Can you imagine knowing the exact moment your life would expire? Imagine there being a system to approximate how long you would live.
Is that possible? Maybe.
Is that system patentable? Definitely. US 20070118398 A1
Claim #1 states:
A computer-implemented method comprising:
(A) providing health-related questions to a user;
(B) receiving answers to the questions from the user;
(C) identifying an estimate of a life expectancy of the user based on the received answers without charing the user a fee; and
(D) providing advice to the user for increasing the life expectancy based on the received answers in exchange for a fee paid by the user
While straight forward, my quick understanding is that:
- The user takes a survey - answering health questions
- The system receives these questions
- User gets life expectancy estimate for free
- User pays to find out how to increase life expectancy
ANALYSIS:
Is there prior art?
- Likely, I don't think you'd find a service specifically targeting health-related questions + life expectancy (focusing on only this)
Is it non-obvious?
- I believe other individuals in the field come up with a life expectancy, especially those in health career fields with a greater understanding of health-related questions (genetics, family history, ect.). *NOTE: I'm acting on the assumption that these are questions for the doctor.
- In business field or programming field, I don't think they would have put this connection together.
Is there potential infringement?
- Since this is a service, I don't think so because the only place I can think of is the doctor's and you aren't paying for tips to increase life expectancy
Overall?
- I just thought it was silly because you could go to a health care provider, there never really is an accurate estimate health wise and there's more factors to the individual level than what could possibly be provided by a simple service system.
- There are other factors to consider beyond genetics (i.e. demographic, what resources you have access to)
I really love you set out all the ways you could analyze this patent. It makes it a lot easier to follow and strengthens your argument at the same time. I really wish you would have touched on the prior art aspect a little bit more but overall, good job!
ReplyDeleteI really like how you go into so much detail for each blog post, especially how you covered all the major points--infringement, prior art, and obviousness.
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