[AlbertCory]

Interesting side note about non-patent prior art (by the way, the examiners do, most of the time, look for it):

I was told that a proposal to require the examiners to use Google was rejected by the union: if you're going to require us to do more work, then you have to pay us more.

This was back in 2012 or so. I have no idea if now they have to use Google, but they only get about a day and a half on each patent (again, this is old data).

[ska]

> (by the way, the examiners do, most of the time, look for it)

Sure, but usually superficially (and not, I think, required); which is fair - you can't practically require the patent examiners to have the kind of breadth and depth necessary to have a good feel for this.