Invent Something

There are many inventors everyday who invent extraordinary things which improve our daily lives. Some invent medical instruments to relieve daily physical stresses. Others invent new forms of communication whether through phones or sites like Twitter. And others stumble upon inventions by chance such as Charles Goodyear who accidentally learned the process of vulcanization by accidentally dropping raw rubber on a hot metal surface.

Many inventors have no formal scientific training and often make their inventions through simple common sense. The need a widget that does x and y, so they build another widget with the same elements of x and y which fixes whatever need they have. For instance, if someone were to need a laser pointer and a ball point pen, but do not want to carry both in their pocket, they would simply manufacture a housing with the pen on one end and the laser pointer on the other.

Now although many of these inventions can prove to be very useful and marketable, not all are necessarily patentable. In order for an invention to be patentable it must be one of its kind. But more importantly, it must be so novel, that it is not obvious to make with respect to other known products out there. In patent law, this is referred to as “non-obviousness”.

Non-Obviousness, defined by the United States Patent and Trademark Office basically means that an inventor in a particular industry would not consider it to be common sense, or obvious to invent that product. For example, let’s say that you have a chair that does not have a seat cushion to sit on. And you figure that it would be a great idea to put some sort of cotton, or foamy material on the chair so that you can sit there comfortably. Now, let’s assume that there are no chairs out there in the world with seat cushions. The concept of non-obviousness would ask if a person who makes or sells chairs for a living would consider it a “duh” moment to add a cushion to the chair to make it more comfortable. If it is a one of a kind invention, and if someone in the industry would not say to themselves “duh”, then that object is patentable.

You should bear in mind that in order to determine obviousness or non-obviousness there really is no formula or exact metrics out there to give you a solid indication of where that line is. And bear in mind that there is nothing to the old urban myth that if you only change a product by 5%-20% or whatever that number is, then it is non-obvious. Like beauty, obviousness is in the eye of the beholder. With some inventions, if you were to ask 100 different patent attorneys whether a product is obvious or not you will get about 100 different answers. And you will get even more variegated opinions when you deal with the Examiners at the USPTO.

You should also know that the patent-ability of a product does not necessarily indicate its relative worth. Recall several years ago that Apple, Inc. was denied a patent application on their i-Phone, perhaps one of the most sweeping technologies or gadgets to come out of the last decade. In contrast, you can also view a boat load of ridiculously issued patents with no worth.