Obviousness

Here are a few things that I learned about Obviousness through my Google search on the topic:

• Graham v. John Deere Co. was the Supreme Court case that first drew upon the idea of obviousness, which took place in 1966. The ultimate decree of the case was that the following analytical framework should be considered when deciding whether a patent is obvious or not:

1. Determine the scope and content of the prior art
2. Ascertain the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art
3. Resolve the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art
4. Consider the objective indicia of non-obviousnes

• Obviousness isn't very predictable because it's very subjective in nature.
• In 2007, KSR v Teleflex (which we learned about in class) was an incredibly influential Supreme Court case in the patent world.
• the teaching, suggestion or motivation test was declared too restrictive, although the TSM test had facilitated patent creation during the previous 30 years.
• By saying that "common sense" should be used to decide whether a patent is obvious or not, the Supreme Court increasing the subjectivity of deciding whether an idea for a new patent is obvious or not. The Court didn't really define what it meant by common sense, so a lot of room was left for interpretation
• Obviousness is typically unevenly applied by patent examiners; because they have a lot of discretion in their choosing of patents, patent examiners pass some ideas way too easily while stunting the patenting process of others harshly.
• Maybe the patent world needs a bit more regulation through better structured guidelines for their patent examiners.