Friday Silliness

Yesterday, quite a few programmers with sufficient Twitter accounts but insufficient work decided to translate songs into programming code. I can't say that I really understood many of them at all, but I did threaten to do the same with patent claims. Fellow patent attorney @filemot thought that it would be too difficult, but I disagreed.

What I did accept, however, was that it would be impossible within 140 characters. So, this being the only alternative outlet, here is a well known nursery song, expressed in the medium of a patent claim. Enjoy...

1. A method of interrogating a mammal as to the availability of natural fibres, characterised by issuing a request to the mammal, the request comprising a first portion consisting of an address to the mammal, and comprising an onomatopoeic form suited to the mammal in question, and at least one further portion expressing the natural-fibre-related query in a natural language form.

2. A method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of receiving a response from the said mammal.

3. A method according to claim 2 wherein said response includes an indicator as to a quantity of natural fibre.

4. A method according to claim 2 or claim 3 wherein said response includes an indicator as to the units in which a quantity of natural fibre can be measured.

5. A method according to any one of claims 2 to 4 wherein said response includes an indicator as to for whom at least part of a batch of the natural fibres have been pre-allocated.

6. A method according to claim 5 wherein said response include location data for at least one pre-allocatee.

7. A method according to any one of the preceding claims in which the mammal is ovine.

8. A method according to any one of the preceding claims in which the mammal is pigmented.

9. A method of interrogating a pigmented ovine mammal substantially as herein described with reference to and/or as illustrated in the accompanying figures.