For those of you who, like the bulk of humanity, may not be entirely up to speed on the 1930s patent jurisprudence of the United States Supreme Court or my own patent scholarship, it should not be apparent why my blog is named Verbal Variances.  So I will pretend that you care, explain, and hope that you read on.

The title of this post is a quotation form a 1934 Supreme Court patent opinion by Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo. Although most modern jurists and attorneys might prefer the more familiar and condensed phrase,”in a nutshell,” that phrase has already morphed into a URL, and the corresponding website looks a great place to buy nuts, chocolate, and dried fruits.  Also, Justice Cardozo, my law school’s namesake, penned the “verbal variances” phrase when addressing which kind of evidence should be required for rebutting the presumption that a patent is valid. Years later, Justice Cardozo’s words became key in helping me find my voice for my writings on patent law.

While most of my blog posts will concern patent law, this first post will not. Instead, it is a commentary about the ongoing gender diversity problem we have in the law, a topic about which I know little and am surely unqualified to discuss. Nonetheless, being a male who has collected some observations and is willing to pipe up on this topic, I hope you’ll humor me and read on.