i looked up the definition of intellectual propert rights in my thick merriam-webster dictionary and expectedly didn't find it. so as anyone these days would do, i wikipediad it and it says

"Intellectual property rights are a bundle of exclusive rights over creations of the mind, both artistic and commercial. The former is covered by copyright laws, which protect creative works, such as books, movies, music, paintings, photographs, and software, and give the copyright holder exclusive right to control reproduction or adaptation of such works for a certain period of time.
The second category is collectively known as "industrial properties", as they are typically created and used for industrial or commercial purposes. A patent may be granted for a new, useful, and non-obvious invention and gives the patent holder a right to prevent others from practicing the invention without a license from the inventor for a certain period of time. A trademark is a distinctive sign which is used to prevent confusion among products in the marketplace"

armed with this definition, i tried to give myself a clear idea of what the phrase non-obvious invention means.

this helped... alot. http://www.bpmlegal.com/weird.html