That reminds me of something I've always wondered. Suppose a patent has claims 1 thru 5. Does an invention have to copy all of them, or only one of them, in order to fall in the scope of the patent? What if you come along with a product that does, say, 1, 2, and 3, but not 4 or 5? Have you infringed the patent? Basically I'm asking whether the implied boolean operator combining the claims is AND or OR.

I expect you'll say what lawyers always say, which is "it depends", but it's my question and I'm sticking with it :)

You have to only infringe a single valid claim to infringe a patent. But some claims include all the limitations of other claims.

Ps i have to say that this is not legal advice and if you are asking this in relation to a real case, i strongly suggest you contact an attorney.

Heh - no real case, just general curiosity. But if you're still working in this area, you might want to put contact info in your profile. It wouldn't be surprising if someone around here made use of it.