Person having ordinary skill in the art

Chief requirement is that (1) it be an unob-vious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claim pertains and (2) knowing everything that has gone wrong before is not applicable. 

A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made. 

Naturally, the burden is much greater on the applicant where the utility being asserted is incredible by its very nature (e.g., solar powered, anti-gravity, pull yourself up and fly by your own bootstrap boots ). In such an instance, the evidence put forward by the applicant must be sufficient to satisfy the hypothetical jury of persons having ordinary skill in the art that the claimed invention is likely to demonstrate sufficient utility. Please appreciate, however, that the claimed invention need not be safe, it need not be the best, it need not even be very good at all. 

The first really unbiased "persons having ordinary skill in the art" to judge a patent application will be the patent examiners. If they come to the conclusion that an invention is obvious (for example because it combines two pieces of well known prior art), this may be due to the... 

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