Patent Case Review: Obviousness

“Obviousness is a question of law based on underlying factual inquiries including: (1) the scope and content of the prior art; (2) the level of ordinary skill in the art; (3) the differences between the prior art and the claimed invention as perceived before the time of invention; and (4) the extent of any objective indicia of non-obviousness.”
“If a person of ordinary skill, before the time of invention and without knowledge of that invention, would have found the invention merely an easily predictable and achievable variation or combination of the prior art, then the invention likely would have been obvious.”
“To preclude hindsight in this analysis, this court flexibly seeks evidence from before the time of the invention in the form of some teaching, suggestion, or even mere motivation (conceivably found within the knowledge of an ordinarily skilled artisan) to make the variation or combination.”
“A particular course or selection is not obvious to try unless some design need or market pressure or other motivation would suggest to one of ordinary skill to pursue the claimed course or selection. In other words, one of ordinary skill must have good reason to pursue the known options within his or her technical grasp.”

"Merely saying that an invention is a logical, commonsense solution to a known problem does not make it so."

“[A]lthough the standard of proof does not depart from that of clear and convincing evidence, a party challenging validity shoulders an enhanced burden if the invalidity argument relies on the same prior art considered during examination by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.”

“When no prior art other than that which was considered by the PTO examiner is relied on by the attacker, he has the added burden of overcoming the deference that is due to a qualified government agency presumed to have properly done its job.” (quoting PowerOasis, Inc. v. T-Mobile USA, Inc., 522 F.3d 1299, 1304 (Fed. Cir. 2008))

Patent Case Review