Members of The Science Advisory Board are almost equally divided as to which criterion would be most difficult to fulfill when applying for a patent based upon their research. Thirty-five percent of the 1,361 respondents to a recent Instant Poll thought that they would be hard put to demonstrate the novelty of their invention while 34% claimed they would have trouble proving the non-obviousness of it. The remaining 30% stated that explaining the utility of their intellectual contribution would be a major stumbling block to filling out a patent application.
