From ramon@jl1.quim.ucm.es  Tue May  8 17:54:45 2001
From: ramon@jl1.quim.ucm.es (Ram'on Garc'ia Fern'andez)
Date: Tue, 8 May 2001 18:54:45 +0200
Subject: [Patents] consultation questions
In-Reply-To: <B71DEEC9.18BD%pb@breese.fr>; from pb@breese.fr on Tue, May 08, 2001 at 06:43:21PM +0200
References: <20010508183901.B26826@jl1.quim.ucm.es> <B71DEEC9.18BD%pb@breese.fr>
Message-ID: <20010508185445.D26826@jl1.quim.ucm.es>

I am putting here two postings of Pierre Breese.

>From posting 1 (legal definition of obvious):
> See the "examiners directives" concerning the "problem solution approach" :
> 1 - identifying the closest prior art document
> 2 - determining the objective problem not solved by prior art embodiment
> 3 - show the technical solution provided by the claimed invention
> 4 - verifying if the same solution to a similar "objective probleme" exist
> in prior art.

>From posting 2:
> The programmer is "the skilled man of the art". If the technical embodiment
> that solve a problem is "easy", this embodiment is obvious, in application
> of patent law...

I find the two postings contradictory. But maybe I am wrong. Futhermore,
there are other (pro-patent) lawyers that disagree with Pierre that something
"easy" for a programmer is not patentable. For example, from 
http://www.softwarelaw.com/Obvious.html (now dismantled):

   Obvious Software Patents

   [...]

   Non-obvious means that if two or more references (such as patents) are
   used in combination to show that the elements of the claim are not
   new, that there is not a teaching, suggestion or motivation in those
   references to combine the patents.  Because combining known elements
   is the essence of invention, if there is no teaching to combine
   elements, the combination is not obvious, and therefore there is an
   invention.
   Please note that the standards are fairly objective.  This is to keep
   examiners from rejecting claims because the claim offends the
   examiners own personal common sense.

The last paragraph clearly states that even if the examiner feels that
the filed patent is "easy" according to his common sense, that does not
make it "obvious".

Ramon


