Novelty Vs. Utility
Unlike novelty, a court will not assume that an item has utility. A utility does not need to be obvious to the user. A patented item can be shown to have utility independent of patents granted for other inventions. An application for a previously patented invention that included a use the applicant had not previously contemplated has been rejected because it was not novel.
Read more about this topic: Utility (patent)
Famous quotes containing the words novelty and/or utility:
“We call contrary to nature what happens contrary to custom; nothing is anything but according to nature, whatever it may be, Let this universal and natural reason drive out of us the error and astonishment that novelty brings us.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“Moral sensibilities are nowadays at such cross-purposes that to one man a morality is proved by its utility, while to another its utility refutes it.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)