To be patentable, an invention must be useful, novel and
nonobvious. The requirement of usefulness, or utility, is satisfied if the invention is operable and provides a tangible benefit.
To be granted a patent, a tax strategy must be considered novel,
nonobvious, and useful.
These responses reflect what psychologists call the "essentialist heuristic." As Prentice and Miller (2006:129) point out, "human beings are lay essentializers: they see many categories as having deep,
nonobvious properties, or essences, that make category members the kinds of things they are." The Alaska Native students observe behavior that they interpret as "lazy," for example, and interpret this quality as intrinsic to males.
In a similar fashion, dualists occasionally seemed to demonstrate a kind of perspicacity via insights into
nonobvious aspects of clients' worlds.
Other recent examples of
nonobvious embryonic defects that cause remarkable cardiac dysfunction at later stages of development include the disruption of genes encoding the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (Thackaberry et al.
Although computer program financial patents have been the subject of patent protection for many decades, (2) most people believe business method patents cover unique or unusual business practices regardless of whether the methods are embodied in a computer program or are a series of novel and
nonobvious steps employed to produce a product or deliver a service.
Partisan polarization impacts the way the White House interacts with Congress in some obvious and
nonobvious ways.
A utility patent is a "new, useful,
nonobvious machine, manufactures, compositions of matter, processes, or any new or useful improvements of these mentioned items" (Mueller, 1995, p.
A good category allows us to make inferences about
nonobvious properties: for example, categorizing an object as a dog (based on observable features such as the shape of the head, the tail) allows the inference of nonobservable features (for instance, it has lungs, it may bite).
Another relevant property, which is expected to profit from integrating semantics, is serendipity--the generation of
nonobvious recommendations.
When going through this analysis, the manager must be sure to include the
nonobvious costs of the change.