Patent Law

Grasp by Analogy

By Gary Odom and Jordan Kuhn

On the Supreme Court, Justice Antonin Scalia can't resist indulging in sarcasm as modus operandi. Contrast that with the poised maturity of persnickety Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who revels in the devils in the details. Justice Stephen Breyer: "The point is to try to focus on a matter that is worrying me. Sometimes it's easier to do that with an example."

Breyer patent case quotations:

Quanta Computer v. LG Electronics:

Imagine that I want to buy some bicycle pedals, so I go to the bicycle shop. These are fabulous pedals. The inventor has licensed somebody to make them, and he sold them to the shop, make and sell them. He sold them to the shop. I go buy the pedals. I put it in my bicycle. I start pedaling down the road. Now, we don't want 19 patent inspectors chasing me or all of the other companies and there are many doctrines in the law designed to stop that.

I mean, there's a doctrine that you cannot impose equitable servitude's upon chattel.

And I take it here they are using those chips in those mechanisms that the chips are almost exclusively designed for and there isn't much else to use them for. Am I right or wrong?

The given reply to the above question: "the point here is that that's not the relevant distinction."

KSR v. Teleflex:

Now to me, I grant you I'm not an expert, but it looks at about the same level as I have a sensor on my garage door at the lower hinge for when the car is coming in and out, and the raccoons are eating it. So I think of the brainstorm of putting it on the upper hinge, OK? Now I just think that; how could I get a patent for that?

Patents are granted if you "just think that" something novel, Justice Breyer. Though KSR raised the bar for what's novel, it's the same idea; no analogy necessary.

Full post as published by The Patent Prospector on March 03, 2008 (boomark / email).