inventive step; non-obviousness
Patent-law term referring to the requirement that an invention is not obvious to a person skilled in the art, given the prior art. Used in contexts such as patent examination and validity disputes.
To obtain a patent, the invention must be recognized as having an inventive step.
The examiner judges the presence or absence of an inventive step based on prior art.
Compound of 進歩 (しんぽ, 'progress, advance') and 性 (せい, '-ness, nature'). The term is a direct translation of the patent-law concept 'inventive step'.