> A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains.
The problem is that unless the USPTO can find the requisite publications to prove the "obvious" part above from the statute, that then knocking down the resulting issued patent in a court case can be a very expensive effort.
> On the other, you can patent "Page down button on the keyboard moves the screen down one full page (A4) instead of one screen size"
Applicant's get patents because the USPTO can't find the publications necessary to prove they do not deserve to get the patent (there's also lack of time problems that I'm ignoring at the moment).
For your premise, often the reason why "Page Down moves by 'printed page'" might get patented is the lack of any findable publication of anything stating such. The USPTO examiner's don't have the ability to just say "but this is the way it works....", they have to find some publication, somewhere, that said "this is the way it works...".
For things like "how much movement 'PageDown' means", finding publications that state "how much" is extremely difficult.
Exactly. But to "prove" it in the USPTO process, they need that "written down" item. And if it is never "written down" because it is too trivial to write down, then the USPTO' examiner's hand are very much tied.
USPTO has broadened "obvious" recently, partly because of a court ruling that held "A person of ordinary skill is also a person of ordinary creativity, not an automaton" (meaning that the total prior art doesn't need to connect every dot).
That's already there (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/35/103)
> A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains.
The problem is that unless the USPTO can find the requisite publications to prove the "obvious" part above from the statute, that then knocking down the resulting issued patent in a court case can be a very expensive effort.
> On the other, you can patent "Page down button on the keyboard moves the screen down one full page (A4) instead of one screen size"
Applicant's get patents because the USPTO can't find the publications necessary to prove they do not deserve to get the patent (there's also lack of time problems that I'm ignoring at the moment).
For your premise, often the reason why "Page Down moves by 'printed page'" might get patented is the lack of any findable publication of anything stating such. The USPTO examiner's don't have the ability to just say "but this is the way it works....", they have to find some publication, somewhere, that said "this is the way it works...".
For things like "how much movement 'PageDown' means", finding publications that state "how much" is extremely difficult.