Point. I was thinking particularly in terms of "they have no knowledge of the patent or its contents/algorithm". Yes, years later, "everyone", sees that as the right way to do X. But I'd say if many coders (say shortly after the patent was submitted or granted, but with zero knowledge of it), given the same assignment, come up with the same series of steps to solve it, it fails the non-obvious test.Did you give it to those 12 coders before or after it was patented? Because obviousness is gauged at the time of the invention, not afterward.
It might be "novel", because maybe nobody's ever done it that way before (there does have to be a first time), but the novelty may simply be that they're the first to think of submitting it as a patent - they may be the thousandth person to come up with that series of steps and it never occurred to the other 999 to patent it. But I'd still say it's not "non-obvious" (if others presented with the same task quickly see the same solution). Of course, I'm talking of the way patents ought to work (IMHO), not the way they actually do now.