Posts Tagged: "simultaneous invention"

Simultaneous Invention as Secondary Evidence of Obviousness

Is an invention arrived at by multiple inventors within a short space of time necessarily obvious? If not, how far may the evidence of simultaneous or contemporaneous invention go toward proving obviousness? Simultaneous invention is not common, but evidence of such invention, when present, can be important for reaching a conclusion of obviousness. Simultaneous invention can sometimes occur in the aftermath of the introduction of an enabling or foundational technology, when multiple groups working independently solve a problem, which, but for the foundational technology, would not have been possible. A recent example of this scenario can be found in the litigation related to the CRISPR-Cas9 technology, which culminated in a decision by the Federal Circuit in September 2018. University of California v. Broad Institute, Inc. (Fed. Cir. 2018) (UC v. Broad).