4 ms·
Firstly, your example is so ridiculous I can't see how it adds anything to the discussion. No, it would never be granted a patent, so what exactly is your point
by axman6 13y ago
Firstly, your example is so ridiculous I can't see how it adds anything to the discussion. No, it would never be granted a patent, so what exactly is your point?
Secondly, you have accurately described the patent system;
> if we're going to give you the right to exclusively profit from something, we demand to get something in return. The thing we demand is knowledge. We want to know how you did it so that after your monopoly expires, everyone can benefit from the increase in knowledge.
But you go off the rails when you confuse simple and known. The point of a patent is to disclose the invention in a clear enough way for someone else to be ablwe to perform it. Once you know the answer, it probably will seem simple. But that does not mean it's not inventive (ie, no one else has done it before, and you qwere the first to have made that knowledge available to the public).
- deong 13y agoI'm not confusing simple and known; I'm just including both in the decision as to whether something is eligible for patent protection. As the patent office is required to do (the term used in patent law is "non-obvious" rather than simple, but it's the same concept). You aren't eligible for a patent just because you did something first.
- axman6 13y agoSimple is not the same as non-obvious, so no, it's not the term used in patent law. Something is obvious if a non-inventive person skilled in the art _would_ have performed it through routine steps (at least here, some of the mosaics I see coming from the US are batshit insane and no sane person would have used them to come to same result the examiners is claiming - that said, this is a practice that is in favour of the public, it requires the applicant to reduce the scope of the claims further which leads to smaller monopolies).