Editing Patentability (section)

== Quotes ==

:''[The question whether there is a patentable invention] is as fugitive, impalpable, wayward, and vague a phantom as exists in the whole [[paraphernalia]] of legal concepts. It involves, or it should involve, as complete a reconstruction of the art that preceded it as is possible. The test of invention is the originality of the discovery, and discovery depends upon the mental act of conceiving the new combination, for substantially every invention is only a combination. Nothing is more illusory, as nothing is more common, than to assume that this can be measured objectively by the magnitude of the physical readjustments required. Courts never tire, or at least in earlier times they never did, of expatiating upon the freshness of insight which observes a little, but fruitful, change which had theretofore escaped detection by those engaged in the field. When all is said, we are called upon imaginatively to project this act of discovery against a [[hypostatically|hypostatized]] [[person having ordinary skill in the art|average practitioner]], acquainted with all that has been published and all that has been publicly sold. If there be an issue more troublesome, or more apt for litigation than this, we are not aware of it. (...)''
::- US Judge [[Learned Hand]] in ''Harries v. Air King Prod. Co.'', 183 F.2d 158, 162 ([[United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit|2d Cir.]] 1950).<ref>[[US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit]], [https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/183/158/266728/ Harries et al. v. Air King Products Co., Inc, 183 F.2d 158 (2d Cir. 1950)], accessed 16 November 2022</ref>