There are two main criteria that need to be met in order to obtain a patent for invention. The first and easy to understand is that the invention should be "new".
This second criterion, which defines the invention as containing "inventive progress", is actually a heart The heart of the patent world!
In a simple example, if I am the first to invent a cup with a handle, until now it was known to do only cups without handles – then this invention is "new" – and the question then is whether this idea meets the criterion of "inventive progress". A patent-pending tester for a handle-glass with advertisements showing knobs with handles will have to decide whether it was "obvious" to take the handle from the kettle and connect it to the glass, thus reaching the idea of a glass with the handle. If he decides that it was "self-evident" to carry out this combination, he will object to the grant of a patent and if he is convinced that this combination was not "self-evident," he would like to grant a patent
The use of the term 'self-evident' in the context of "inventive progress" may give the impression that this central criterion of the patent world is subjective. How do you determine what 'self-evident' is? Maybe in the eyes of one invention 'self-evident' and after all not? The rulings, laws, and patent practices that have crystallized over the years shed light on how this criterion should be interpreted, with the accepted definition not always identical among all patent offices around the world.
