Alerts

Supreme Court to Review "Obviousness" Standard of Patentability

June 27, 2006

In what promises to be a watershed event in the development of U.S. patent law, the United States Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal in KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc. The appeal squarely presents the Court with the opportunity to reexamine, for the first time since the 1960's, the "obviousness" standard of patentability. Under U.S. law, a patent cannot be obtained on an alleged invention which is "obvious" in light of prior technical knowledge (the so-called "prior art"). Obviousness issues arise both in the United States Patent Office, in making the initial decision of whether to grant a patent, and in litigation, when the validity of a patent is scrutinized by the courts. Typically, the issue is framed by the citation to two or more prior art references, neither of which alone shows the alleged invention, but which when combined show every feature of the alleged invention.