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Get a Job doing Patent Law
I have to say how much I am enjoying the banter at #7 in this thread between MM and Les, including this from MM:
“there is a huge difference between “software” (the actual instructions that actually work to provide functionality in a specific operating system) and a patent claim that that purports to cover software. ”
In fact, reading MM helps me to see the legitimacy of the UK position on eligibility under the EPC, that it is preferable to do it under 101 (Art 52, EPC)than (as is done at the EPO) under 103 (Article 56, EPC).
In fact, it’s only because the EPO’s has its well-established, brusque but fair, unassailanbly even-handed and objective Problem and Solution Approach to obviousness that at the EPO eligibility can reasonably be left until the time comes to look at patentability under Art 56, EPC. In all other jurisdictions, everywhere where EPO-PSA is not understood (or indeed wilfully misunderstood) the nettle has to be grasped early, under 101 or its equivalent.
I look forward to more demolition jobs by MM. Instead of frothing at MM, if they can’t win the argument with him, they should use their mental energy to find arguments that better commend themselves to interested and intelligent bystanders whose only concern is the long term reputation of the patent system and its ongoing success in promoting progress in the useful arts.
Some readers indeed plead for MM to be banned from the site. Not me though.
“I look forward to more demolition jobs by MM”
LOL – the empty wagon clattering along in full Echo mode.
“if they can’t win the argument with him”
You ASSume a conclusion not in evidence.
“Some readers indeed plead for MM to be banned from the site.”
You misunderstand (willfully..?) the posts calling for such. It is NOT Malcolm himself to be banned, it is his violation of the (so-called) rules and his unwillingness to be inte11ectually honest on points presented. It is his nigh gleeful mischaracterizations of law, of facts, and of what others post. It is his baseless ad hominem and his number one rhetorical t001 of AccuseOthersOfThatWhichMalcomsDoes.
Your incesseant ig noring of what is actually said – expressly because you Belieb in the same ends that Malcolm does – shows that you have ZERO credibility MaxDrei.
Oh, you can be “polite” as you want to be – but such sycophantic behavior is NOT something that will advance critical thinking and better dialogue here. Just the opposite.
MM’s energy and relentlessness are admirable- I surely appreciate the effort and look forward to his deconstruction of sloppy thinkers (mine may be coming shortly!)
I don’t agree with MM on the wrongness of patenting of logic and/or algorithms. In the information age, there are intangible inventions that amount to algorithms that are deserving of patent protection.
However, the inability of Congress to make effective law and the inability of the courts to apply the Abstract Ideas exception properly means our patent system has responded terribly to the information age.
I do agree the current system is nearly half grift- probably the most expensive single racket in the history of the world. The EPO is basically no better despite MaxDrei’s assertion. The EPO’s software patents are still drafting games.
Abstraction at eligibility is a different animal than abstraction at patentaibility. Information inventions are almost impossible to examine effectively under current conditions, which thus require a far more streamlined, yet still adversarial procedure to kill grossly bad patents early in litigation.
I lay it out in detail here: link to papers.ssrn.com
Hahahaha.
I count at least twenty errors in your Abstract alone.
Maybe you should reconsider that lifetime membership at the Holiday Inn…
Anon your signal to noise ratio is infinitesimal…that paper has been well reviewed by a substantial group of lawyers and law professors…but who are they compared to your towering insight into everything…
You routinely throw out the signal and keep the noise, so your comment is rather meaningless.
As to “well reviewed“, … do you mean your silly posting the item on blogs and not seeing feedback?
Or do you mean that you actually engaged them to do a substantive review before you published? Do you stress that this was an opinion piece (your opinion) as opposed to legal writing?
I can list the items that I found in error in your Abstract if you want. I haven’t even waded through the body of the work yet (I was not impressed enough with the Abstract to continue).
“anon’ I can list the items that I found in error in your Abstract if you want.
I’d like to see the list.
LOL – lots of answers (inte11ectually honest ones) that I would like to see from you.
Martin, you write:
“…the current system is nearly half grift- probably the most expensive single racket in the history of the world. The EPO is basically no better”
Could you elaborate on your “EPO no better” assertion? I’m curious.
As to your “drafting games” comment, on what’s patentable at the EPO, do you see any parallel with the drafting games that tax lawyers play, at the interface between avoidance and evasion. I mean, if your patent attorney chooses to sail your claims close to the wind, you will inevitably experience luffs. What is it at the EPO, that goes beyond the inevitable luffing that you get when you go right to the edge of the wind? Isn’t it the job of the conscientious patent attorney to claim all he or she might be able to get for you? If so, isn’t it perverse to complain when you suffer the inevitable luffs which that zealous drafting inevitably brings about?
Or are you asserting that the wind direction at the EPO is variable, even skittish, as bad as at the USPTO, making it impossible to sail any particular line? Is that what your patent attorney tells you, or do you know it for yourself? Seriously, I’m curious.
Mr. Snyder can supply his own answer, but the scrivinings of “per se” and “as such” clearly establish that the Gist of an invention and “drafting games” is very much alive at the EPO.
As to grift, well, there are different types of that, and the annual pay of “maintenance fees” – before grant is one variety, and for another, just take a look at the leadership of the organization. One cannot go a week at the IPKat without being deluged in a level of grift that I would daresay far exceeds the USPTO (at least in its brazenness).
Or are these types of things not to be discussed in “polite” company?
Max did you read the paper?
Not yet Martin. Till now, only the Abstract. But I infer from your question that in the Paper I will find your answer to mine above. So I’ll read it. Thanks for writing it.
OK, I skimmed through the text of the Paper and see that you quote from an EPO T Decision. You suggest that the notion “technical” is not sufficient to define “abstract”. I agree.
But when it comes to EPO jurisprudence one must bear in mind that it is a Civil Law jurisdiction which has no notion of Binding Precedent. Instead, it feels its way towards an understanding of the ambit of “technical” by rolling out a carpet of Decisions, each of which borrows from earlier Decisions but only to the extent that it finds them useful and persuasive. With over a thousand such Decisions per year, it is a Darwinian evolution of the fittest line of legal reasoning (on what constitutes “technical”). Those who routinely prosecute software inventions at the EPO to Board of Appeal level do have a good feel for what will fly and what will not.
When the EPO Boards of Appeal write their Decisions, they are not trying to help define what is “abstract” so it is futile to look at them for such a definition. Do you have anything more to say, in answer to my question at 8.2.2 above? I assume not.
Thanks for taking a look Max. Sure I have something more to say.
When you write ” Those who routinely prosecute software inventions at the EPO to Board of Appeal level do have a good feel for what will fly and what will not” you encapsulate the exact problem, on both sides of the Atlantic: judges and examiners “know it when they see it”.
There is a continuum in the law between objective easy cases, and subjective subtle cases.
Information inventions derive much if their utility and economic value from the ease and speed- near infinite ease and speed- by which they are iterated and applied to different environments. That variability means that conventional examination is impractical or impossible; no examiner could find even a fraction of the applicable prior art references (within or without the patent corpus), and there will be a vast range of relationships between a given invention and the identifiable prior art, the state of the art, and perceptions of novelty and obviousness.
When you have an invention that is somewhat obvious, somewhat novel, and somewhat described, the total effect may be unpatentable, but not enough legally in any one aspect to sustain a rejection, especially at prosecution, which is only a quasi-adversarial process because the actual adversaries – those members of the pubic who will be excluded- yet to be identified.
That is where “abstraction” at patentability arises, and it happens in the US and the EPO, by whatever name you wish to call it.
A subjective judgment is inescapable for some inventions, and a high proportion of information inventions. Eligibility, on the other hand, should be as objective as humanly possible to avoid the later expense and difficulty inherent in arriving at a justiciable result of a subjective decision, which cannot be avoided in the Information Age.
Martin, I have the feeling that you are not familiar with the debate between the EPO and the UK about how to filter under the EPC for eligibility. But do correct me if I am wrong.
You see, the UK courts level against the EPO the charge of “intellectual dishonesty” when it comes to assessing eligibility. Here on these boards, MM would unhesitatingly agree while Night Writer would support the EPO’s stance.
For the EPO, any subject matter that has “technical character” is instantly eligible. If you claim “A digital data processor” it has technical character and so is eligible.
How does the EPO defend its position, so generous to the claim drafter? By asserting that eligibility is something independent of time. Subject matter absolutely is or absolutely is not within the useful arts, irrespective how far the state of the art had advanced up to the day before the filing of the patent application. Conversely, novelty and non-obviousness must be strictly judged relative to that state of the art.
Now convince me you know how the EPO Problem and Solution Approach works, Art 56 EPC, to distinguish between what’s technologically clever, as opposed to cleverness outside the ambit of the useful arts, and we can then debate further whether or not the EPO is any less subjective than the USPTO. EPO-PSA is a TSM approach, as you surely already appreciate, and TSM is a closer approach to an objective analysis of what’s obvious than any “I know it when I see it” approach, don’t you agree?
I’m certainly less aware of the nuances of the eligibility / patentability controversy in the EU than in the USA.
I have read enough cases and commentary to see that the same kinds of fundamental disagreements exist in relation to information inventions and the subjectivity of terms like “technical character” and “industrial application”
I am aware of Article 52(d), which forbids patenting of information, regardless of novelty, utility, technical character or industrial application. I think that’s not sustainable in the Information Age, just as it’s not sustainable here in the USA.
At some point, edge cases arise where patent rights bump against human rights of expression and association- those cases are more likely in an information context, and well before that threshold, there is fertile ground for rent-seeking.
I think the US understanding of anything under the sun, suitably adapted, would be superior to the current EPO understanding, but that the current EPO understanding is superior to the current situation in the US.
In both instances, to encourage innovation, information inventions that are new, non obvious, and fully described should be allowed, but inventions that result in human consumption of information should not be allowed.
In both instances, early resolution of patent litigation, esp. for low damage amounts, must be accommodated both for inventors and smaller enterprises.
Martin, you mention Art 52 of the EPC. Here is a Link:
link to epo.org
from which you can see that there is no prohibition on bare “information”. Art 52(2)(d) prohibits patenting “the presentation of information” which is more limited. And Art 52(3) constrains the prohibitions of Art 52(2) to the thing “as such” ie exceptions to eligibility must be construed narrowly.
Martin, you say that it is not sustainable, in the Information Age, to forbid the patenting of……information.
Are you serious? You think it should be possible to patent information as such? I find that hard to believe. Perhaps you want to qualify that statement?
Yes Max, I am saying patents should be allowed on information, with major limitations.
Consider this patent, invalidated under Alice, that comprises nothing more than a clever information technique. In my opinion, it should have been eligible and very likely patentable.
link to patentdocs.typepad.com
(pssst, information technique is NOT information per se)
See also post 8.2.2.1.
Note as well how the fawning obsequious doting of the echo MaxDrei to his “master” Malcolm hides some critical differences of view.
Maxdrei uses the term “inte11ectually dishonest” in his comment concerning the competing views of the UKIPO and the EPO, and seems to be on the side of the EPO (while placing Malcolm on the side of the UKIPO), but you would never be able to tell that the two have different views because “politeness” prevents any meaningful contrast to be seen between those two on these boards (and the fact that the two share a desired Ends only makes the echo chamber effect even more pronounced).
The result of the method is information- there is no new structure or change of matter, and the method itself is a manipulation of information. It’s likely a presentation of information under the EPO rules- at the least its an algorithm.
Mr. Snyder,
Manipulation of information is not presentation of information.
You really have to stop closing your eyes to these nuances and pretending that they don’t exist.
Well Max, If you think my position was demolished, I will ask this question of you, since your hereo did nothing but ignore it:
I ask again, what were the unexpected results involved in this mouse trap:
1. In an animal trap, the combination of a spring actuated jaw, an arm projecting from the latter, means for engaging said arm when the jaw is set, such means operable to disengage said arm by the lateral movement of the latter, a rockable member operable to bear against the extremity of said arm and laterally move the same, and a bait holding trigger hinged on an axis parallel to that of the jaw, the inner end of said trigger being connected with said rockable member, and rocking the latter when the front end of the trigger is depressed.
link to patents.google.com
or more recently in this one:
1. An improved trap for a mouse of the type having a baseboard, a U-shaped jaw member that is pivotally mounted on the baseboard for pivotal movement from a cocked position to a sprung position, a bait pedal that is attached to the baseboard, and a trigger mechanism that has a longitudinal axis and which is operatively attached to the bait pedal and when the U-shaped jaw member is in the cocked position thereof the trigger mechanism is operatively connected to the U-shaped jaw member, said improvement comprising the trigger mechanism allowing the U-shaped jaw member to achieve the sprung position thereof only when the trigger mechanism is rotated about the longitudinal axis thereof, wherein the improvement further comprises the bait pedal being a plate, wherein the improvement further comprises the plate having an end that is furthest away from the trigger mechanism and which is flexibly affixed to one end of the baseboard, wherein the improvement further comprises the plate having a step that is disposed under the end of the plate so as to create a space between the baseboard and a remaining portion of the plate, wherein the improvement further comprises the trigger mechanism having a tube that is affixed longitudinally at the other end of the baseboard, wherein the improvement further comprises the trigger mechanism having a rod that extends longitudinally movably and rotatably through the tube and has a proximal end that is disposed at the other end of the baseboard and a distal end that is operatively connected in the space.
link to patents.google.com
Or were these both obvious “junk patents” at their respective times?
Les I’m tempted also to ignore but as you direct your question to me personally, and as you ask so nicely, I feel obliged to respond.
Can you pin me as one who asserts that without an an “unexpected reult” a claim is not fit to issue? I hope not because that is not my position.
As you know, on the enquiry whether subject matter is obvious, I’m a fan of the EPO’s TSM Approach which toggles between technical features recitred in the claim and technical effects delivered by the claimed feature combination.
Just as it is futile to enquire whether a trademark is “descriptive” till you know what goods (or services) are named in the application for registration, so it is futile to enquire whether or not any particular claimed subject matter is “obvious” till you know what the claimed subject matter purports to achieve. Is ORLWOOLLA descriptive as a trademark? It depends whether it is in respect of awls or pullovers, I would say. Is “Molecule X” obvious? It will depend on what you can achieve with that molecule. In chemistry the unexpectedness of the performance of a molecule often determines its obviousness at the EPO. But it’s different in engineering, where results achieved by a particular combination of technical features are not expected or unexpected. That’s why I’m so unhappy when people invoke “predictable” when debating obviousness in the engineering arts. It’s not fa1r to deny patentability just because, with hindsight, the result achieved has become “predictable”.
Does that help?
“Does that help?”
No.
MaxDrei, your attempt here to draw a difference between you and Malcolm misses the point that Les starts out with: your sycophant style of echoing Malcolm and Malcolm’s so-called “demolishing” of others (at post 8).
What point do you wish to make with your adulation of Malcolm, when time and again, your “differences” simply become lost – and of no meaningful accord, because of your fawning desire “to be polite?”
So, no – your attempt is NOT helpful. DO you place yourself in the group “demolished?” Or does your attempt at being obsequious “excuse you” from that characterization?
(Plus, you yet again mistake chemistry as a non-engineering discipline – bizarre that you keep on making a distinction without a difference for that art field)
“Can you pin me as one who asserts that without an an “unexpected reult” a claim is not fit to issue? I hope not because that is not my position.”
Well Max-
Who could hang a name on you?
When you change with every new day
You indicated you shared MM’s views as expressed in thread #7… and that MM “demolish” my argument.. so….What did you mean, if not that you shared the opinion of “one who asserts that without an an “unexpected reult” a claim is not fit to issue?”
Les, decisive is the difference between a combination and a mere collocation. The former can be inventive, the latter not.
MM chooses to see that as a requirement for a result that is “unexpected “. Others might see it as a requirement for synergy. The EPO Approach avoids any such “magic word ” test because the EPO Approach works just as well for the predictable world of engineering as for the unpredictable world of experimentation in chemo/bio.
I happen to think that these are all different ways to say about obviousness something which is in the end much the same in substance. This is how I reconcile my earlier postings.
MaxDrei,
You are STILL not addressing the actual point made by Les.
ALL that you are doing is further making yourself out as an Echo by continuing to (here) say that you disagree with Malcolm, and yet – above – you are cheerleading him on and labeling his C R P as some sort of “demolishing.”
Your overweening “politeness” shows you to be a spineless fraud. That my friend is a logical conclusion based on your very own decisions on when to “speak up,” and on what you decide to “speak up” about.
Why the “celebration” of someone with whom you do not agree? A mind, open to understanding, wants to know why the dichotomy from MaxDrei?
It’s not like this (your echo) has not been raging for several years. It’s not like your echoing – and your gen eral posts show a sustained LACK of critical thinking and a mere tendency to align with those with whom you share a common desired ends.
So why MaxDrei? Why the celebration?
(ps, blandly stating that you DO have a difference does NOT reconcile that selfsame difference and your choices – I do hope that you have enough grey matter to understand that)
“Les, decisive is the difference between a combination and a mere collocation. The former can be inventive, the latter not.”
Huh? What has that to do with the “unexpected result” of the claimed mouse traps?
What Les? Everything, that’s what. A collocation delivers as result the sum of its parts, no more and no less. In contrast, a genuine new combination delivers a result that is more than the sum of its parts. MM calls that a result that’s “unexpected “. For deciding obviousness we should ask ourselves whether the state of the art predicted that result, for the collection of technical features in the claim at issue. I say: No prediction, no obviousness.
Predicted? Predictable? Reasonable to expect? Unexpected? Discuss!
“ A collocation delivers as result the sum of its parts, no more and no less
You have messed up two different concepts MaxDrei:
collection versus mere aggregation.
You have also messed up “expected (versus un-expected) and synergistic.
One can actually “expect” a synergistic effect….
The “use over time” graph for synergy is interesting….:
link to google.com
LOL –
The filter blocks the “G” word…
The “use over time” graph for synergy is interesting….:
https://www.
YY.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=define%3A%20synergy
Replace the YY with the well known search firm…
The state of the mouse trap art didn’t predict that this particular device with trap mice?
Ok…
But unfortunately, the operative would is “predictABLE” and in hindsight everything looks to be and is easily alleged to have been predictABLE.
MM would say that the mouse trap was predictable, if he dared answer the question.
Les, that each element of a collocation will do what it does (whether adjacent the other elements of the collocation or not) is predictable. That a new combination (the elements of which are busy interacting with each other) will do (in combination) what the patent application teaches that the new combination does, and in the absence of the inventor’s teaching, is not, in the same way, “predictable” from the state of the art. MM would agree, I fancy.
Do I make myself clear now?
MaxDrei,
Still – you are NOT “clear” and the dichotomy remains.
It is not that you are not being heard – it is that you are not answering the actual points here.
ILLUMINA CAMBRIDGE LTD. v. INTELLIGENT BIO-SYSTEMS, INC. (CAFC 2016)
Non-precedential decision published today affirming the Board’s refusal to enter Illumina’s proposed claim amendments (offered in the context of an inter partes proceedings).
Usually these are Rule 36 affirmations but the CAFC does a good job here of explaining Illumina’s failure to provide evidence of unexpected results that would prove the non-obviousness of its proposed claims.
Given that unexpected results are rarer than chicken’s teeth in the context of the so-called “computer arts”, this kind of failure is precisely why IPRs are so successful in getting rid of junky “do it on a computer claims” and also why applicants in those arts (who are mostly unfamiliar with the law) are so disappointed by their inability to amend their claims.
So, you’re saying that because computers exist, all software is obvious, is that correct?
Because Eniac existed, every automated method of converting speech to text is obvious. Is that correct?
Les: you’re saying that because computers exist, all software is obvious, is that correct?
No, I’m saying that because computers are really really old and because logic is even older, pretty much every software claim is obvious crxp once you get past the lawyerly scrivening (which can take anywhere from an hour to five seconds depending on how much bal0ney was shoved into the text).
Note that this conclusion doesn’t even get into the glaring ineligibility problems that plague nearly every “apply logic to data — with a computer!” claim that’s out there.
Anyway, the main point is that evidence of unexpected results is completely absent from nearly all computer-implemented junk that’s out there, and for a very good reason: there aren’t any unexpected results when your claim just recites the function that is achieved by someone else’s work.
Keep digging, guys. You’re very serious people! You’ve clearly thought a lot about all of this stuff.
How is this:
“Anyway, the main point is that evidence of unexpected results is completely absent from nearly all computer-implemented junk that’s out there, and for a very good reason: there aren’t any unexpected results when your claim just recites the function that is achieved by someone else’s work.”
not contradictory to the “No.” you began your answer with.
You seem to indicate that unexpected results are required of every invention. Your position seems to be if there are no “unexpected results” then the “so called invention” would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at what ever point the “so called invention” was made.
If that’s the case, then if follows, does it not, that all software is obvious and no invention implemented using software is every patentable?
Les: You seem to indicate that unexpected results are required of every invention.
For claimed “inventions” that are (i) combinations of functionalities or (ii) combinations of pre-existing structures, yes, evidence of unexpected results will be required. Reasonable people appreciate that “teaching away” is just another flavor of unexpected results.
I grant you that the PTO is incompetent at enforcing this reality, at least when it’s hand isn’t being held by an intelligent and articulate third party.
Les: if follows, does it not, that all software is obvious and no invention implemented using software is every patentable
You tell me. It’s your argument, after all.
Oh, and please try to step up and remember that there is a huge difference between “software” (the actual instructions that actually work to provide functionality in a specific operating system) and a patent claim that that purports to cover software. I know it’s difficult for you to keep those two concepts separate in y0ur mind but you’re going to have to learn to do it eventually. Or you can just keep cl0wning and pretending that nobody notices.
“For claimed “inventions” that are (i) combinations of functionalities or (ii) combinations of pre-existing structures, yes, evidence of unexpected results will be required. Reasonable people appreciate that “teaching away” is just another flavor of unexpected results.”
Ok, now what ruling is it that says you need unexpected results for method claims or functionally claimed apparatuses, but not when the device is claimed as a combination of new structure?
And what exactly is a new structure? Aren’t mechanical things assembled from stock components? The Wright Flyer was assembled from lumber, cloth and rope. Were there unexpected results there? Not to anyone who every watched a hawk making lazy circles in the skyyyyy there weren’t….
Les: … combination of new structure…
Les: what exactly is a new structure?
Take a deep breath, Les. When you use a term for the first time in a comment, it’s pretty much your responsibility to define it.
What was the unexpected result from the Wright Flier?
Answer the question. Don’t ignore the main point and deflect attention from it by going off on a tangent.
You referred to “combinations of pre-existing structures” and limited the ridiculous requirement to only those claims and implying that claims could be to combinations of new structures which would not have to be associated with unexpected results.
I asked YOU to explain what YOU meant.
As usual – won’t happen Les.
That’s just not on his short script.
All he will do is pull up to the next thread and recite the same things again from his short script in his drive-by monologue manner.
Happy Decade of Decadence!
“or (ii) combinations of pre-existing structures, ”
LOL – see my Big Box of pre-existing structures called protons, neutrons, and electrons.
What a chump.
pre-existing structures called protons, neutrons, and electrons.
That claim is anticipated, “anon.”
Meet the best and brightest software patent defenders, folks. They’re very serious people.
LOL,
Once again with the short script “serious” as you once again (badly) miss the point.
Malcolm being Malcolm.
Similarly, I suppose, because transistors exist, every device ever made using transistors was obvious….
Les,
Malcolm has made it a point to run away from any actual dialogue that might involve the patent concept of inherency.
I think that he realizes how ludicrous it is to think that ALL future improvements to [Old Box] are somehow (magically) “already in there.”
(of course, that does not stop his unethical actions, advocating with such a known flaw in his “legal” arguments…, you know, him having volunteered the admission against his interests of knowing and understanding the exceptions to the judicial doctrine of printed matter that provide that software – as a manufacture and machine component – is NOT how he would like to believe to be de facto ineligible)
because transistors exist, every device ever made using transistors was obvious….
Oh surely not. After all, if you combine a transistor with a button and
“assign” a function to the button, that is surely a patent-worthy “innovation.”
Everybody knows that, Les.
LOL
What are the unexpected results from this bicycle clamp for a transistor radio, I wonder:
link to patents.google.com
Why, that’s just logical.
(said in the best Spock tones)
😉
Les What are the unexpected results from this bicycle clamp for a transistor radio
Because if the PTO grants a patent, it’s non-obvious.
LOL
So…no patents for simple mechanical devices like mouse traps etc., even though they can be claimed by reciting your precious objective structure, because all mechanical things don’t have unexpected results.
Is that your position?
It’s nothing more than the absurd Flash or Oops paradigm.
Malcolm’s just too dense to even realize that.
no patents for simple mechanical devices like mouse traps
News flash: “simple mechanical mouse trap” is anticipated, Les, to the extent it isn’t indefinite. Also, in case you’re one of those born-yesterday types, people have been trapping mice with “simple mechanical devices” for millenia.
all mechanical things don’t have unexpected results.
Not even sure how to parse that one.
“simple mechanical mouse trap” is anticipated, Les
Of course it is NOW. The point is, by your pronouncement it never would have been patentable.
I ask again, what were the unexpected results:
1. In an animal trap, the combination of a spring actuated jaw, an arm projecting from the latter, means for engaging said arm when the jaw is set, such means operable to disengage said arm by the lateral movement of the latter, a rockable member operable to bear against the extremity of said arm and laterally move the same, and a bait holding trigger hinged on an axis parallel to that of the jaw, the inner end of said trigger being connected with said rockable member, and rocking the latter when the front end of the trigger is depressed.
link to patents.google.com
or more recently:
1. An improved trap for a mouse of the type having a baseboard, a U-shaped jaw member that is pivotally mounted on the baseboard for pivotal movement from a cocked position to a sprung position, a bait pedal that is attached to the baseboard, and a trigger mechanism that has a longitudinal axis and which is operatively attached to the bait pedal and when the U-shaped jaw member is in the cocked position thereof the trigger mechanism is operatively connected to the U-shaped jaw member, said improvement comprising the trigger mechanism allowing the U-shaped jaw member to achieve the sprung position thereof only when the trigger mechanism is rotated about the longitudinal axis thereof, wherein the improvement further comprises the bait pedal being a plate, wherein the improvement further comprises the plate having an end that is furthest away from the trigger mechanism and which is flexibly affixed to one end of the baseboard, wherein the improvement further comprises the plate having a step that is disposed under the end of the plate so as to create a space between the baseboard and a remaining portion of the plate, wherein the improvement further comprises the trigger mechanism having a tube that is affixed longitudinally at the other end of the baseboard, wherein the improvement further comprises the trigger mechanism having a rod that extends longitudinally movably and rotatably through the tube and has a proximal end that is disposed at the other end of the baseboard and a distal end that is operatively connected in the space.
link to patents.google.com
Or were these both obvious “junk” at the time they were invented?
Les, just reading the spec, the invention was in the specific clamp structure.
What were the unexpected results Ned? MM says all inventions must have unexpected results, else they are obvious.
Les, I think the structure of the clamp was new. This was not simply the idea of attaching a radio to a bike. I am not sure just how KSR applies to wholly new structures.
What was the unexpected result?
Is it not obvious, if you want to mount a radio to something to make a clamp shape to grip the something and shaped to grip the radio?
Wholly new? Are you saying there were no bike headlight clamps before this radio clamp?
The “Gist” of the claim is “to clamp,” this is nothing more than an abstract notion of associating two things together, which is long common and this lacks anything “significantly more” than the abstract idea.
This is the use of the gift of the Supreme Court: an unlimited “Gist/Abstract” sword.
What are the unexpected results associated with this transistor radio I wonder…
link to patents.google.com
link to arstechnica.com
A US Department of Commerce task force recommended Thursday that Congress alter the Copyright Act in a bid that likely would reduce financial damages for file sharing copyright scofflaws.
The recommendations from the agency’s Internet Policy Task Force don’t call for doing away with the maximum $150,000 in damages available to rights holders per infringement. But if Congress adopts the task force’s recommendations, it’s doubtful there would be large awards, as one of the recommendations would require juries to consider a file sharer’s ability to pay and, among other things, the actual value of the works that were infringed…..
“[W]hen the infringed work is of minimal commercial value, a lower award may be appropriate. This can help address concerns about “holders of low-value copyrights… using the threat of statutory damages to turn litigation threats into a profit center.”
Meet the improved future.