Plavix patent prevails in court — but at what literary cost?

Do you like dull writing?  Do you relish lifeless prose?

If so, you've come to the right place.

No, seriously.  Blawgletter imagines you tolerate tedious verbiage when it drips from the pen of a federal appellate court, whether one of the 13 intermediate ones or the inerrant-because-final one that sits at One First Street, NE, in Washington, DC.

A decision last week by the Federal Circuit illustrates for us the deadness of so much judicial word-smithing.  Sanofi-Synthelabo v. Apotex, Inc., No. 07-1438 (Fed. Cir. Dec. 12, 2008).

We focus — perhaps unfairly — on the writing judge's repetitive use of a single word and variations on it.  The unanimous opinion deploys "state", "states", "stated", "statement", and "statements" no less, on average, than once in each of the 26 pages.

Does the active verb to state so despair of equivalents and cousins?  We can think, off hand, of several — aver, allege, argue, assert, articulate, asseverate, avouch, avow, cite, claim, clamor, complain, contend, contest, declaim, declare, demand, dictate, insist, maintain, mention, posit, present, propose, say, suggest, and — our favorite — yammer.

Liven it up, we say.  Let not power beget literary poverty.  A splash of color embiggens the smallest opinion.

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