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The WIPO document you linked to is not a patent. The WIPO's opinion (available on Espacenet and elsewhere) is that the claims are not novel or non-obvious. Ther

The WIPO document you linked to is not a patent. The WIPO's opinion (available on Espacenet and elsewhere) is that the claims are not novel or non-obvious. There is an associated US patent application, but the USPTO rejected the application. Looks to me like the international and US patent systems worked fine here. I see people on HN confusing patent applications and granted patents too frequently. People can write basically whatever they want to in applications, and do. I don't have time to look at the others, but you should check if patents were actually granted, and if they were, look at the "Notice of Allowance" in Patent Center to see the examiner's reasoning. In my experience, you'll usually find a small detail in the claims that the prior art lacked.

AlbertCory 3y ago
Thanks, and "searching the patent prosecution history" is a skill that you can't explain in a few seconds. Even if I went to the trouble of finding a PTO rejection based on non-patent prior art, most people wouldn't bother reading it. Or would argue about it. It IS true that non-patent art is incompletely searched by examiners the world over, but it's not the case that it isn't searched at all.
smcin 3y ago
You don't think it was an attempted abuse of the (US and worldwide) patent system that McDonald's tried to patent something that was obvious, non-novel and already being made for half a century? Seems pretty shameless. Not everyone who attempts to file a patent is an inventor. Some are nuisances, some are outright trolls. We could cite patents that were actually granted that should have failed obviousness.
- AlbertCory 3y ago
  You're arguing a different point. G*P said "only patent prior art is considered." That is clearly wrong. If you want to broaden the argument, you might want to start a new thread.
- btrettel 3y ago
  I don't like this practice at all. Patent examiners see applicants claiming things that they likely believe isn't allowable all the time. When done in bad faith it's called "inequitable conduct" [1]. Keep in mind that as an examiner, I couldn't reject them for that, so I just found prior art to reject them with. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inequitable_conduct https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inequitable_conduct

AlbertCory 3y ago

Thanks, and "searching the patent prosecution history" is a skill that you can't explain in a few seconds. Even if I went to the trouble of finding a PTO rejection based on non-patent prior art, most people wouldn't bother reading it. Or would argue about it. It IS true that non-patent art is incompletely searched by examiners the world over, but it's not the case that it isn't searched at all.

smcin 3y ago

You don't think it was an attempted abuse of the (US and worldwide) patent system that McDonald's tried to patent something that was obvious, non-novel and already being made for half a century? Seems pretty shameless. Not everyone who attempts to file a patent is an inventor. Some are nuisances, some are outright trolls. We could cite patents that were actually granted that should have failed obviousness.

AlbertCory 3y ago
You're arguing a different point. G*P said "only patent prior art is considered." That is clearly wrong. If you want to broaden the argument, you might want to start a new thread.
btrettel 3y ago
I don't like this practice at all. Patent examiners see applicants claiming things that they likely believe isn't allowable all the time. When done in bad faith it's called "inequitable conduct" [1]. Keep in mind that as an examiner, I couldn't reject them for that, so I just found prior art to reject them with. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inequitable_conduct https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inequitable_conduct