What Inventions Are Not Obvious?

by Zoë Pollock

Expanding on earlier discussions of patent trolling online, Nilay Patel invokes the views of Thomas Jefferson:

[His] initial skepticism about patents led him to insist that patented inventions be useful and non-obvious, the foundational rules of our system. Those rules might actually solve the software patent dilemma for us if we just wait long enough: the gold rush to patent all these fundamental software technologies means that they’ll all be public domain prior art in a few years, and any obvious improvements won’t be patentable. The pendulum swings both ways.

Julian Sanchez explains how specialization only makes non-obvious patents harder to determine:

[T]he circumstances under which it is efficient to be granting fewer patents are the very circumstances under which patent examiners lose the ability to accurately judge “obviousness,” and therefore become more likely to grant more patents. No wonder it’s such a mess.

(Hat tip: The Browser)