> I'm saying that something that can be trivially implemented by someone skilled in the art who is told what the invention does, but not how, should be below the bar.
Right, but what I'm saying is, that is not a good measure of the value of an invention, which is also why patent law is structured the way it is. Think about physical inventions like mechanical linkages or arrangements or other structures. Let alone someone skilled in the art, even we, knowing nothing more than how objects interact in the physical world, could look at it and figure out how it works, but that does not necessarily mean the mechanism was obvious before the fact.
Right, but what I'm saying is, that is not a good measure of the value of an invention, which is also why patent law is structured the way it is. Think about physical inventions like mechanical linkages or arrangements or other structures. Let alone someone skilled in the art, even we, knowing nothing more than how objects interact in the physical world, could look at it and figure out how it works, but that does not necessarily mean the mechanism was obvious before the fact.