Hurray for the judge. Of course, as a consequence, contracts will now see additional paragraphs bolted onto them explicitating in details the meanings of the work "or" and "application".

Also, injecting lanthanoids into fuel? Aren't these like, radioactive?

Especially when it's done by immensely rich global companies with highly paid legal departments...

the world first laughed its socks off at the inappriateness of the Google Chrome EULA.

(Apologies to everyone else posting on the same meme).

I've seen technical requirement specifications with similar problems to those described in this article. They were usually cobbled together by managers and had a quick polish from marketing types. I shudder to think what can happen to a document after a lawyer gets hold of it.

In all cases, any important documentation should be reviewed by someone who is not involved in the project and maybe doesn't even work for the companies concerned. Let's face it, if millions of pounds/dollars will be generated/spent as a result of this, you might as well put a couple more thousand in up front to get it right. What happens is that people who more or less understand the situation apply an internal mental filter to anything that isn't clear, turning it into something that fits their own internal mental model. Hence, to them, the document makes sense.

If you gave to an independent and experienced person (especially an engineer) you'd soon be asked questions like 'what does that mean?', 'what happens if X then Y, because that situation doesn't seem to be covered?' These and more embarrassing questions would flow like water.

It wont happen though because it's terrifying and embarrassing to have your work looked at and then criticised by someone who isn't afraid of you screwing up their career progress :)

...this Reg article doesn't contain any obvious grammar/spelling/jargon failures. Hooray!

I thought those were extinct.

This is exactly the same practice which cased the cockup with Google's Chrome EULA.

Incidentally the learned judge is one of the authors of that fine tome "The Modern Law of Copyright and Designs", the second edition of which is available for a very reasonable £556 on Amazon.

For some reason the first thing that popped into my mind when I read the headline was that this was going to be another Google/Chrome related article.

I'm kind of disappointed that it isn't.

Alliteration? Yes! Hyperbole Yes!! Polysemantics? Yes!!! Ambiguity? er maybe. Typos? Definitely.

But malapropism - have I even spelled it correctly?

for those who invented something useful for their company, and are asked to sign off on the legalese.

But also making it clear that drafting legal documents of nearly any kind isn't a job for amateurs, not even for lawyers without specialized experience. That's why in government circles you will find back rooms occupied by "legislative counsel", who make sure that proposed laws are drafted with due care so they mean what their proposers mean them to mean. (Except perhaps under NuLabour's smiling and beneficent regime where egalitarianism assigns such tasks to teen-aged secretaries.)

One almost wonders if the agreements drafted by managers and polished by marketing wonks (mentioned in passing by "Frank") represent the practice of law by non-lawyers....

posting on the same whatnow?

- scientific authority invents a word to describe the concept of "ideas that take off"

- no-one bar the chap in question, half a dozen journos and a dozen sad tech freaks ever use the word.

you couldn't make it up. (well, er, he did.)

ps is it "meam" when we go all phonetic?

but I'm really struggling to see how anyone could interpret A or B to possibly mean A and B?

If somebody did both, that would be more of a legal issue. Its definitely not an xor, but that would be one for the lawyers, claiming paying royalties for both, didn't fulfil the contract to pay for one or the other :)

Well, if the amateur sticks to saying how they want the agreement to work, explains the sentiment of the agreement, tries to cover all scenarios and most importantly doesn't try to sound like they're a lawyer they could well do a better job.

The law doesn't require that we use long words or their whacky terminology you know.

This also highlights the importance of standardised language, again. Cum fonetic spelin hu nos wot a contract wil meen?

It is all in the semantics

In common English A or B means A xor B

In logic A or B means A or B or (A and B)

in real English:

"you can have an apple *or* an orange" -> implies either but not both

"you cannot drive if you are drunk *or* unlicensed" -> does not imply you are legal to drive if both pissed and banned at the same time.