Obviousness Checking

I have discussed the importance of obviousness, what it means, and how it is checked by the examiner. I will continue that discussion by also bringing in the exact requirements and the crafting process of a patent for the obviousness check.

The following website  lists the legal requirements for a patent to be considered non-obviousness. It refers back to the patent being obvious to "one of ordinary skill in the art".

Due to subjectivity, which was discussed in the last blog, proving non-obviousness can be a difficult and demanding challenge as one must show their patent is non-obviousness and deserves the protection of patents. Therefore when applying for a patent, to not be rejected, one must know the close inventions in the field that could possibly relate through prior arts. And if they do relate, to be able to prove that the current invention is non obvious. It is important to be clear, concise, and detailed for the examiner to realize the invention is non-obvious. 

If the prior art of one previous patent does not the current invention, the examiner can combine two or more prior arts and attempt to find all of the attributes of the new invention within that combination. And if it is found, then the invention will be rejected due to being obvious.

The video below describes in general two very important criteria in getting a patent accepted and published. It does not separate by novelty and obviousness, but rather more vaguely. The two criteria in the video are "Patentable subject matter" and the second is "How different is it from things that already exist?" The first criteria refers to what types of things can be patented such as machines and processes. Ideas such as religion and items of nature cannot be patented. The second topic relates more towards novelty and obviousness. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwFzTYH4Ge0

Obviousness is King

I have posted the link below to "Obviousness is King" video. He explains how obviousness is a legal test and what must be done for a patent to be accepted and considered legal. He explains that this will often time take the longest time as the examiner must judge if there is enough innovation in the new invention. As we can see, the word enough can be interpreted in different ways. As subjectivity comes into play here, one must refer to someone of ordinary skill in the art. It still remains that due to the subjectivity, deciding whether or not a patent is obviousness can become very tricky and take quite some time.

For some reason, it did not allow me to embed this video. The link is below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4PbnA99ev4

Coat Hanger Obviousness

As mentioned in the previous blog, this video is where I got the example of the coat hanger. This example was helpful in understanding novelty in relation to obviousness. I have posted the link below if you would like to watch.

The presenter reminds us how obviousness can become subjective as different people will have different views on what's obvious and what's non-obvious. For the examiner as well, it can be difficult as well to judge whether the invention being questioned is obvious or not.

Non-Obviousness Description

This blog and the following three will be in regard to Patent Obviousness/Non-obviousness. 

Non-obviousness is one of the examination points in getting a patent approved and published. Non-obvious is in relation to other inventions that have been known in the past. The invention must contain a difference that must be non-obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the field of the invention. This basically means that the new invention is compared to the prior art and checked whether the differences between the two would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art or technology referenced.

If a matching prior art lies within two or more previous inventions, this prior art search result will be considered obvious. Once declared obvious, the patent will not be approved. However, it is still possible to overcome obviousness rejection of the invention with help of the practitioner.

A good example I thought was in a video I saw titled Novelty and Non-Obviousness. The speaker gave the example of a coat hanger of smaller size for children’s clothing. Although this could be considered a novel invention as it fits perfectly for children’s clothing, it is not novel because manufactures know they can make the hanger smaller, however have chosen upon a standardized size on which to make them.