Obviousness

Obviousness is a legal criterion in patent law that determines whether an invention is sufficiently innovative to merit patent protection. If an invention is considered obvious, it means that someone skilled in the relevant field could have easily thought of it based on existing knowledge or prior inventions. In such cases, the invention doesn't qualify for a patent because it doesn't demonstrate enough originality or non-obvious creativity. Essentially, it's assessing whether the invention reflects a meaningful step forward or is just an obvious variation of what was already known.