use strict;
my $str = 'John \\"John, Hello there John! \\"/ John looks back. \\"John, oh John! \\"/ Not this John';
my $regex = qr/(?:\G(?!\A)|\\"(?!\/))(?>[^"]|(?<!\\)")*?\K\bJohn\b/sp;
my $subst = 'Joe';
my $result = $str =~ s/$regex/$subst/rg;
print "The result of the substitution is' $result\n";
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for Perl, please visit: http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html