Posts Tagged: "ksr rationales"

When is an Invention Obvious?

That being said, the possibility that a utility patent could be obtained cannot be definitively ruled out even if an invention seems quite likely to be obvious, which is one of the biggest problems with the law of obviousness. Indeed, one of the more frustrating things about working with the Patent Office is that there is a real lack of uniformity in application of the law of obviousness. For example, on January 7, 2014, the Patent Office granted U.S. Patent No. 8,622,700, which for all intents and purposes granted rights to the inventor to a glow in the dark ceiling fan blade. If this claim to a glow-in-the-dark ceiling fan blade is ever challenged I see no way that it could survive, but the patent issued.

Obviousness When All Elements Not Present in Prior Art?

The Tokai and Ritchie rationale seems to have never been cited by any other panels of the Court. While this may be due to many reasons, the fact that this reasoning could so easily invalidate virtually any claim in any patent, combined with the fact that it has only scarcely been utilized by the Court, suggests that this is an extraordinarily important issue for the Court as a whole to consider.

KSR the 5th Anniversary: One Supremely Obvious Mess

On Monday, April 30, 2007, the United States Supreme Court issued its final decision in the matter of KSR v. Teleflex, which overruled the Federal Circuit’s application of the so-called “teaching, suggestion, motivation” test (or simply TSM) as it applies to determining whether an invention is obvious. At least for the last generation (and likely longer) no other Supreme Court case in the patent arena has been nearly as influential as the Court’s decision in KSR v. Teleflex. This is because obviousness is where the rubber meets the road for the patentability of inventions. This 5th Anniversary of the ruling provides an opportunity to revisit the decision and where we have come since. This will be a recurring theme this week on IPWatchdog.com as we look at the law of obviousness in the wake of this infamous decision.

Chief Judge Rader Says KSR Didn’t Change Anything, I Disagree

Upon hearing Rader make such a bold statement the first thought that ran through my mind was — Really? Did he just say that? I have heard from others for some time that Rader has been heard to say these or similar things relating to obviousness, but I just discounted them as one would discount the output of a game of telephone. After something gets stated, shared and restated there is typically little of the same message remaining. That had to be why Rader was reported to have said such curious things about obviousness and the impact of KSR. But then I was sitting right there listening to Chief Judge Rader say something that is provably incorrect. I’ll bite. I’ll take that challenge.