269 The Babel Tower and the City in the Clouds

Magic was a dynamic and fluid practice. It was common for one to use different combinations and methods to achieve similar results; so, in order to govern such instances, specific rules were made — rules that Baiyi had been following in his quest to defend his rights.

One of them could be used in the situation that Baiyi faced at the moment. Normally, when a party filed a patent for their technique, they would include a clause which stated that if a second party could prove that they were, in fact, the ones who first invented the technique which was being filed for patent — and that there were reasons to believe that the party filing the patent had stolen, or copied the technique and then rushed to patent it — then the second party could sue the party filing for a patent and request for a re-examination of the technique.