In theory, you are right. The question we ask the patent office is eminently philosophical and unsolvable. In practice, however, that's not important. What imp

In theory, you are right. The question we ask the patent office is eminently philosophical and unsolvable. In practice, however, that's not important. What important is the economical function the patent office has. Which is, to use granted monopolies on order to incentivice inventions. It's fine if they give us a faulty answer the the philosophical conundrum we've charged them with, as long as the faulty answer furthers this purpose. That's a more measurable stick we can use. And I think by that stick, they are currently doing a much worse job than they could.