For an in-depth analysis of "obviousness" as it applies to software: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2399580 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/p

For an in-depth analysis of "obviousness" as it applies to software: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2399580 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2399580 "obvious to try" is probably what you're imagining. This is a real legal doctrine, and it's deplorably underutilized with software, as I explain. I had a patent lawyer read over this carefully, and he took particular interest in the notion that, as he put it, "software engineers have a bag of tricks they use." We all know that we do. But the legal system needs some kind of official blessing for the contents of the bag, and "our" ACM and IEEE are never going to give us one.