[Patents] consultation questions

[ramon@jl1.quim.ucm.es (Ram'on Garc'ia Fern'andez)]

On Tue, May 08, 2001 at 06:26:37PM +0200, Pierre Breese wrote:
> le 08/05/2001 18:16, Ram'on Garc'ia Fern'andez à ramon@jl1.quim.ucm.es a
> écrit :
> > Could you explain what is obvious from the point of view of
> > a lawyer?
> > 

> 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.

So even if the patent is simple and straightforward, if nobody had the
same idea before, it is "non-obvious", right?

Perhaps the problem is that it is difficult to convince lawyers that
having the idea of how to solve a problem is generally easy for a 
programmer. The difficult and time consuming thing is to write
the programming instructions, and this step is protected by copyright.

(I use the word idea with the meaning of "I have an idea, let us have
some beer", right? It is not some abstract mental though. You can call
it method, invention if you like)

Ramon