IP Blog
motivation
Limits on Obviousness - Beyond the Claim Elements
Here is a lesson on obviousness. The Federal Circuit agreed with the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that claims for a system to measure degradation of cooking oils in a deep fryer were non-obvious under 35 U.S.C. §103. The PTAB had found that a skilled artisan would not have been motivated to combine the identified references, and that secondary...
Motivation to Combine References Need Not be Explicit
How much motivation do you need to combine references to make something obvious? According to the Federal Circuit, enough to reasonably discern a proper path to combine the references. In Cablz, Inc. v. Chums, Inc., No. 2016-1823 (Fed. Cir. Sep. 12, 2017)(nonprecedential), the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed an obviousness rejection from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board of...