Inventors face ‘obvious’ difficulty

In the wake of a United States Supreme Court decision in KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc. inventors will find it more difficult to obtain some patent and current holders could find some of their patents challenged.

On April 30, the Supreme Court made its decision in a much-anticipated case that addressed the conditions to which “prior art references” – the description and bounds of an invention – may be combined to show an invention as “obvious” and therefore not patentable.

In checking for obviousness after hindsight, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit had used a test known…