> In the absence of any possibility of hard evidence to the contrary, the default assumption is going to be that the invention would not be independently invent

> In the absence of any possibility of hard evidence to the contrary, the default assumption is going to be that the invention would not be independently invented or productized by someone else. Obviously if the patent office ignores the change, the change wouldn't help. That's a fairly meaningless analysis though. I am not saying the patent office should deny specifically only patents they can definitively prove will be invented in the next 15 years. I am saying they should use that as the line by which they estimate novelty. Patent applications are not like criminal cases, there need be no beyond reasonable doubt.