Posts Tagged: "Magnum Oil Tools"

The Federal Circuit reversed the Board’s obviousness ruling, finding that the Board had improperly shifted burdens onto Magnum, the Patent Owner, in several instances. For example, Petitioner McClinton asserted that a motivation to combine argument made with respect to a first set of prior art references was also applicable to a second set of prior art references, but did not explain why the rationale applied to both sets of references. The Federal Circuit found that the Board improperly “expected [the Patent Owner] to explain, and faulted [the Patent Owner] for allegedly failing to explain” why the motivation to combine argument made by Petitioner based on the first set of prior art references would not be applicable to the second set of prior art references. The Board’s obviousness finding thus constituted an improper shifting of the burden to Magnum, the patentee, to prove that the claimed invention would not have been obvious.