Inventive step and non-obviousness
The inventive step and non-obviousness reflect a general patentability requirement present in most patent laws, according to which an invention should be sufficiently inventive—i.e., non-obvious—in order to be patented. In other words, " nonobviousness principle asks whether the invention is an adequate distance beyond or above the state of the art".
The expression "inventive step" is predominantly used in Europe, while the expression "non-obviousness" is predominantly used in United States patent law. The expression "inventiveness" is sometimes used as well. Although the basic principle is roughly the same, the assessment of the inventive step and non-obviousness varies from one country to another. For instance, the practice of the European Patent Office differs from the practice in the United Kingdom.
Rationale
The purpose of the inventive step, or non-obviousness, requirement is to avoid granting patents for inventions which only follow from "normal product design and development", to achieve a proper balance between the incentive provided by the patent system, namely encouraging innovation, and its social cost, namely conferring temporary monopolies. The non-obviousness bar is thus a measure of what society accepts as a valuable discovery. Additional reasons for the non-obviousness requirement are providing incentives for fundamental research rather than for "incremental improvements", and minimizing the "proliferation of economically insignificant patents that are expensive to search and to license".According to the inducement theory, "if an idea is so obvious that people in the field would develop it without much effort, then the incentives provided by the patent system may be unnecessary to generate the idea". Thus, there is a need "to develop some means of weeding out those inventions which would not be disclosed or devised but for the inducement of a patent." Merges and Duffy regret that "the inducement standard was not influential in the legal doctrine, and its absence from subsequent case law raises one of the great unanswered questions of patent law: How can courts continue to ignore a seemingly reasonable and theoretically solid approach to determining patentability?"
Controversies and alternatives
While trying to weed out the "easy" inventions, the non-obviousness requirement brings in several downsides to the overall patent system, particularly in the pharmaceutical field, which depends on patent protection most heavily. For example,Although all countries with actively functional patent systems currently have a requirement for inventive step, the need for such a doctrine has been questioned. For example, "substantial novelty" has been proposed as an alternative approach. Also, many countries have, in addition to patents, utility models, which have a lower requirement for non-obviousness in return for a shorter monopoly term duration. The availability of utility model protection minimizes for inventors, developers and manufacturers the risk associated with the uncertainty of non-obviousness analysis outcome.
In the US, there is no gradation stronger inventive step - longer patent duration, and all-or-nothing approach is used. Under such a system, drawing the line between inventive and obvious is ambiguous, as numerous lawsuits with changing outcomes on appeal illustrate. Also, unique to the is the possibility to introduce as the evidence of non/obviousness facts, discovered after filing the patent application in question. and Genetics Inst., LLC v. Novartis Vaccines & Diagnostics, Inc. 655 F.3d 1291, 1307, In re Khelgatian 53 CCPA 1441, 364 F.2d 870, 876 ).
Although the need for low bar of inventiveness has been well acknowledged, the proposed means of actually measuring such a bar have all been rather unsuccessful despite 200 years of case law history. "A standard that is clear and easy to apply consistently will mark where the non-obviousness bar exactly rests, providing society as a whole, and lawmakers in particular, with a benchmark to gauge the patent system's efficacy. Moreover, such a standard will allow the lower courts to determine non-obviousness correctly and consistently, at least hypothetically reducing uncertainty, inducing uniformity, and lowering reversal odds." Mr. Cecil D. Quillen, Jr., Senior Advisor to Putnam, Hayes and Bartlett, Inc., and former General Counsel to the Eastman-Kodak Company, concurs: "The PTO should apply the same standard followed in the courts so that patentees receive a patent that is worthy of respect rather than merely an invitation to the roulette wheel of litigation." The US Supreme Court, however, has criticised the patent agency for failing to follow the same standards as the courts:
t must be remembered that the primary responsibility for sifting out unpatentable material lies in the Patent Office. To await litigation is, for all practical purposes, to debilitate the patent system. We have observed a notorious difference between the standards applied by the Patent Office and by the courts. While many reasons can be adduced to explain the discrepancy, one may well be the free rein often exercised by Examiners in their use of the concept of "invention".
Jurisdictions
Canada
The requirement for non-obviousness is codified under section 28.3 of the Patent Act.The Supreme Court of Canada affirmed the test for non-obviousness laid out in Windsurfing International Inc. v. Tabur Marine Ltd. in Apotex Inc. v. Sanofi‑Synthelabo Canada Inc.:
- Identify the notional "person skilled in the art" and identify the relevant common general knowledge of that person;
- Identify the inventive concept of the claim in question or if that cannot readily be done, construe it;
- Identify what, if any, differences exist between the matter cited as forming part of the "state of the art" and the inventive concept of the claim or the claim as construed;
- Viewed without any knowledge of the alleged invention as claimed, do those differences constitute steps which would have been obvious to the person skilled in the art or do they require any degree of invention?
- Long felt but unsatisfied need for the invention while the needed implementing arts and elements had long been available;
- Appreciation that a problem existed and what the problem was were previously unseen by those skilled in the art;
- Substantial attempts by those skilled in the art to fill the need of or the cope with difficulties arising from the failure to understand the problem of ;
- Commercial success of the invention causally related to the invention itself rather than to factors such as advertising or attractive packaging;
- Replacement in the industry of the prior art devices by the patented invention;
- Prompt copying of the patentee's invention by competitors;
- Acquiescence by the industry to the patent's validity by honouring the patent through taking licenses or not infringing the patent, or both:
- The existence of prior art or knowledge teaching away from the technical direction taken by the patentee;
- Unexpectedness of the results of the invention to those skilled in the art; and
- Disbelief and incredulity on the part of those skilled in the art that the patentee's approach worked.
European Patent Convention (EPC)
The Examining Divisions, the Opposition Divisions, and the Boards of Appeal of the EPO almost always apply the "problem-solution approach" in order to assess and decide whether an invention involves an inventive step. The approach consists in:
- identifying the closest prior art, the most relevant prior art, or at least a realistic starting point;
- determining the objective technical problem, that is, determining, in the view of the closest prior art, the technical problem which the claimed invention addresses and successfully solves; and
- examining whether or not the claimed solution to the objective technical problem is obvious for the skilled person in view of the state of the art in general.
If the skilled person would have been prompted to modify the closest prior art in such a way as to arrive at something falling within the terms of the claims, then the invention does not involve an inventive step.
The point is not whether the skilled person could have arrived at the invention by adapting or modifying the closest prior art, but whether he would have done so because the prior art would have incited him to do so in the hope of solving the objective technical problem or in expectation of some improvement or advantage. This must have been the case for the skilled person before the filing or priority date valid for the claim under examination.
United Kingdom
The fundamental test for assessing whether there is an inventive step remains the statutory test: Actavis v Novartis EWCA Civ 82 at . That test is as follows: an invention shall be taken to involve an inventive step if it is 'not obvious' to 'a person skilled in the art', having regard to any matter which forms part of the 'state of the art' by virtue of section 2: s 3 Patents Act 1977.Courts of the United Kingdom have adopted a general framework to assist in approaching the fundamental statutory test. It is known as the Windsurfing or Pozzoli test.
In Windsurfing International Inc. v Tabur Marine Ltd. RPC 59 the Court of Appeal suggested the following framework:
- Identify the inventive concept embodied in the patent;
- Impute to a normally skilled but unimaginative addressee what was common general knowledge in the art at the priority date;
- Identify the differences between the matter cited and the alleged invention; and
- Decide whether those differences constituted steps which would have been 'obvious' to the skilled man, or whether they required any degree of invention.
- Identify the notional "person skilled in the art", Identify the relevant common general knowledge of that person;
- Identify the inventive concept of the claim in question or if that cannot readily be done, construe it;
- Identify what, if any, differences exist between the matter cited as forming part of the "state of the art" and the inventive concept of the claim or the claim as construed;
- Viewed without any knowledge of the alleged invention as claimed, do those differences constitute steps which would have been obvious to the person skilled in the art or do they require any degree of invention?
United States
"Non-obviousness" is the term used in US patent law to describe one of the requirements that an invention must meet to qualify for patentability, codified in . One of the main requirements of patentability in the U.S. is that the invention being patented is not obvious, meaning that a "person having ordinary skill in the art" would not know how to solve the problem at which the invention is directed by using exactly the same mechanism. Since the PHOSITA standard turned to be too ambiguous in practice, the U.S. Supreme Court provided later two more useful approaches which currently control the practical analysis of non-obviousness by patent examiners and courts: Graham et al. v. John Deere Co. of Kansas City et al., 383 U.S. 1 gives guidelines of what is "non-obvious", and KSR v. Teleflex gives guidelines of what is "obvious".Historical development
Constitutionally, the non-obviousness requirement is established by Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8: "The Congress shall have the power … to promote the Progress of Science.., by securing for limited Times to … Inventors the exclusive Right to their … Discoveries". The phrase to promote the Progress of Science defines the purpose of the patent system, which is to encourage private investments into fundamental science research rather than to grant monopoly on something that is taken from a public domain. The Progress of Science requirement constitutionally validates the pragmatic approach to non-obviousness described below. The word Discoveries establishes the level to which the contribution to the Progress of Science must rise to deserve the temporary monopoly.1790-1850: the early days
The first patent statute enacted by the Congress in 1790 required patentable inventions or discoveries to be "sufficiently useful and important". One can interpret important as important for the Progress of Science since the importance for economy is stated by useful. The next Patent Act of 1793 did not have the important language, but stated that "simply changing the form or the proportions of any machine, or compositions of matter, in any degree, shall not be deemed a discovery.". This was echoed in Thomas Jefferson's 1814 letter explaining that changing material, for example, from cast iron to wrought iron was insufficient for patentability.The difficulty of formulating conditions for patentability was heightened by the generality of the constitutional grant and the statutes implementing it, together with the underlying policy of the patent system that "the things which are worth to the public the embarrassment of an exclusive patent", as Jefferson put it, must outweigh the restrictive effect of the limited patent monopoly. The 1836 Patent Act did not have the "simply changing" language but stated instead that the Commissioner of Patents was authorized to issue a patent for any "sufficiently used and important" invention or discovery.
The U.S. Supreme Court considered the issue of inventiveness/non-obviousness/discovery for the first time in 1822 in Evans v. Eaton when it approved the interpretation of a lower court that a patentable improvement must involve a change in the "principle of the machine" not "a mere change in the form or proportions". Currently, such variations are usually interpreted as a lack of novelty not of an inventive step.
1851–1951: struggles to find practical criteria
The issue of non-obviousness reached the U.S. Supreme Court again in 1851 in Hotchkiss v. Greenwood. The question was whether a substitution of known door knob materials such as metal or wood for a new material—porcelain—deserved a patent. The court concluded that "the improvement is the work of a skillful mechanic, not that of the inventor" and invalidated the patent. Such approach foresees the line of thought which was later formulated as the PHOSITA approach to the analysis of inventiveness. Despite beginning to develop the PHOSITA approach, the Court did not give practical means to determine what how much inventiveness deserves a patent. It is worth noting here that Eaton and Hotchkiss, respectively, illustrate the heretofore existing trend to state the appropriate inventiveness by defining both what is obvious and what is non-obvious.During the period from 1851 to 1951, several new cases related to the non-obviousness of claimed subject matter in patents reached the Supreme Court. One noteworthy case is Rubber-Tip Pencil Co. v. Howard 87 U.S. 498, in which the Supreme Court invalidated a patent on a pencil with a rubber eraser cap, on the theory that everyone knows rubber will stick to wood inserted into a hole in the rubber. In another noteworthy case, Sinclair & Carrol Co. v. Interchemical Corp., the U.S. Supreme Court found that a patent was "not the product of long and difficult experimentation", and that "reading a list and selecting a known compound to meet known requirements is not more ingenious than selecting the last piece to put into the last opening in a jig-saw puzzle".
However, during that time the Courts struggled to find both the required levels of inventiveness and obviousness and practically useful criteria to measure these levels. One notable example of this struggle is the 1941 US Supreme Court case of Cuno Engineering v. Automatic Devices Corp., which was said to establish the flash of genius doctrine as a test of patentability of an invention: "the new device must reveal the flash of creative genius, not merely the skill of the calling".
The Flash of Genius approach was thought to have shifted the analysis of inventiveness from importance and from PHOSITA to the state of mind of the inventor; it caused uproar in the patent law community as courts struggled to find alternative approaches. One notable example of this struggle is the positions of Justice Douglas in Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. v. Supermarket Equipment Corp. in 1950, where he opined that to deserve a patent, an invention "had to serve the end of science—to push back the frontiers of chemistry, physics, and the like"; while two years prior in Funk Bros. Seed Co. v. Kalo Inoculant Co. he stated that the discovery of a new natural principle—is not patentable of itself, "however ingenious the discovery of this natural principle may have been".
Similar problem arose again in Mayo Collaborative Servs. v. Prometheus Labs., Inc., where the U.S. Supreme Court majority stated: "The conclusion is that a newly discovered law of nature is itself unpatentable and the application of that newly discovered law is also normally unpatentable if the application merely relies upon elements already known in the art." It is worth noting, however, that this opinion remains highly controversial; as Justice Stephen Breyer stated, it risked rendering "all inventions unpatentable because all inventions can be reduced to underlying principles of nature which, once known, make their implementation obvious." Mayo, 132 S. Ct. at 1303–04
This position raised issues as to a need to establish the boundary of the patentable domain, not only with routine improvements but also with major advancements in science, i.e. creating too much monopoly which may impede rather that promote the Progress of Science. Currently, the latter boundary is established via the requirement for patent-eligible subject matter while the issue of how much inventiveness is required to deserve a patent is supposed to be defined via the non-obviousness requirement.
The trend that started to develop around 1950 was to require disclosure of an element of discovery, while granting patent monopoly on only one or a few "particular applications of laws" that the discoverer came up with before the very first disclosure becomes published. The duality between the non-obviousness requirement and an overbroad scope of claims is expected to receive further development by the U.S. Supreme Court in due course.
The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. v. Supermarket Equipment Corp. in 1950 is often considered the high-water mark of the pragmatic approach, as the Court reversed the patent grant of a commercially successful but very simple mechanical device as merely a "gadget". Based on its decision that a combination "which only unites old elements with no change in their respective functions" is unpatentable because such a patent would "obviously withdraw what already in known into the field of its monopoly and diminish. . . the resources available to skillful men." Another example of insufficient inventiveness of that time can be found in In re Aller "It is not inventive to discover the optimum or workable ranges by routine experimentation." This restriction was, however, lifted later in cases where "a parameter must be recognized as a result-effective variable before a determination of routine experimentation".
As a practical test for the pragmatic approach for lower courts to use, the Supreme Court proposed "unusual or surprising consequences" from the combination of old elements: "nly when the whole in some way exceeds the sum of its parts is the accumulation of old devices patentable." Although the time validated the pragmatic approach, the for- criterion of "unusual or surprising consequences" turned out to be too ambiguous and too high in practice. On the other hand, the against-criterion for a combination that "only unites old elements with no change in their respective functions" has been useful in practice ever since.
Another relevant case from this period is Graver Tank & Manufacturing Co. v. Linde Air Products Co.
It established the line of thought that what was not claimed by the inventor in an issued patent but is an obvious variation of what was claimed should be considered as covered by the claims via the Doctrine of equivalents.
However, neither the pragmatic approach nor the "unusual or surprising consequence" criterion received further development at that time, because the Congress took in 1952 a different approach to determining non-obviousness going back to a subjective factor similar to the inventor's state-of-mind.
1952–1964: PHOSITA
In order to reduce the impact of non-obviousness on patentability, to eliminate the flash of genius test, and to provide a more fair and practical way to determine whether the invention disclosure deserves a patent monopoly, the Congress took the matter in its own hands and enacted the Patent Act of 1952 35 U.S.C. Section § 103 reads:The last sentence about the manner was added in order to overrule the flash of genius test.
The Patent Act of 1952 added 35 U.S.C. § 103, which effectively codified non-obviousness as a requirement to show that an idea is suitable for patent protection. The section essentially requires a comparison of the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art, to determine whether or not the subject matter of the patent as a whole would have been obvious, at the time of the invention, to a Person having ordinary skill in the art a.k.a. PHOSITA. Clark held that the Congress, in passing the Act, intended to codify and clarify the common law surrounding the Patent Act by making explicit the requirement of non-obviousness. However, this test turned out be ambiguous and of little help in practice since PHOSITA does not exist.
1964–1984: The ''Adams'' trilogy & ''Graham'' factors
The Supreme Court soon gave more practical interpretation of the Patent Act of 1952. It followed the approach it started in Great Atlantic with the rejection rule for a combination that "only unites old elements with no change in their respective functions" and soon added acceptation rules. It was done it was is now referred to as the "Adams trilogy": Calmar v. Cook Chemical, Graham v. John Deere Co., and United States v. Adams.In Graham v. John Deere Co., the Court held that § 103 required a determination of the following questions of fact to resolve the issue of obviousness:
- the scope and content of the prior art;
- the level of ordinary skill in the art;
- the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art.
- commercial success resulting from the device's inventive aspect;
- long felt but unsolved needs; and
- persistent failures of others
In practice, these secondary considerations became the most useful criteria for non-obviousness:
"Indeed, evidence of secondary considerations may often be the most probative and cogent evidence in the record. It may often
establish that an invention appearing to have been obvious in light of the prior art was not."
United States v. Adams is a particularly noteworthy case where a single inventor working in his garage on a primary Mg/CuCl/Cu battery won a patent infringement case against the US government in the Supreme Court, based primarily on the Graham factors. In the non-obviousness trilogy, the Supreme Court further developed positive secondary of non/obviousness in addition to the Graham factors as negative secondary considerations, but noted that the secondary factors could not overcome a strong prima facie case of obviousness.
In contrast to United States v. Adams, where the Court recognized that when a patent claims a structure already known in the prior art that is altered by the mere substitution of one element for another known in the field, the combination must do more than yield a predictable result, In Anderson's-Black Rock, Inc. v. Pavement Salvage Co., the two pre-existing elements in combination did no more than they would have accomplished in separate, sequential operation. Similarly, in Sakraida v. Ag Pro Inc., a unanimous US Supreme Court found a claimed invention obvious because it "simply arranges old elements without "producing a new or different function", although "doubtless a matter of great convenience, producing a desired result in a cheaper and faster way, and enjoying commercial success." This is an important precedent because it reversed the 1st Graham's factor. Also, in Dann v. Johnston the Supreme Court cautioned that "the mere existence of differences between the prior art and an invention does not establish the invention's nonobviousness. The gap between the prior art and respondent's system is simply not so great as to render the system nonobvious to one reasonably skilled in the art."
During this period, other courts have considered additional secondary considerations as well long felt need for a solution to a real problem which has been recognized in the prior art or in the industry.
2) failures of others to solve the same problem
3) significant efforts and high cost of developing the invention.
4) skepticism or disbelief before the invention as an indicator of non-obviousness.
5) copying, praise, unexpected results, and industry acceptance as indicators of non obviousness.
6) copying as an indicator of non-obviousness
7) commercial success.
8) unexpected advantages.
The presence of several favorable considerations make the case for non-obviousness stronger.
Another important result of Graham was the decision that the non-obviousness of a patent claim is a question of law rather than a question of fact, i.e. it must be decided by a judge rather than by a jury. Nevertheless, the Court commented that
"the section 103 condition "lends itself to several basic factual inquiries." This was a dramatic reversal of 150 years of precedent history that treated the questions of patent validity as questions of fact.
Nevertheless Graham's language left ambiguity "whether the Court meant to indicate that obviousness is a factual conclusion drawn
from evidentiary findings or a legal conclusion based on factual inquiries." Subsequently, lower courts clarified this issue:
although the determinations relating to the scope and content of the prior art, the differences between prior art and the patented object, and the level of skill in the relevant art are factual in nature, the ultimate conclusion of obviousness is one of law... A finding of obviousness under section 103 therefore constitutes a finding that a group of individuals were capable of making the same improvement in the prior art as was made by the patentee.
1984–2006: Teaching-suggestion-motivation test
At the same time the newly established United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which was supposed to establish a uniform case law for patent validity appeals, started to reject the "unusual and surprising approach" altogether and introduced the "teaching, suggestion and motivation" test in ACS Hosp. Sys. . The test allowed the rejection of a patent for obviousness only when factual teaching, suggestion or motivation from the prior art show the propriety of the patented combination.Further, the combination of previously known elements can be considered obvious. As the Federal Circuit asserted in Winner Int'l Royalty Corp. v. Wang, there must be a suggestion or teaching in the prior art to combine elements shown in the prior art in order to find a patent obvious. Thus, in general the critical inquiry, the Federal Circuit maintained, is whether there is something in the prior art to suggest the desirability, and thus the obvious nature, of the combination of previously known elements.
This requirement is generally referred to as the "teaching-suggestion-motivation" test and is said to serve to prevent against hindsight bias. As almost all inventions are some combination of known elements, the TSM test requires a patent examiner to show that some suggestion or motivation exists to combine known elements to form a claimed invention. Some critics of the TSM test have claimed that the test requires evidence of an explicit teaching or suggestion to make a particular modification to the prior art, but the Federal circuit has made clear that the motivation may be implicit, and may be provided for example by an advantage resulting from the modification. In other words, an explicit prior art teaching or suggestion to make a particular modification is sufficient, but not required for a finding of obviousness.
The TSM test is actually more similar to the requirement for novelty than for non-obviousness. Despite an immediate and overwhelming uproar in the technical and legal communities criticizing TSM as being too low, the Congress did not act to overturn the TSM standard. However, its application was refined by the US Supreme Court in KSR v. Teleflex.
| Obvious | Non-obvious |
| a mere change in the form or proportions | change in the “principle of the machine” |
| change of a material for a known material without changing function even if a lower cost results | unusual or surprising consequences |
| only unites old elements with no change in their respective functions. | Only when the whole in some way exceeds the sum of its parts is the accumulation of old devices patentable." |
| when a patent claims a structure already known in the prior art that is altered by the mere substitution of one element for another known in the field, the combination must do more than yield a predictable result. Adams, 1966 | Non-predictable results from a substitution/combination |
| he two in combination did no more than they would in separate, sequential operation. Anderson’s-Black Rock, Inc. v. Pavement Salvage Co., 1969. | Synergism from a combination. |
| Prior art suggests a mere possibility of such a solution even if it does not say the exact ranges | skepticism or disbelief before the invention. Failure of others |
| The claimed solution is not used in practice and the lawsuit is brought by a patent troll. | copying, praise, unexpected results, and industry acceptance. Allen Archery, 1987. Commercial success. |
| Combining prior art elements according to known methods to yield predictable results; KSR, 2007 | Non-predictable result even if the combination involves known elements and methods, and better yet if an element or a method is new. |
| Simple substitution of one known element for another to obtain predictable results. KSR, 2007 | Non-predictable result of a substitution. |
| Use of known technique to improve similar devices in the same way. KSR, 2007 | Use of a technique to improve dissimilar devices even if the technique is known in another field |
| “Obvious to try” – choosing from a finite number of identified, predictable solutions, with a reasonable expectation of success. KSR, 2007 | If the solution is unpredictable and found experimentally, and better yet, if the very existence of a solution is unpredictable. |
| Known work in one field of endeavor may prompt variations of it for use in either the same field or a different one based on design incentives or other market forces if the variations are predictable to one of ordinary skill in the art. KSR, 2007 | Use of a technique, even if known in another field, to improve dissimilar devices if "the actual application is beyond his or her skill" =i.e. variations are unpredictable. |
| When a work is available in one field of endeavor, design incentives and other market forces can prompt variations of it, either in the same field or a different one. If a person of ordinary skill can implement a predictable variation, § 103 likely bars its patentability. Sakraida v. AG Pro, Inc. | Long felt but unsolved needs unless these needs are solved by a newly publicly disclosed method |
| if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a PHOSITA would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious | unless actual application is beyond skill... |
| although "doubtless a matter of great convenience, producing a desired result in a cheaper and faster way, and enjoying commercial success," the claimed system "did not produce a new or different function" and therefore was not patentable.Sakraida v. AG Pro, Inc. | commercial success |
| there is no change in the respective functions of the elements of the combination; this particular use of the assembly of old elements would be obvious to any person skilled in the art of mechanical application. Sakraida v. AG Pro, Inc. | commercial success |
| there is no change in the respective functions of the elements of the combination; this particular use of the assembly of old elements would be obvious to any person skilled in the art of mechanical application. Sakraida v. AG Pro, Inc. | the elapsed time between prior art and the patent's filing date |
| Some teaching, suggestion, or motivation in the prior art that would have led one of ordinary skill to modify the prior art reference or to combine prior art reference teachings to arrive at the claimed invention. KSR, 2007 | Prior art teaches away from the claimed solution. |
| commercial success by itself is not sufficient | commercial success |
| simultaneous invention by two or more independent inventors | long felt need for a solution to a real problem which has been recognized in the prior art or in the industry. |
2006 to the present: the post-KSR period
As of 2016, the guidelines for establishing a prima facie case obviousness adopted by the USPTO based on the KSR v Teleflex decision are as follows:- Combining prior art elements according to known methods to yield predictable results;
- Simple substitution of one known element for another to obtain predictable results;
- Use of known technique to improve similar devices in the same way;
- Applying a known technique to a known device ready for improvement to yield predictable results;
- "Obvious to try" – choosing from a finite number of identified, predictable solutions, with a reasonable expectation of success;
- Known work in one field of endeavor may prompt variations of it for use in either the same field or a different one based on design incentives or other market forces if the variations are predictable to one of ordinary skill in the art;
- Some teaching, suggestion, or motivation in the prior art that would have led one of ordinary skill to modify the prior art reference or to combine prior art reference teachings to arrive at the claimed invention.
The Graham and KSR guidelines were not affected by the America Invents Act, despite the change in general rule 35 U.S.C. §103 which defines the non-obviousness requirement effective on March 16, 2013:
OLD
NEW