I've seen lawyers look up from reading a particularly convoluted and confusing passage and say, without a trace of irony, "This part of the claims is teaching that . . ."
Teaching, yeah right.
"Teaching" is what the patents are supposed to do. In reality, there is nearly always nothing to actually learn other than how much of, say, the act of 'breathing' the claimant is trying to do a land-grab on.
I have read many American chemistry patents. Up through the 1970s or thereabouts, they often did seem to teach things in enough detail for implementation by "a person having ordinary skill in the art." Now they usually make vague, broad claims and provide fewer, less clear examples of the invention's embodiment. I don't know what drove this drift toward uselessness.
To explain this trend I might vaguely gesture toward businesses responding to stresses as the postwar golden economic era ended, except 1) old patents from before the postwar boom (e.g. 1930s) were also useful and to-the-point and 2) academic publications also grew more bullshitty in the same approximate time frame.
Teaching, yeah right.
"Teaching" is what the patents are supposed to do. In reality, there is nearly always nothing to actually learn other than how much of, say, the act of 'breathing' the claimant is trying to do a land-grab on.