Hi guys!
After reviewing the professor's lecture slides, it is clear that non-obvious means that a "person having ordinary skills in the art wouldn't have thought of it given the plurality of prior art." Essentially stating that the idea or concept is not common knowledge or obvious to a regular person who is not an expert in the subject matter. An interesting example given in the lecture, was the idea of a glow in the dark tooth brush. This could be rejected for the reasons that it stems off of the prior art of both the glow stick and the toothbrush. However, it could also be argued that these two items come from incredibly different fields and someone who designed a toothbrush would be unlikely to combine these two items, making it a less obvious invention. In the lecture slides, the Professor also went into a real world case (the one that set the precedent for obviousness), which I found to be very helpful.
After researching obviousness a little more, here is what I found. Obviousness really is the center and heart of the United States patent system. It is a main requirement that every inventor or designer must overcome in order to convince the Patent Office that the invention is worthy of a patent in the first place. From the perspective of an infringer, obviousness is the best chance to invalidate a patent. However, it is also important that whoever submits the patent first gets priority over it.
The Patent Act of 1952 says that a patent claim must be obvious when "the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art."
In conclusion, essentially, in order for something to pass the obviousness requirement, ordinary people with ordinary skills could have not thought of the invention or idea. Although this seems fairly straight forward, I believe it is still a very complex concept since each situation must be dealt with on a case by case basis.
In conclusion, essentially, in order for something to pass the obviousness requirement, ordinary people with ordinary skills could have not thought of the invention or idea. Although this seems fairly straight forward, I believe it is still a very complex concept since each situation must be dealt with on a case by case basis.
Great work on obviousness. I like how you included the patent act of 1952. It shows that you really did your research. Overall good job.
ReplyDeleteJames,
DeleteI agree with your comment in that it was an interesting addition to include the patent act of 1952. However, I would suggest that in the future, it would be helpful for the author to receive some suggestions for videos/posts.
Hi James! Just wanted to comment on your response to Gabby's blog post. I think that a quick explanation of why you liked the 1952 Act would be really insightful for all of us - was there a specific line in the Act that resonated with you? :)
DeleteHi Gabrielle,
ReplyDeleteThanks for bringing in both the perspective of the professor in addition to your own research on patent laws. It was great to see that there was an additional historical perspective that related to the material you talked about.
Hi Gabrielle!
ReplyDeleteThis is very well written! I too thought the glow-in-the-dark toothbrush was a really good example. Citing the Patent Act also was very helpful in understanding the effect of obviousness. But out of curiousity, did you have any other examples that you could come up with? Simply because we're all familiar with the toothbrush one haha. But thats just a small comment. Good job!
Gabby!
ReplyDeleteGreat work on this post. I was very interested to read what you had to say, especially since you gave such a well rounded answer to the argument you had. Nicely done.
Great comments Kris! I agree that Gabby's post was very interesting and well-rounded. In the future, I would also like to see a critique of the blog post so that the blogger can acknowledge his/her improvement areas.
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