Linda Greenhouse writes a complex account of the Supreme Court's initial argument on a case involving the meaning of "obvious" as an essential element in the granting of a patent (NY Times link here but see also my previous post of 11/15). The court's likely decision is by no means clear from the account of the back and forth, but the fact that it took the case suggests we may get a clarification of the term's meaning. Read the article and stay tuned.

Obvious: At least one other person will think of it in the next 20 years.

Far better if the patent office keeps all patent applications secret, and gives the filer a hefty reward if no-one else submits a patent for the same invention in the next 20 years.

As soon as someone else files the same patent, both patentees are notified that their invention is obvious (without putting them in touch with each other), and it will be published 20 years after the first submission.

One could say that as soon as the 10th person submits the same invention, that the patent is immediately published. This can also occur if prior published art is discovered.

So inventors are rewarded by society if they truly have invented/discovered something non-obvious (society gets the details 20 years later). If they haven't, inventors at least get tipped off if someone else files it too.

And if it's bloody obvious, well then the public gets told not to bother wasting effort on a patent application any more.

However, this system of procuring innovation for the public good is just as terrible as the existing one. All you'll end up with are umpteen obscure patents designed to be so obscure that even someone who wanted to be obscure wouldn't think of them. And our existing system simply consists of ever more patently obvious ideas, ideas so obvious everyone thought they would already have been patented by now.

The answer is of course to abolish the whole system as the naive economic meddling of less enlightened centuries - the same ones that held the economic benefits of slave labour above the overheads of negative incentivisation and retention.

If you have a good idea, exploit it. If it's not worth exploiting, publish it. If no-one would be impressed if you published it, well keep it to yourself (for god's sake) - it certainly doesn't sound like the public would benefit from it.