4-2 Discussion: Patent LawContains unread postsLisa Collette posted Nov 18, 2021 10:23 PMSubscribe

Hello Everyone,

For a patent to be granted, four criteria must be met. "First, the subject matter of the patent must be patentable. Second, the object of the patent must be novel, or new. Third, the object must be useful, unless it is a design. Fourth, the object must be nonobvious." (Kubasek et al., 2020, p. 313) In this case, the plaintiff's patent lacked in being novel and nonobvious. The judge decided that the defendant did in fact infringe upon the plaintiff's patent. However, she did not feel that it was done intentionally. She also noted that the patent does not meet the requirement of being novel or nonobvious and ruled the patent invalid. The judge also ruled that the defendant can continue with his current business practices.

I agree with the judge's decision. The patent was not a new idea as the process has been in place for years at brick-and-mortar locations. The process has also been in place online with other business types. The plaintiff believed that because her business was strictly shoes, that her design and patent were valid. The second requirement the patent failed to meet was that of being nonobvious. The process she created was one of common sense and already used in customer service. Therefore, anyone with minimal customer service experience could think of the same process. The judge made the right call allowing the defendant to continue with business as usual.

Thanks,

Lisa

Reference:

Kubasek,N., Browne,M.N., Dhooge,L.J., Herron,D.J., Williamson,C., & Barkacs,L.L. (2020).Dynamic business law(5th ed.).

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