system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: when you apply for a patent how do they check there isn't already a conflicting one?
gpt
Patents are indexed by subject matter and words they contain, but basically the patent office still does it the hard way, by looking at all the related patents they can find. Computer searching speeds things up a lot, but someone still has to read the patents and understand what they are about, in order to decide whether a new idea is new and different enough to deserve a patent.