP, YANMAR diesel engine 1 connected to a 115 V, 2.5 KW electric generator 2 and a belt driven positive displacement pump (CAT) 3 capable of pumping 4 gallons per minute at 3000 psi is bolted inside one end of a protective steel roll cage 43. (U.S. Patent 6,761,135).

Mellinkoff (1963: 416) makes another relevant point applicable to the context of patents: precision in the law does not imply intelligibility and sometimes, for the sake of better understanding, vagueness is more convenient. Endicott (2001: 379) provides three reasons for the convenience of vagueness:

(1) that lawmakers use vague laws because precision is not always desirable; (2) that because law is 'systemic,' enactments formulated in precise language do not always make precise laws; and (3) that law must perform functions that can only be performed by means of vague standards.

As the computational linguist Van Deemter (2010: 10) summarizes: 'sometimes vagueness is simply unavoidable, while on other occasions vagueness is actually preferable to precision'. Thus, we can argue that vagueness would not be a problem to meet the clarity requirement contained in 35 U.S.C. § 112 11 and 37 C.F.R § 1.57.c.1. Because patents share with statutes the need to adapt to future circumstances, 'they have to be future proof' (Roberts, 2007: viii), and 'the Patent Attorney has to anticipate everything that could go wrong for the next twenty years and make sure this document [the patent] covers it' (Roberts, 2007: ix). Vagueness allows, over time, to interpret, patents as covering similar and 'undreamed of inventions' at the time of the patent application (Myers, 1996: 8). The patent text must be able to defi  ne a property in several forums in the future (Myers, 1996: 8).

## 4. Motivation for Vagueness in U.S. Patents

Myers (1996: 4 and 7) explains that vagueness can have a strategic motivation and he expects patent rhetoric to rely on its use to create a persistent text and to extend academic knowledge to the legal and commercial arenas. Channell (1994: 173-188) proposes a set of motivations for being vague. I have selected from this set the following fi  ve that seem to coincide with the strategic communicative motivations in U.S. patents of 'mapping specifi  c instances onto general categories over time.' (Myers, 1996: 6):

- Giving the right amount of information : according to the second part of the Gricean maxim of quantity, the patent writers do not need to be more informative than required. This would account  for  recurring  to  vagueness  in  patent  descriptions.  Howells/Scholderer  (2008:1) assert the falsehood of the legal theory of quid pro quo which assumes that the disclosure of technical information in patents would remain hidden as a trade secret without intellectual property protection. These authors indicate that the real function of patents would be securing the  incentive  to  invent  and  develop,  because  patent  specifi  cations  identify  each  invention with respect to prior art but they do not really enable the making of the new invention. This vagueness would make the patent defensible against rival patents in court and would prevent the competitors from fi  nding patentable alternatives of the patented invention.
- Deliberately withholding information : a defensive tactic used when the patent writers consider that they have to hide some precise information. In the case of patents, one invention can be divided into several sub-inventions, thus hiding information through vagueness in one allows for multiple patents of one inventive idea.
- Using language persuasively : vague numerical expressions support the writers' argument and present data in a truthful manner. Patent descriptions are expected to be truthful within the

11 The specifi  cation shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same [...].

knowledge of the applicants:

Each individual associated with the fi  ling and prosecution of a patent application has a duty of candor and good faith in dealing with the Offi  ce, which includes a duty to disclose to the Offi  ce all information known to that individual to be material to patentability as defi  ned in this section. (Title 37, Code of Federal Regulations, § 1.56.a)

As patents deal with innovation, very precise statements have two disadvantages: they restrict the future scope of an insuffi  ciently known invention and may present the information as proven facts when it may not be the case.

- Lacking specifi  c information : when there is no certainty about the truthfulness of the statement, the speaker may choose to be vague. As the information in patent descriptions is required to be accurate to the best knowledge of the applicants, vagueness seems to be an effi  cient way to comply with this requirement.
- Self-protection : according to Channell (1994: 188) this is 'used as a safeguard against being later shown to be wrong'. As far as patents are concerned, this motivation is coherent with what has been already explained.

## 5. Corpus Description and Tools for its Analysis

The corpus used for this study is a collection of 350 utility patents downloaded from the USPTO website. The oldest patents in this corpus are from 1999 and the latest ones from 2009. To select the patents, I searched on the USPTO patent database for electromechanical terms (gear, clutch, brake, engine, coil, sensor, pyrolitic, piezoelectric etc.) and hyperonyms (substance, liquid, vehicle, method, apparatus, etc.). I randomly selected from these queries those patents that were within the 1999-2009 time bracket until I collected approximately three million tokens. Table 1 below provides the basic data that describe the characteristics of this corpus and the number of keywords selected for this study.

Table 1. Data describing the U.S. patent corpus used

| Number of documents                | 350       |
|------------------------------------|-----------|
| Number of tokens                   | 3,070,565 |
| Number of different tokens (Types) | 31,219    |
| Type/Token ratio                   | 1.016%    |
| Average tokens per document        | 8,773.04  |
| Number of Keywords used            | 300       |

I decided that instead of checking lists of vague words in legal language mentioned by other authors (Mellinkoff 1963, Tiersma 1999), I should obtain a list of keywords from my patent corpus that could have a vague meaning in U.S. patents. Obviously, once the list of keywords is available, it can be compared to previous research. Antconc 3.2.1w 12 , among other tools, offers the possibility of extracting keywords from a corpus. It allows the choice between two possible statistical measures of keyness: the Chi-squared test and the Log-likelihood test. Both tests require a reference corpus for extracting the keywords of the studied corpora. Taking the token frequencies in the reference corpus as a standard, the software calculates the expected frequency for each token of the studied corpus. It then compares the expected frequency against the real frequency found for each token of the studied corpus. If the frequency of a token is higher than the expected fre- quency, then the software assigns to this token a keyness value. According to Rayson & al. (2004: 3) and Rayson/Garside (2000: 2) the Chi-squared test is less reliable than the Log-likelihood test, so I have chosen this second test as the method for extracting the keywords from my corpus. I used the 100 million-word British National Corpus as reference corpus for the extraction. Then, I used as seeds for my corpus queries a selection of vague words from among the 300 with the highest keyness value.

12 The software used for the corpus analysis (Antconc 3.2.1w) has been developed by Professor Laurence Anthony at Waseda University, Japan. Apart from extracting the keywords, this software allowed me to detect the noun clusters mentioned in tables 6, 7, 8, and 9 below. Examples (1) through (42) were detected in the corpus with the concordance function of Antconc.

## 6. Channell's Vagueness Categories in U.S. Patents

Channell (1994: 42-73, 95-117, and 119-142) also proposes a classifi  cation of vagueness markers that can be applied to the context of U.S. patents. In this section I will start by illustrating with examples from my corpus what she denominates vague category identifi  ers (Channell, 1994: 123). I continue with examples of the use of approximators (Channell, 1994: 44). The section continues with examples of approximating quantities with non-numerical vague quantifi  ers (Channel, 1994: 95). Finally, I provide examples of how modals, adverbs and conjunctions can be used to introduce vagueness in patents.

## 6.1.  Vague Category Identifi  ers in U.S. Patents

Channell (1994: 122) defi  nes vague category identifi  ers as expressions which through their prototypicality allow the receiver to identify the set to which the expression belongs. Channell´s research focused on the use in spoken English of expressions such as 'or something, and things like that, or whatever' to transform nouns into categories. But patents, being part of a much more formal convention, achieve categorization through the use of semi-technical hyperonyms. Joan Cutting (2007: 223-225) classifi  es these expressions under three categories: Metonymical proper nouns , superordinate nouns , and general nouns .

Metonymical proper nouns are used as labels to refer to unnamed entities 13 (Cutting, 2007: 224). Superordinate nouns are general labels for referring to specifi  c members (Cutting, 2007: 224). General nouns are for Cutting (2007: 225) on the borderline between a lexical item and a personal pronoun. All these could be grouped for practical reasons under what Ivanič's calls carrier nouns (1991: 95-96) which are words carrying a context-dependent meaning attached to their dictionary meaning. He proposes a list of such nouns that can be used in academic language (1991: 96)

Ivanič's list includes nouns which are simultaneously vague enough to refer to a set of more specifi  c concepts and somewhat anaphoric as they can be used to refer to previous circumstances mentioned in the text. See examples (8) and (9):

- (8) This function determines the shape of the lower edge 16. (U.S. Patent 6.763,810).
- (9) Another problem with known zero turn tractors is related to the required weight distribution. (U.S. Patent 6,6316,07)

This list includes several vague words that you may fi  nd playing an important role in the patent section entitled Background of the Invention . Nevertheless, both the backgrounding nature and short length of this section have two consequences regarding the keyness ranking of its vocabulary in patents: (a) the vocabulary is essentially different from the rest of the patent; (b) it represents a small proportion of the total vocabulary of the corpus. Therefore, Ivanič's carrier nouns appear ranked in my keyword list below the fi  rst 300 keyword-limit used for this paper.

The length of a patent title is legally limited to a maximum of 500 characters 14 . This allows for precision while remaining concise. Nevertheless, some patent applicants, in an effort to reconcile concision and vagueness, risk both trespassing the intellectual property of others and damaging their persuasiveness in terms of novelty as the following three titles (8, 9 and 10) of real patents illustrate:

13 She gives the following example: 'How's your Chomsky' where 'Chomsky' refers to a project on professor Chomsky.

14 Consolidated Patent Rules § 1.72, paragraph (a). Title 37 - Code of Federal Regulations Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights.

- (10) Vehicle (U. S. Patent 6,588,858)
- (11) Personal watercraft (U. S. Patent 6,764,360)
- (12) Transmission (U. S. Patent 6,763,736)

Roberts (2007: 63) indicates that for U.S. patents, any part of the patent text can be used to interpret the scope of the claims, thus, vague titles cannot destroy the validity of the claims.

In other cases, the word choice of titles is a surprising combination of vague terms to describe property for which a single word term is already available:

- (13) Tornado generation method and apparatus (United States Patent 6,082,387)
- (14) Image forming apparatus (United States Patent 7,558,509)
- (15) Light scanning apparatus (United States Patent 7,557,976)

(13) corresponds to a vacuum cleaner, (14) to a printer or photocopier, and (15) to a document scanner. There are, of course, patents where the more precise version is mentioned. Nevertheless, the latter are renouncing to include under the umbrella of patent protection future and unknown applications of the invention at the time of its patenting. As Williamson (1996: 86) reminds us: 'too much precision is a bad thing even in scientifi  c language, restricting its adaptability to new evidence.'

Outside the titles, conceptual vagueness is also frequent in descriptions and claims, so let us consider the vague behavior of the following 17 terms selected from among the fi  rst 300 keywords from my corpus (table 2, ordered by keyness):

Table 2. Selected vague nouns

| Property Claimed                            | Functional Devices             | Vaguely combined elements       | Components                    |
|---------------------------------------------|--------------------------------|---------------------------------|-------------------------------|
| Invention Embodiment Fluid System Apparatus | Engine Vehicle Sensor Actuator | Assembly Mechanism Unit Housing | Portion Member Section Amount |

The words invention and embodiment collocate together in 554 occasions to introduce descriptions of the property being claimed, regardless of the type of invention being described. (See table 3 below)

Table 3. Typical collocations of embodiment with invention

<!-- image -->

| According to +   | an/the alternate + an/the alternative + an/the + another +   | embodiment of the present invention   |
|------------------|--------------------------------------------------------------|---------------------------------------|
| According to +   | one +                                                        | embodiment of the present invention   |
| According to +   | the above described +                                        | embodiment of the present invention   |
|                  | a/an [ordinal number] +                                      | embodiment of the present invention   |
|                  | a (still) further exemplary +                                | embodiment of the present invention   |
|                  | a further +                                                  | embodiment of the present invention   |
|                  | an illustrative +                                            | embodiment of the present invention   |
|                  | a predetermined +                                            | embodiment of the present invention   |
|                  | a preferred +                                                | embodiment of the present invention   |
|                  |                                                              | embodiment of the present invention   |
|                  |                                                              | embodiment of the present invention   |

Table 4 illustrates an alternative to the collocations in Table 3 where the word 'embodiment' is dropped (220 occurrences plus 165 occurrences without the adjective 'present' in the collocation) and substituted by the word 'aspect'. The other collocations of 'embodiment' tacitly imply the presence of the word combination 'the present invention' as (16) shows, so they can be seen as alternative collocations to what tables 3 and 4 exhibit.

Table 4. Collocations of aspect with invention

| According to +       | a/the [ordinal number] +   | aspect of the present invention   |
|----------------------|----------------------------|-----------------------------------|
| In accordance with + | an alternative +*          | aspect of the present invention   |
| In +                 | an +*                      | aspect of the present invention   |
|                      | still/yet another +*       | aspect of the present invention   |
| It is + 15           | a broad +                  | aspect of the present invention   |

- (16) In a preferred embodiment , the brake assembly includes an adjuster mechanism that maintains a predetermined distance between the brake drum and lining assembly. (U.S. Patent 6,169,441) 15

Both the collocations in tables 3 and 4 respond to the legal requirement of description of the best mode of  implementing a specifi  c embodiment (37 Code of Federal Regulations § 1.57.c.1 and § 1.71.b). I will only mention here one more collocation for invention that appears at the end of some patent descriptions and whose purpose is to warn that the description covers other potential embodiments of the invention not described in the patent disclosure (Table 5). (17) below is an example of one of these cautionary statements in patents.

Table 5. Cautionary collocation with invention

<!-- image -->

| This +        | invention is not limited +   | by +                       |
|---------------|------------------------------|----------------------------|
| The present + | invention is not limited +   | in this respect +          |
| The +         | invention is not limited +   | thereto.                   |
| The +         | invention is not limited +   | to the + [nominal group] + |

- (17) Thus, the present invention is not limited by the above description but is defi  ned by the appended claims.(U.S. Patent 7,557,072)

15 'It is' collocates only with those expressions in the central column which are marked with an asterisk.

Within the part of the patent that identifi  es the fi  eld of the invention we fi  nd the combination of the nouns disclosure 16 and invention with the vague expressions generally and in general .

Table 6. 55 main collocations with generally and in general

<!-- image -->

| The present disclosure relates +   | to +            |
|------------------------------------|-----------------|
| The present invention relates +    | generally to +  |
| This invention is related +        | in general to + |

Most patents are improvements of previous inventions and in these cases, according to 37 Code of Federal Regulations §1.71 (c):

- [...] the description should be confi  ned to the specifi  c improvement and to such parts as necessarily cooperate with it or as may be necessary to a complete understanding or description of it.

Therefore, vagueness inevitably results from the fact that lots of technical details can be assumed to be already known. (18) Illustrates how this vagueness is used to introduce the technical scope and novelty of one invention in the fi  rst paragraph of its 'Background' section:

- (18) An internal combustion engine is a heat engine in which the thermal energy comes from a chemical reaction within the working fl  uid . (U.S. Patent 6,758,188)

The fact that the technical concepts are further specifi  ed by creating noun groups reduces only partially the conceptual vagueness as we can see in tables 6, 7, 8, and 9. These tables display the nominal clusters obtained with Antconc using as seeds the nouns in table 2. The absolute frequencies for each of the elements in the corpus appear between parentheses.

Table 7. Vague nominal groups (I)

| Fluid (5,112)                                                                                                                                                      | System (7,110)                                                                                                                                                  | Apparatus (2,522)                                                                                     |
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Fluid pressure (699) Brake fluid (675) Hydraulic fluid (385) Fluid conduit (201) Operating fluid (180) Working fluid (139) Fluid passage (123) Flow of fluid (101) | Control system (640) Brake system (472) Braking system (262) Valve system (235) Storage system (118) Power system (108) Cooling system (104) Drive system (104) | Control apparatus (208) Lock apparatus (171) Wheel lock apparatus (154) Image forming apparatus (106) |

Table 8. Vague nominal groups (II)

| Engine (8,519)                                                                                                                                     | Vehicle (5,757)                                                                                                            | Sensor (2,045)                                                                                           | Actuator (1,739)                                                                                 |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Combustion engine (896) Internal combustion engine (715) Engine torque (168) Engine control (168) Engine rotational speed (164) Engine speed (145) | Vehicle body (314) Vehicle speed (243) Motor vehicle (184) Vehicle brake (139) Vehicle wheel (117) Vehicle wheel side (94) | Pressure sensor (166) Speed sensor (148) Temperature sensor (132) Sensor unit (126) Position sensor (97) | Adjustment actuator (118) Steering actuator (100) Electric actuator (72) Hydraulic actuator (66) |

16 Used as a synonym of invention .

Table 9. Vague nominal groups (III)

| Assembly (4,919)                                                                                                                       | Mechanism (3,538)                                                                                                                                                                             | Unit (4,455)                                                                                                                                              | Housing (3,096)                                                                                                               |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Assembly member (1,008) Carrier assembly member (777) Planet carrier assembly member (652) Gripper assembly (304) Wheel assembly (124) | Drive mechanism (262) Lock mechanism (168) Transmission mechanism (131) Mainspring mechanism (107) Driving mechanism (87) Moving mechanism (86) Supporting mechanism (77) Gear mechanism (74) | Control unit (595) Electronic unit (236) Mounted unit (213) Electronic control unit (159) Unit separators (146) Sensor unit (126) Foot-mounted unit (116) | Transmission unit (284) Half housing (128) Cylinder housing (98) Valve housing (80) Upper half housing (74) Pump housing (73) |

Table 10. Vague nominal groups (IV)

| Portion (6,355)                                                                                                                                                                                                                             | Member (8,677)                                                                                                                                              | Section (2,701)                                                                                                                                                                     | Amount (2,763)                                                                                                                |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| End portion (277) Communication portion (160) Mold portion (136) Shaft portion (136) Upper portion (124) Holding portion (112) Rear portion (110) Piezoelectric portion (107) Head portion (106) Central portion (101) Control portion (99) | Gear member (1,695) Assembly member (1,008) Sun gear member (876) Carrier assembly member (777) Ring gear member (716) Planet carrier Assembly member (652) | Cross section (231) Center section (147) Braking section (140) Boom section (91) Storing section (78) Controlling section (70) Section view (70) Driving-force storing section (69) | Air amount (149) Engine air amount (125) Amount of fuel (78) Injection amount (75) Deposit amount (69) Correction amount (64) |

Those nominal group combinations that may seem more precise, when seen in a broader context have nominal group heads that are vague category identifi  ers. In examples (19), (20), (21), and (22) the heads portions , circuit , and actuator could have been more specifi  c, but then the scope of the property would be much narrower.

- (19) Brake fl  uid pressure adjusting portions
- (20) Brake fl  uid pressure circuit
- (21) Brake fl  uid pressure control circuit
- (22) Brake fl  uid pressure control actuator

## 6.2.  Approximators in U.S. Patents

For Channell (1994: 44), approximators are expressions that designate intervals of numbers, these intervals 'increase as a function of the size of the exemplar number', and 'the nature of the items being approximated affects the length of interval for which the approximation seems appropriate'.

The World International Property Organization (WIPO) brochure WIPO Guide to Using Patent Information 17 (page 7) indicates that the claims section of patents contains legal information regarding the scope of the temporary property granted by the authorities. It would not be, therefore, outlandish to fi  nd in this section several examples of legal style with its characteristic vagueness. But the information stated in the claims has to be supported by the technical description. For that reason, some expressions in the description section repeat literally the wording found in the claims.

Obviously, due to their frequency 18 in the corpus, the forms of the indeterminate article ( a , an ) play an important role in the vague references of patents. Nevertheless, this form of vagueness is not particular of specialised texts and therefore its study here is not relevant.

Between (7,283 occurrences and ranking 82 nd in the keyword list) is used essentially to achieve spatially vague descriptions although it is also used to offer ranges of values that would make the description true. Notice how in (23) the exact position is not determined as a measurement and in (24) there is a range of values that would make the system operational.

- (23) A supercharger transmission can be disposed between the ring gear and the transmission or the output shaft downstream of the transmission. (U.S. Patent 5,890,468)
- (24) The process as claimed in claim 4, and further comprising dimensioning of the angular geometric coupling of the magnet generator (P01) with revolutions of the combustion engine such that the or at least one of the alternating voltage half waves (I, II, III) occurs at a rotary angle range between 20 and 5 degrees, preferably 10 to 15 degrees before top dead center (OT). (U.S. Patent 6,761,148)

Least (181 st  keyword and 4,654 occurrences of which 4,232 collocate with at ) is used mainly to establish an inclusive interpretation of the metes and bounds 19 of the property either by indicating that what is being described can be considered one example ('at least one', 'at least a/an', or 'at least the') or by describing parts or fragments (see the rest of examples in table 11 below).

Table 11. Most frequent collocates of at least

| At least one                                      |   2,041 |
|---------------------------------------------------|---------|
| At least a/an                                     |     210 |
| At least (a) + [cardinal/ordinal number]          |     173 |
| At least a portion of                             |      96 |
| At least about + [measurement unit or percentage] |      95 |
| At least part of / partially                      |      91 |
| At least the                                      |      79 |
| At least in part                                  |      75 |

Ranging (1,326 occurrences and 200 th keyword) collocates with the pair 'from ... to' in 1,322 occasions. Essentially these collocates present three types of ranges: amounts (25), positions (26), and applications (27). Occasionally, the words about (7 occurrences), at least about (3 occurrences), and greater than (2 occurrences) appear as reinforcements of the approximative vagueness after the preposition from .

- (25) typically ranging from perhaps about 0.2 mph to about 0.3 mph (U.S. Patent 6,763,656)
- (26) via a clearance so as to cover a region ranging from the vicinity of the upper end to the lower end vicinity of the internal door 22. (U.S. Patent 6,764,234)

17 Accessible from: http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/freepublications/en/patents/434/wipo\_pub\_l434\_03.pdf

18 As this corpus lacks POS tagging, it is not possible to determine without a manual count which of the instances of 'a' are indeterminate articles and which are marks of a section or list elements.

19 According to the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure §2173.05(a) at: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offi  ces/pac/mpep/documents/2100\_2173\_05\_a.htm

- (27) The power generator, in turn, can be used to power a number of different devices, ranging from common household appliances (e.g., hair dryer, toaster, etc.), to a heating element associated with a heating device (e.g., hot water heater, furnace, etc.). (U.S. Patent 7,503,418)

Preferably (2,552 occurrences and 71 st  keyword) and preferred (1,539 occurrences and 188 th keyword) behave differently when it comes to presenting approximations. Preferred is used to produce this type of vagueness when it collocates with range (23 co-occurrences in fi  ve fi  les of the corpus). An example of the co-occurrences of preferred and range can be seen in (28). (29) Is an example of approximation of quantities with preferably .

- (28) ...was within a preferred range of 70% or more in all Examples. (U.S. Patent 7,503,304)
- (29) ...and most preferably 85 to 98 weight percent of the solvent... (U.S. Patent 7,557,243)

On the other hand, preferably is frequently found in contexts where vagueness is achieved by approximation of quantities (see table 12 below).

Table 12. Occurrences of approximation of quantities with 'preferably'

<!-- image -->

| Preferably +   | + about (36) + at least (49)      | + [measurement]   |
|----------------|-----------------------------------|-------------------|
| Preferably +   | + from (73)                       | + [measurement]   |
| Preferably +   | + between (28)                    | + [measurement]   |
| Preferably +   | + in [a/the] range [of/from] (37) | + [measurement]   |
| Preferably +   | + [comparative] (58)              | + [measurement]   |
| Preferably +   | + within (16)                     | + [measurement]   |
| Preferably +   | Ø (179)                           | + [measurement]   |
| Preferably +   |                                   | + [measurement]   |

## 6.3.  Approximating Quantities with Non-numerical Vague Quantities in U.S. Patents

For establishing this category, Channell (1994: 95) refers to Crystal and Davy. She describes nonnumerical quantifi  ers as expressions whose truth value can be interpreted within a scale in relation to a context (Channell, 1994: 96-97). These approximators are vague quantifi  ers because they say nothing absolute about the quantities involved (Channell, 1994: 99). Within this category she identifi  es the following types: 'a + singular quantifi  er + of + noun', 'plural quantifi  er + of + noun', 'vague quantifi  er + countable noun', and 'adverbs of frequency'.

Vague quantifi  ers are not refl  ected in the list of the fi  rst 300 keywords of my corpus. This is something that could be expected because vague quantifi  ers such as a few , any , certain , every , many , most , other , several , or some are not likely to be used more in my corpus than in the reference corpus. But, the countable nouns appearing among the fi  rst 300 keywords collocate frequently with one or more of these vague quantifi  ers in my corpus.

Table 13 shows the singular quantifi  ers that appear among the fi  rst 300 keywords in my corpus. Example (30) illustrates how 'a plurality of + noun' can create a useful vagueness that provides a fl  exible interpretation of the property defi  ned which benefi  ts the interests of the patent holder.

Table 13. 'a +singular quantifi  er + of' approximators

| Aplurality of (1,652)    | Amember of (286)   |
|--------------------------|--------------------|
| Aratio of (892)          | Asection of (216)  |
| Aset of /subset of (343) | Amixture of (164)  |
| Asegment of (52)         | Asegment of (52)   |

- (30) A method as claimed in claim 1 further comprising steps of: equipping a plurality of window shutters over a plurality of operable windows of the building envelope, each window shutter functioning as the one-way venting valve permitting outward air fl ow only; and opening the windows behind the respective window shutters. (U.S. Patent 6,484,459)

Table 14 displays the second type of non-numerical approximators appearing among the fi  rst 300 keywords of the corpus, while (31), (32) and (33) exemplify again how this type of vagueness can lead to an expansive interpretation of where the metes and bounds of the claimed property are.

Table 14. Approximators with plural nouns

| portions of (273)    | components of (209)   |
|----------------------|-----------------------|
| embodiments of (305) | embodiments of (305)  |

- (31) The engine 22 includes a lubricating system for providing lubricant to the various portions of the engine. (U.S. Patent 6,763,795)
- (32) The foregoing objectives can be accomplished essentially by the addition of a ground heater hose and reel and a large water tank to the components of a pressure washer equipped with a heating system with suffi  cient capacity for use in a ground heater and preferably a positive displacement pump. (U.S. Patent 6,761,135)
- (33) In accordance with different embodiments of the invention, ... (U.S. Patent 6,484,459)

## 6.4.  Vagueness due to Lack of Interpretation Standard

Joan Cutting (2007: 224) includes in her category of vague general nouns borderline cases of verbs that are 'relatively empty semantically' but 'heavily laden pragmatically'. Among the fi  rst 300 keywords in my corpus we fi  nd two of such verbs: can (ranking as 94 th in keyness) and may (ranking 105 th ). They are vague in the sense that they open the interpretation of the patent disclosure to non-described embodiments.

The verb can is used in 10,371 occasions of which 6,383 are followed by the verb be , or in 247 cases by the combination also be . This verb collocates also in 182 occasions with adverbs such as advantageously , easily , generally , optionally , or readily . Of these collocations with vague adverbs, 65 are in the passive form. Essentially this verb is used to introduce possible modifi  cations and functions of the invention. Table 15 below lists the verbs collocating with this modal verb in my corpus.

Table 15. Selected verbal collocates of can

| Accomplished (34) Achieved (84) Added (38) Adjusted (78) Applied (48) Attached (30) Configured (46) Connected (76)   | Controlled (55) Designed (31) Determined (35) Done (31) Employed (42) Engaged (33) Generated (42) Implemented (47)   | Increased (33) Made (139) Moved (48) Obtained (105) Operated (50) Performed (77) Placed (31) Prevented (71)   | Produced (36) Provided (92) Reduced (78) Removed (44) Selected (38) Shifted (39) Suppressed (38) Used (560) Utilized (45)   |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

The verb may appears in the corpus on 7,332 occasions, 4,339 of which are followed by the verb be, or in 201 cases by the combination also be . These two collocations are followed mainly by nominal groups (237 occurrences, see examples 34, 35, and 36) and the past participles of verbs 20 (2018 occurrences) in the semantic fi  elds of result, use, position, and means of connection (see examples in table 16 below).

- (34) It is contemplated that the transmission 14 may be an electronically controlled automatic transmission, however ... (U.S. Patent 7,556,585)
- (35) The supply means may be the hydraulic pump itself, or a charge pump 31. (U.S. Patent 6,745,864)
- (36) Ball 503 may be a neodymium magnet, as described above, or may be any other permanent magnet, ... (U.S. Patent 7,557,727)

Table 16. Selected verbal collocates of may

| Result                                                                                                              | Use                                                                                                          | Position                                                                                                   | Means of connection                                                                                      |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Accomplished (12) Achieved (19) Applied (46) Configured (36) Formed (89) Implemented (31) Made (135) Performed (39) | Actuated (9) Controlled (28) Employed (57) Provided (169) Selected (33) Stored (22) Used (414) Utilized (36) | Arranged (25) Disposed (40) Introduced (10) Located (27) Mounted (37) Placed (30) Positioned (13) Set (21) | Added (38) Attached (40) Combined (19) Connected (51) Coupled (16) Engaged (10) Mounted (34) Secured (9) |

The list of keywords in my corpus also contains adverbs and adjectives that Mellinkoff (1963: 2022, 301) and Tiersma (1999: 79-82) call words with fl exible meaning or weasel words: preferably, preferred, substantially, and selectively . Adams (2004: 85-86), referring to contracts, proposes an unclear classifi  cation of these words regarding the point of view used for their interpretation: objective (independently of the interests of the parties involved) or subjective (according to the interests of one of the parties). I assume that these adjectives and adverbs lack an implicit standard to interpret precisely their pragmatic implications.

Preferably (2,552 occurrences) was mentioned in section 6.2 as a quantity approximator. It is also a convenient adverb to describe only the best mode of carrying out the invention, which is a requirement of the USPTO 21 . This adverb co-occurs in 286 occasions with past participles. Table 17 displays this collection of verbs followed by the immediate context options. These verbs can be roughly classifi  ed according to the categories shown in table 16 and that the context following these past participles is mainly related to positions and movements.

20 To these you can add 161 more occurrences of the past participles preceded by an adverb .

21 United States Code, Title 35 § 112: 'The specifi  cation […] shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.' And also Code of Federal Regulations, Title 37 § 1.57 (c)(1).

Table 17. Past participles modifi  ed by preferably

<!-- image -->

| is/are preferably +   | accomplished, actuated, adapted, added, affixed, angled, applied, arranged, assembled, attached, automated, based, biased, bolted, brazed, carried, categorised, combined, composed, comprised, conducted, configured, connected, constituted, constructed, controlled, cooled, coupled, decelerated, designed, detached, determined, disposed, dissolved, distributed, divided, edged, embodied, employed, equalized, equipped, excavated, exhausted expelled, fabricated, fed, filled, fixed, formed, generated, heated, implemented, improved, incorporated, injected, inserted, integrated, interposed, joined, limited, located, machined, maintained, manufactured, measured, modified, monitored, mounted, normalized, obtained, operated, oriented, performed, placed, positioned, pressed, produced, provided, reduced, removed, restricted, returned, rounded, routed, sealed, secured, selected, separated, sized, spaced, spliced, started, stored, subjected, substituted, supported, tapered, tilted, uncoupled, used, welded +   | about, according to, adjacent, after, along, among, and joined by, and in abutment with, as, at, based upon, basically to, below, between, by, close to, directly in, during, even in, for, from, generally, gradually, greater, in, inside, integrally, into, near, of, on, out, particularly, posteriorily, primarily, rotationally, separately, similarly, slightly, so that, substantially, such that, through, to + infinitive, to, together, toward, underneath, up, using, when, while, with, within, without   |
|-----------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

Preferred (1,561 occurrences) is also instrumental in writing descriptions that present the best mode requirement already mentioned. Its most frequent collocation with a noun is with embodiment and embodiments (880 occurrences, 56% of the total). This high frequency is expected as embodiment is  used to refer to any patented invention and many patents describe several best modes for carrying out the invention. (See table 3 for the most frequent preceding context of preferred when it collocates with embodiment ).

Substantially (1,171 occurrences and 233 rd keyword) modifi  es mainly adjectives that form part of nominal groups in this corpus. The adjectives modifi  ed by this adverb correspond to more than 40% of its collocations. The 3 main semantic fi  elds covered by these modifi  ed adjectives are shape (37), position (38), and mode of performance (39).

- (37) ... a key lock assembly that includes a substantially cylindrical canister. (U.S. Patent 6,634,195)
- (38) ... such that the leading segment 250 is substantially contiguous with a corresponding surface of the roadway. (U.S. Patent 7,503,418)
- (39) ... a retracted position in which said fi  rst gripper assembly permits substantially free relative movement between said fi  rst gripper assembly and said inner surface. (U.S. Patent 6,679,341)

The adverb substantially is preceded by 70 expressions that are related to the semantic fi  elds of movement (40), position (41), and means of connection (42).

- (40) ... it is also possible to cause the front end 29 to pivot in a substantially horizontal plane relative to the rear end 31. (U.S. Patent 7,481,604)
- (41) ... such that the transducer 36 is positioned substantially near a desired fi  nal position.. (U.S. Patent 6,295,857)

- (42) Bladder assembly 404 comprises generally rigid tube portions 416 and 417 attached to each end of a substantially tubular infl  atable engagement bladder 406. (U.S. Patent 6,745,854)

Selectively (1,066 occurrences and 190 th keyword) is used frequently to avoid being specifi  c about the method used for carrying out some function of the invention. The typical contexts in which this adverb is used seem to be the following:

- (a) [part or parts of the invention] + [is/are] + selectively + [past participle /adjective] (typical of the description sections) (374 occurrences)
- (b) [part or list of parts of the invention] + for + selectively + ['-ing' verb form] (typical of the claims section) (109 occurrences)
- (c) [part or list of parts of the invention] + to + selectively + [infi  nitive] (typical of the claims section) (88 occurrences)

It is also worth mentioning that this adverb tends to prefer the modifi  cation of verbs and deverbal adjectives within the semantic fi  eld of means of connection . Table 18 below shows the most frequent verbal and derivate adjective co-occurrences. Vaguely describing the way that elements are connected together reduces the possibilities of introducing non-obvious improvements to an invention. Therefore, the patentees increase the scope of the property covered by their patent.

Table 18. Selectively and 'means of connection' verbs and deverbal adjectives

<!-- image -->

Engberg & Heller (2008: 155-162), following Bhatia (1993: 113-118) mention the vagueness that can be achieved in regulations by the use of conditional sentences. In patents, like in regulations, conditional subordinate sentences are used to achieve all-inclusiveness while remaining precise and clear enough for the required communicative purposes (Bhatia, 1993: 117). The conjunction if introducing conditional subordinate sentences appears in 4,684 occasions in my corpus. This conjunction is used to modify the scope of the effects and functions of the inventions described, which according to Pinkal's approach to vague language has the effect of creating a lack of true value. In other words, vagueness introduces a degree of fl  exibility that makes room for several possible interpretations of the invention being described.

- (43) The dilution factor of 1000 may be varied if desired to produce a preferred concentration of catalyst in the fi  nal product. If water is used in Step 4, it is preferred to add 1 part of the substance produced to 20 parts of isopropyl alcohol and/or MTBE, which may then be added to fuel in Step 5. If water is used in Step 4 as the mixing liquid or solvent and the fuel is diesel, the product of Step 4 may be added directly to diesel fuel at a rate of 50 ppm or less. (U.S. Patent 7,503,944)

- (44) In one embodiment, the threshold value chosen represents the point when the user's foot is in the air and is on the ground for equal time periods during a complete footstep (i.e., when Tc=Ta). These threshold values may be readily calculated given that, for each complete footstep, Ts=Tc+Ta. If the user's foot is on the ground longer than it is in the air during a complete footstep, it may be determined that the user is walking. Conversely, if it is determined that the user's foot is in the air longer than it is on the ground, it may be determined that the user is running. (U.S. Patent 7,617,071)

In (43) the combination of conditional sentences with the modal may and the adjectives preferred and desired allow for adding details and optional variations to the best mode of the invention. Nevertheless, these additions are vague enough to cover more than one possible interpretation.

In (44) we have to consider that the inventors are not required to present a working model of the invention. Their description of the invention has to be persuasive in terms of the feasibility of the invention. Therefore, the combination of the verb may with the conditional sentences provides a description which is at the same time precise enough to show the invention is feasible and general enough to cover several circumstances that would make the invention feasible.

## 7. Conclusions

A short answer to the question of 'how vague can your patent be?' would be 'quite'. Unfortunately, this answer is rather vague itself. This paper has not provided a precise answer in terms of up to how much vagueness is accepted by U.S. institutions and law, but it has reviewed a range of strategies used in U.S. patent claims to deliberately achieve vagueness.

Those who have studied vagueness before from the point of view of linguistics and legal drafting, despite the different taxonomies that they use, seem to coincide in that vagueness is achieved by lack of precision. This imprecision derives mainly from using category nouns, imprecise quantifi  cation, and expressions whose interpretation cannot be based on a clearly established standard.

Channell's explanation for using vagueness is perfectly compatible in the case of the U.S. Patents with the USPTO requirements and the commercial interests of the patent applicants. Therefore a more complete answer to the initial question would be that you can be vague enough to protect your fi  nancial interests, but precise enough to meet the disclosure requirements of the patent offi  ce. In other words, vagueness can be adapted to the type of invention being patented. Of course, vagueness allows for interpretation so there might be more or less aggressive approaches to its use. There is always the risk that a patent acceptable for the USPTO is invalidated by a court on the grounds of insuffi  cient description of the novelty , non-obviousness , or differences from other existing technology.

The approach followed centred on the use of linguistic vagueness on the 300 words with the highest keyness factor according to the Log-likelyhood test. This approach detects the types of vagueness which are more frequent in patents when compared to the BNC. Nevertheless, it has the disadvantage that some frequent words used to achieve vagueness do not appear in this list as they are very common in any kind of text. An alternative approach that can solve this problem would be combining a frequency list with the keyword list.

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