Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>> Some of this stuff just gets bloody stupid.
>>
>> There's a lot of stupidity in the patent process, but it isn't 
>> anything I've ever seen talked about *here*.  People just don't 
>> understand the patent process, and think that legal terms like 
>> "obvious" have some relationship to what they mean in English, or that 
>> you can look at a patent filing and tell exactly what's covered by it 
>> without looking at the prosecution of the patent.
>>
> Hmm. Problem here is that obvious isn't a "precise" term either.

It is in the legal way it's used. That's my point. "Obvious" doesn't mean "I 
could have done that."  It means something like "each clause of the claim is 
detailed in the claim of another patent in the same or related field."

So if you want to patent an ergonomic desk for touch-screen use (one I had 
to look at), it may be obvious how to do that to a person, but it's not 
"obvious" unless someone patented a touch screen and someone else patented 
an ergonomic desk.

> has a high chance of seeing the same "obvious* solution, 

Irrelevant. You're making my point for me. You think "obvious" in 
patent-lawyer-speak means what "obvious" means in English. It doesn't.

> The relevant experts need to be questioned, not some guy behind 
> a desk with a search engine, which isn't *designed* to make such 
> assessments, just look for keywords.

As far as I understand it, whether it would be the first solution thought of 
by an expert trying to solve that particular problem has nothing to do with 
"obvious".

> Yet, because a computer follows them real damn fast, 

Also incorrect. It's because a computer is hardware. You don't patent the 
instructions. You patent a computing device that follows the instructions.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Is God willing to prevent naglams, but unable?
     Then he is not omnipotent.
   Is he able, but not willing, to prevent naglams?
     Then he is malevolent.

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