Thinning the Patent Thicket 砍薄專利之林

■■October 20, 2007
■Thinning the Patent Thicket 砍薄專利之林
Thanks to KSR, the bar of §103(a) is set obscenely high for patent prosecution. Examiner rejections on obviousness, regularly combining three and four references to cover all the claim limitations, reek of hindsight, and are pasted with the thinnest of glue: e.g. "it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention to combine four patentably distinct references of unrelated subject matter because it would have been advantageous, as the applicant claimed."

託KSR之福，為103(a)之不可專利事由，設下極不公平的高水平。審查委員經常性地結合三或四件參考文獻，以包含請求項所有的限制條件，再不時令人嗅出後見之明之臭味地，針對顯而易知性，發出被塗上薄薄黏膠的拒絕理由：例如，如申請人所主張，由於具有利功效，故將四件發明主題互不相關且具可專利性顯著差異的參考文獻加以結合，這對於該領域具有通常知識者而言是顯而易知的。

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跟著「英語で読もう！～米国特許ブログ」和「Patent Hawk」一起學習英語、日語及美國專利。

obscenely 這個字，如果你查dr. eye的話會查到「淫穢地,下流地」，直翻的話，就會變得很生硬。請見 webster 的解釋「so excessive as to be offensive」，此處採用 longman 的解釋「extremely unfair, immoral, or unpleasant, especially in a way that makes you angry」。