USPTO Decides To Lower Obviousness Standards

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.'"

Comments

first post

[slick7]

first post...HA...how obvious is that?

This is NOT true of _all_ bureaucracies.

[Anonymous Coward]

Climate Scientists and the IPCC are immune to this sort of regulatory capture, moral hazard, mis-aligned incentive driven corruption.

This is true for government agencies, churches, schools, the FED, the bean counters and legal at your company, hospitals, reporters, it's true in all facets of human life, but if you suggest these same forces happened naturally at the IPCC or by climate scientists, then you're modded down as a conservatard anti-science denier.

Abolish patents.

[unity100]

this is the solution of this problem. there were fools who were still defending the system with various excuses. but see, it gets worse everyday.

and no. it being a bureaucracy or controlled by government doesnt matter. private or public, SOMEone will have to control and grant patents. and, it will eventually end up like this. in fact, if it was private, the situation would be much worse by now, since private corporations are easily dominated by their relevant interest parties, as we have seen from the financial rating agencies' role in wall street scam.

Well FINALLY

[Arancaytar]

There are far too few idiotic patents submitted nowadays. These elitist barriers of entry have to stop!

Can't see how it will make any difference...

[russotto]

It's not like they weren't ALREADY rubber-stamping approval of patents which e.g. apply a known technique to improve similar products. This just formalizes their actual practice.