Structural ambiguity and the law

Mark Liberman at Language Log covers a US Supreme Court case that may hinge on the interpretation of this part of a statute:

Except as otherwise provided in this title, whoever without authority makes, uses, offers to sell, or sells any patented invention, within the United States or imports into the United States any patented invention during the term of the patent therefor, infringes the patent.

They have a good short summary, and the discussion in the comments is worth a look too.

Nobody points out the obvious starting point, though (the comment from 'ohwilleke' comes closest): the text is structurally ambiguous, the scope relations are underdetermined by what is written, so the court will have to make a decision. Or rather, they will have to make at least two connected decisions: first, what criteria to apply (intent of executive or legislature; or the most accessible or salient or relevant disambiguation, now or when the law was promulgated; or something else) and second, what their chosen criterion or criteria imply.

Pragmatics wins at High Court

Paul Chambers' conviction for sending a message "of a menacing character" has been overturned on appeal.

Rightly so – because it was always obvious (to everyone except, amazingly, the original judge in the case, and the judge at the first appeal) that his tweet: "Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!" – was a joke.

It's a kind of irony and/or parody: his message was something like: It's crazy to say "You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!"

Various comedians were called as experts in the case, but I'm not aware that they asked any linguists to comment, which is a bit of a shame. On the other hand, here pragmatics ≈ common sense, in that the intuition is clear enough to everyone. (Except the first two judges, as I said, and they get slapped down with some force in the new judgement: "We have concluded that, on an objective assessment, the decision of the crown court that this 'tweet' constituted or included a message of a menacing character was not open to it.)

Guardian story here.