There was an interesting case of a twenty-five year old patent application. The issue here is the patent office found the application still violated one of the three main features of a good patent: non-obviousness.
For the patent, the inventor, Mr. Rudy, submitted this application of a special fishing hook that was a) translucent and b) nature-inspired. The issue was that there was prior art that existed in two different patents that focused on each aspect of the claim that Mr. Rudy tried to file. More specifically, it seemed that the patent office found it violated on the fact that prior art was already released even though the prior art came from two different patent applications.
Also, the subjectivity comes to determining if an expert in fish hooks could look at these two older patents and come to the same conclusion. It is a debate if Mr. Rudy simply came up with a slightly better mousetrap (a device that builds on previous inventions in the same area). It is possible that Mr.Rudy may not have been aware of the two patents for the past twenty five years. However, he did not add on the existing technology; he simply combined two technologies that came from seemingly related areas.
There are also other possible considerations that Mr. Rudy can take regarding future appeals if he continues to do so. These secondary considerations are taken into account for patent applications. If Mr. Rudy was able to prove that his idea had commercial success, the patent office would be able to reconsider their original decision. Also, Mr. Rudy could have made a convincing case that demonstrates his idea was something the fish hook industry went away from during his initial patent filing. Another possibility is that his idea solved a major problem that the fishing industry needed. However, it seems possible that fish hook users could have easily added feathers and drawn eyes to make the hook more appealing.
Here, it seems that common knowledge would have led to Rudy's invention even without experts in the area. Also, the sheer number of appeals may have not pleased the patent office and affected the relationship with the examiners.It does seem odd that the examiners continue to reject the appeals and amendments even on the basis of "persistence." What's even more interesting is that the USPTO made the final decision here without any involvement of the judicial system. It does seem interesting that Mr. Rudy never sought legal aid to get his patent approved if he really wanted to. It may be that the law prohibits such a case being pursued since I do not have an appropriate legal background.
http://patentlyo.com/patent/2014/03/fishing-application-rejected.html
https://www.google.com/patents/USD276360?dq=D276360&hl=en&sa=X&ei=uv0hU869OcXR2AXgvIHQBA&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAA
https://www.google.com/patents/US2511117?dq=2,511,117&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Wv0hU9CMOYjQ2AXt1YC4DA&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAA
I like your analysis on the subject matter. I also agree that subjectivity plays a huge role in this, and the person filing this patent should have sought legal counsel. I read from the other law posts that one could fight this problem of obviousness through 3 subject matter. One was to show that many other failed, but I have achieved it even though the product might be obvious. Another reason was to show that people bought my item or used it. This also shows that it's not obvious even though it may seem like it. This topic is really controversial in my opinion because who gets to decide that something is obvious? For instance, software is a huge controversial issue regarding obviousness.
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