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To grant a patent for a product, thereby entitling its inventor to control its use, patent officials must judge that the product contains an innovation that would not be obvious to experts in the relevant field. There are many fields in which no patent official is expert, so almost certainly many patents are being granted for products that in fact contain no such innovation.
The argument relies on which of the following assumptions?
| Text from Passage | Analysis |
| To grant a patent for a product, thereby entitling its inventor to control its use, patent officials must judge that the product contains an innovation that would not be obvious to experts in the relevant field. |
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| There are many fields in which no patent official is expert, so almost certainly many patents are being granted for products that in fact contain no such innovation. |
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"First we learn the rule about what patent officials should do - they need to make sure innovations aren't obvious to field experts. Then the author points out a gap: patent officials can't be experts in every field. From this gap, the author concludes that many wrong patents are being granted."
"Many patents are being granted for products that don't actually contain real innovations."
"The argument connects a requirement (officials must judge if innovations are non-obvious to experts) with a limitation (officials aren't experts in all fields) to reach a conclusion about poor outcomes (wrong patents being granted). The key assumption is that you need to be an expert in a field to properly judge whether something would be obvious to other experts in that field."
Assumption - We need to find what the author must believe to be true for their conclusion to hold. The author concludes that many patents are being granted for products without real innovation because patent officials aren't experts in all fields.
The argument makes a quality claim about patent decisions - that many patents are being granted incorrectly. It also makes a frequency claim that this happens 'almost certainly' across 'many fields'.
To find assumptions, we need to identify what could break the logical connection between 'patent officials aren't experts in all fields' and 'many patents are being granted incorrectly.' We're looking for unstated beliefs the author needs to make this leap work.
This is completely irrelevant to the argument. The author's concern is about whether patent officials can properly evaluate innovations, not about who invents the products. Whether inventors are experts or non-experts doesn't affect the ability of patent officials to judge whether innovations would be obvious to field experts. This assumption isn't needed for the argument.
This misses the point entirely. The argument isn't about what experts typically invent - it's about patent officials' ability to judge what would be obvious to experts. Even if experts rarely create obvious innovations, patent officials who aren't field experts might still incorrectly approve products with obvious innovations. This assumption doesn't support the author's conclusion.
This explains why patent officials might not be experts in various fields, but it's not necessary for the argument. The author already establishes that patent officials aren't experts in many fields. Whether this is due to career preferences or other reasons doesn't matter for the conclusion that wrong patents are being granted.
This actually works against the author's argument. If most innovations are genuinely non-obvious, then even if patent officials make some mistakes in judgment, they'd still likely approve mostly valid patents. The author needs to show that mistakes in judgment lead to problematic outcomes, not that most innovations are legitimate.
This is exactly what the argument requires. If patent officials routinely consulted with relevant field experts when evaluating applications, then the fact that the officials themselves aren't experts in every field wouldn't be a problem. They'd still get proper expert judgment through consultation. The author's conclusion that many wrong patents are being granted only works if we assume that such expert consultation doesn't happen. Without this assumption, the logical gap between 'officials aren't experts in all fields' and 'wrong patents are being granted' cannot be bridged.