Legal Question in Intellectual Property in Utah

Re: Is This Patentable?

Possibly patentable.

The key to understanding this is to recognize that all inventions are improvements, since they all make use of things that were already known. Edison would be the first to admit this. Among his 1093 patents were mostly minor technical advances that collectively changed the world. He had 70+ patents on the basic phonograph alone. He tended to try to patent every minor improvement to keep ahead of his competition.

The test you have to meet that set by 35 USC 103 that the combination, even though new, must not be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the applicable art. So, if despite the co-existence of the gas heatlight and electric buld, no one would have found it obvious to put replace the gas headlight with an electric one, then it would be patentable.

That said, the safety advantages of an electric headlamp over a gas headlight are apparent by hindsight, but the test must be made at the time of the invention. It probably would have been obvious, but not necessarily.