USPTO Decides To Lower Obviousness Standards 129
ciaran_o_riordan writes "Anyone who feels that patent quality is just far too high nowadays
will be glad to hear that the USPTO has decided to ditch four of their
seven tests for obviousness. Whereas
the 2007
guidelines said that an idea is considered obvious if it consisted of
'[predictable] variations [...] based on design incentives or other
market forces' or if there was 'Use of a known technique [prior art]
to improve similar devices (methods, or products) in the same way,'
the new
guidelines do away with those tests. The classic
'teaching-suggestion-motivation' test is still there, with two others. For
software developers, silly patents
are not
the main problem, but they certainly aggravate the matter. As
described in one patent
lawyer's summary, this change will 'give applicants greater
opportunities to obtain allowance of claims.'"
I patent the "First Post" (Score:3, Funny)
Pay me!
Re:first post (Score:2, Funny)
That was the point.
Re:first post (Score:3, Funny)
first post...HA...how obvious is that?
Apparently, DevConcepts already has prior art!