Elaboration on Obviousness and Anticipation

First I will discuss the basic idea behind obviousness and anticipation and then will use patent examples to discuss these concepts.

Anticipation is when a prior art or earlier invention has all of the features of a new patent explained and shown but not necessarily claimed. The idea is that a regular person who is not necessarily an expert in the field could recreate this "new" idea using just the prior art. Basically this is a test to see if a patent or idea is actually new and innovative, and in cases where there is anticipation then it is not and should be voided as  a patent.

Discussion of Anticipation

Insulator Sleeve US 7922031 BI

This patent is for a sleeve that allows one to write on the inner sleeve and then see through the sleeve so that they can see the writing. This has many applications in the context of making and serving beverages in which the waiter can now see what was ordered by the writing on the cup. While the sleeve has been invented before and writing on a cup has been discussed previously this does not exhibit anticipation as it combines these ideas in a completely novel and innovative way to make a superior and different product.

Obviousness is the idea that an idea or product differs significantly from a preexisting one. So if an inventor comes up with and patents an idea another person can not file for a patent of basically the same thing with a tiny detail minutely changed and call it different. This is a test to first protect patent holders from having their products essentially copied and it forces people to actually be innovative and not just copy what has already been made.

Discussion of Obviousness-
Insulating Sleeve- US 6343735 B1

This patent is for a sleeve that has ridges along the outer edge that allows for grip. The innovative part of this patent is that air is used as the insulting agent. Because the user holds the sleeve on the ridge there is a small cavity of air between the ridges that works to either cool or heat the hot/cold beverage within the cup. While this patent is not for a completely different kind of product it is not obvious from prior arts and is thus non obvious.