A patent plays an important role in protecting an invention, process,
the machine or product. For the patent to be granted, there are four
criteria that need to be met (Kubasek , 2019). The first criterion is
that the subject matter must be patentable. The second criterion is
that the object must be new or novel. The third criterion is that the
object needs to be useful. It must be able to provide some kind of
utility to society. The fourth criterion is that the object needs to be
non-obvious.
The plaintiff did have a patent on the process of her business,
thereby meeting the first requirement. However, it did not meet the
other requirements. In this case, it seems that two of the criteria are
missing in the patent of the plaintiff. The two criteria are the novel
and the non-obvious aspect. There are a number of companies
present in the market that are customized according to the specific
preferences of the customers. The businesses save the data of
customers to tailor their platforms accordingly (Kubasek , 2019). The
plaintiff did not conduct thorough research in order to determine
whether the process was used by her competitors in any way. This
resulted in the process not being novel and non-obvious. Customer
profiling and data mining are not new. Companies such as Amazon
and Walmart already use them. Many other retailers in the market
make use of these concepts.
The judge came to the decision that the defendant has
unintentionally infringed upon the patent of the plaintiff as the
process of the defendant is the same as hers. However, the judge did
not accept the fact that the patent was valid in any way. It is because
the patent was not able to meet the two essential requirements of
being non-obvious as well as being novel or new. After considering
all the facts as well as arguments of the case, the judge reached the
decision that the patent of the plaintiff is invalid. So, the defendant
will not have to make any kind of changes to his process or business
practices. The online shoe buying platform was not something new. It
was not a new idea. Moreover, the invention has become very
obvious in recent times. I completely agree with the decision made
by the judge. The online shoe business is very common in the present
time. As the process of the plaintiff is neither non-obvious nor novel,
it should not have been qualified for a patent.
References
Kubasek , N. (2019, January 14). Dynamic Business Law. McGraw Hill.
Retrieved March 24, 2022, from
https://www.mheducation.com/highered/product/dynamic-
business-law-kubasek-browne/M9781260247893.html
