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| US Supreme Court rules on “obviousness” |
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8 May 2007 The issue at stake was whether it was ‘obvious’ to combine two prior art references to achieve a useful result. The US Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit had introduced a test known as the "teaching, suggestion or motivation" (TSM) test to determine this question. When applied narrowly, this test required that there be something explicit within the prior art references which would cause a skilled worker to combine them. The Supreme Court has ruled that a narrow TSM test is not an appropriate determinate of obviousness. Rather, the skilled worker is to be seen as someone of common sense, with an ordinary level of creativity. If such a worker would consider the combination of references to be worth trying, whether or not there is an explicit suggestion to do so, then the combination must be considered obvious and not worthy of patent protection. The judgment may be of particular relevance to mechanical inventions, which are almost universally composed of combinations of known elements, and to electronic business methods where the underlying method is already known in some form. |