I don't like issuing "clarifications" or "revisions" of material on this blawg. For one thing, it sort of destroys the spontaneity. For another, I try to get it right the first time (leaving aside the typos). As a recent e-mail pointed out, though, I do need to amplify one thing from a couple of days ago, when I said:

Over at Patently Obvious, there's an entry today on patent awareness for small businesses. In this legal environment, I think this advice is sound (although I'd quibble on the choice of the "right" book for nonlawyers to use as a guide).

(emphasis added) and then went on to criticize method patents. My criticism of method patents was at the theoretical and legal ethics level, not as to Mr Crouch's general comments for wise businesspeople. In the best of all possible worlds, this would not be an issue, because method patents as we have come to know and hate them would not exist. But they do; thus, a prudent businessperson will take (or at least strongly consider) the steps he outlines. Even if those steps are, objectively, ridiculous… because if there's one thing that the law does exceptionally well, it is to make the ridiculous all too routine.