10-25-2011, 01:39 PM
Grieve Wrote:Everything is obvious after someone does it for the first time. The little rings on top of cans to make opening them easier is obvious...but yet no-one did it for decades. If your criteria for getting a patent is that no-one else can say "well duh, I could have thought of that..." then no-one would ever get one.
Good examples but you've definitely got the wrong idea.
Pop-tops were not obvious. Even now that we have them I don't think you can say they were obvious. The obvious way of opening something is to cut it open somehow. The concept of "cutting a thing open" cannot be patented. The concept of a tab that peels off a bit of metal creating an opening is a great example of a patentable idea. The can opener that you can attach to the top of a can and turn with a key would have been another good patent. Hacking at it with a sharp instrument or hitting it with a rock would not be patentable ideas.
Similarly, while holding papers together is something you would like to do, the paperclip would have been a patentable design. Put 10 people in 10 rooms and have them each come up with a way to hold some papers together and I doubt any of them would have walked out of there with something shaped like a paperclip -- it was not obvious. (Holding the papers together with your fingers would not be a patentable idea, although Apple would disagree.)
Making a malleable object bigger by stretching it is not remotely innovative or patentable. Give a child a rubber band and ask how he can make it bigger and he'll stretch it. Apple is now going to sue all 5 year olds everywhere for stealing Steve Jobs' innovative thinking. All you're doing with gestures on touchscreens is what you would obviously do with any malleable object. Make it smaller by squeezing it. Make it bigger by stretching it. I heard Apple was looking for the inventor of checkers to sue them for stealing touch and drag technology.