Patent Law

Obzilla Revisited

By Gary Odom and Jordan Kuhn

The Patent Prospector plastered the Supreme Court for its inept KSR ruling regarding obviousness. For those wishing to visit old stomping grounds, Lewis & Clark Law School held an Obzillafest last October, though they were too stiff to call it that. Insomniacs may get some relief, as well as insight, from the collected works.

Gregory Mandel leads off with a straight-forward tale of how the Supreme Court missed the boat in KSR. Joe Miller of Fire of Genius lavishly extols on the history of obviousness from the perspective of long-felt need, post-KSR a rather lost notion. Psychologist Colleen Seifert dryly pokes fun at the notion that: "A person of ordinary skill is also a person of ordinary creativity, not an automaton. (p. 1742)." For those wanting a slathering of economic abstraction on their slice of Obzilla, Vincenzo Denicolo obliges. Lego fans might enjoy "Patent Carrots and Sticks: A Model of Nonobviousness" by Michael Meurer and Katherine Standburg, even though it lacks both vegetables and wood. Steven Smith plays SCOTUS wanna-be with his paper on invisible assumptions and creative cognition telling you that "economic research shows the implications of different types of errors that can occur in the assessment of nonobviousness in patents," as a prelude to giving his obviousness yardstick. John Duffy uses a time machine to the same effect of wielding an obviousness metric with his timing approach to patentability. And there's more where that came from.

Less stuffy Patent Prospector coverage of KSR and its aftermath: Obzilla; Ordinary Skill in the Art; Common Sense Turns Wily; The Dynamics of Obviousness; Incremental Invention; KSR Playing; Chemical Obviousness; Problem Solved; Obviousness Vampire; Dealing with KSR; The KSR Trend; The Obvious Guide; Domino; Invention Undermined; Not So Obvious.

Full post as published by The Patent Prospector on June 14, 2008 (boomark / email).