There are three requirements on an invention to be patentable -- It "must be new, non-obvious, and useful". All three clauses are important there. The proposa

There are three requirements on an invention to be patentable -- It "must be new, non-obvious, and useful". All three clauses are important there. The proposal handles the "new" part only, and as IgorPartola suggests, it has issues. IgorPartola's argument "prior art has nothing to do with it" is still incorrect though since the "new" is still important. If the "new" part has difficulties, they can be more readily handled via litigation, provided both parties are given balanced opportunity to litigate (http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/eff_apache_software_foundation_and_microsoft_urge.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/eff_apache_software_fou...) A lot more difficult is to judge the "non-obvious" part. Many patents that should not have been issued fall in this category and would remain hard to handle even with litigation. Anyone has ideas on how to handle non-obvious part?