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What Can BePatented?
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What is patentablesubject matter? Manypeople believe thatthey can patentanything.
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But the truth is there isonly certain
statutorily allowablesubject matter thatcan be patented.
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Here’s a list of thebasic allowablesubject matter:
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1) Process (Method ofmaking infraredheaters which
reduces costs by 25%)
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2) Machine(Motorized device forclearing leaves out ofa gutter without
climbing)
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3) Article ofmanufacture (Pencil,
chair)
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4) Composition ofmatter (Paint, drugs)
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5) Or any new anduseful improvementthereof (Chair with a
footrest)
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If your invention fallsinto one of the abovecategories it must also
be:
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New (no one hasever done itbefore)
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Useful (it can’t besomething that hasno use whatsoever)
and...
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Non-obvious (It mustbe non-obvious to onehaving ordinary skill inthe pertinent art at thetime the invention was
made)
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It doesn’t take much toshow that your idea is newbecause the slightest
change will cause it to beoriginal.
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And useful isn’t reallymuch of an obstacle,almost everything hassome sort of use.
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The hard thing tounderstand and to teach iswhat is non-obvious!
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I sometimes use theexample of the inventionof a table to get this idea
across.
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Let’s pretend you werearound 10,000 years agoand you were the firstperson to invent a table.Your table has a squaretop, a bottom and four
legs.
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Now someone makes animprovement on the tableand tries to get a patent.The improvement is thatthe top is circular in shape
instead of a square.
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The argument by the patentoffice may be someone skilledin the art (a carpenter) wouldthink it obvious that the topcould be made in any shape ordimension and a round topwould be rejected as anobvious improvement.
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Even though the improvementof the first ever circular top isnew, and it is useful it would bearguably not patentable if itwas determined that it wouldbe an obvious improvement fora carpenter to make a table top
in any shape.
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Now let’s take adifferent approach...
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Let’s say that the new inventor wasthe first to invent a table withpedestal legs connected to thecenter of the bottom. It could be
argued that this way to connect thelegs to the top is a non-obviousimprovement and would bepotentially patentable in theprehistoric patent office.
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But obviousness can beestablished by combining ormodifying the teachings of theprior example to produce theclaimed invention where thereis some teaching, suggestion,
or motivation to do so.
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So if there was a chair in theprior example with similar legslike the pedestal legs of theinvention table the examinermight combine the referencesof the square table with thechair and say it was obvious tocome up with the new table.
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I hope the simple logicof the table scenario is
an easy way togenerally grasp this
concept.
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