February 2007

By Elizabeth Rader and Thomas Goldstein

The U.S. Supreme Court has recently shown an interest in intellectual property in general and patents in particular. Most prominent among the recent cases is KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., which presents perhaps the most difficult question in substantive patent law: When is the subject of a patent application a true “invention” — that is, something that promotes the progress of a useful art sufficient to warrant giving the applicant exclusive rights to the technology claimed for the next 20 years. Conversely, when is the invention “obvious” — merely taking a step that anyone of ordinary skill would take, confronted with the same problem and possessing all the knowledge already known to the field?

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