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In my experience they never try very hard to determine obviousness. I have maybe half a dozen software patents while working at big faang type companies. The pa
by rnk 4y ago
In my experience they never try very hard to determine obviousness. I have maybe half a dozen software patents while working at big faang type companies. The patent office never rejects them no matter how abstruse, impossible to understand or obvious they are. That's a non factor in my experience.
- AlbertCory 4y ago> In my experience they never try very hard to determine obviousness With the proviso that things may have changed in the last 6 years when I haven't been working in patents: Your experience is not representative. While in Patent Litigation at Google, I looked at literally hundreds of prosecution histories, and an obviousness rejection figured in almost 100% of them. That's much more common that an anticipation rejection, i.e. ONE reference. And any lawyer will tell you that if they allow your application on the first try, you didn't ask for enough. If you tell us the numbers of the patents you worked on, I can look up the histories. Or you can, if you know that one weird trick :) (Actually, it's several weird tricks.)
- AlbertCory 4y agoI should add here that you don't see most of the "rejections," since the lawyers don't feel like explaining them. The PTO rejects; the lawyers argue & amend; the PTO rejects again making it Final. But it's not Final! You can pay for another go-around. What you think of as a "rejection" is really Abandonment. They keep rejecting, and finally the lawyers give up. They hate doing that, because they're getting paid to get you something.