How to Make an Obviousness Determination

In re Kahn (Fed. Cir. 2006, 04–1616).

I already provided a summary of this March 22, 2006 opinion, but decided that the meat of the opinion is important enough to be repeated:

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. . . In assessing whether subject matter would have been non-obvious under § 103, the Board follows the guidance of the Supreme Court in Graham v. John Deere Co. The Board determines "‘the scope and content of the prior art,’" ascertains "‘the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue,’" and resolves "‘the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.’" Dann v. Johnston, 425 U.S. 219, 226 (1976) (quoting Graham, 383 U.S. at 17). Against this background, the Board determines whether the subject matter would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the asserted invention. Graham, 383 U.S. at 17. In making this determination, the Board can assess evidence related to secondary indicia of non-obviousness like "commercial success, long felt but unresolved needs, failure of others, etc." Id., 383 at 17-18; accord Rouffett, 149 F.3d at 1355. We have explained that

[t]o reject claims in an application under section 103, an examiner must show an unrebutted prima facie case of obviousness . . . . On appeal to the Board, an applicant can overcome a rejection by showing insufficient evidence of prima facie obviousness or by rebutting the prima facie case with evidence of secondary indicia of nonobviousness.

Rouffett, 149 F.3d at 1355.

Most inventions arise from a combination of old elements and each element may often be found in the prior art. Id. at 1357. However, mere identification in the prior art of each element is insufficient to defeat the patentability of the combined subject matter as a whole. Id. at 1355, 1357. Rather, to establish a prima facie case of obviousness based on a combination of elements disclosed in the prior art, the Board must articulate the basis on which it concludes that it would have been obvious to make the claimed invention. Id. In practice, this requires that the Board "explain the reasons one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to select the references and to combine them to render the claimed invention obvious." Id. at 1357-59. This entails consideration of both the "scope and content of the prior art" and "level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art" aspects of the Graham test.

When the Board does not explain the motivation, or the suggestion or teaching, that would have led the skilled artisan at the time of the invention to the claimed combination as a whole, we infer that the Board used hindsight to conclude that the invention was obvious. Id. at 1358. The "motivation-suggestion-teaching" requirement protects against the entry of hindsight into the obviousness analysis, a problem which § 103 was meant to confront. See 35 U.S.C. § 103 (stating that obviousness must be assessed "at the time the invention was made"); Dembiczak, 175 F.3d at 998 ("[I]t is this phrase that guards against entry into the tempting but forbidden zone of hindsight." (internal quotations omitted)); Giles S. Rich, Laying the Ghost of the Invention Requirement, 1 APLA Q.J. 26-45 (1972), reprinted in 14 Fed. Cir. B.J. 163, 170 (2004) ("To protect the inventor from hindsight reasoning, the time is specified to be the time when the invention was made.") (emphasis in original). The Supreme Court recognized the hindsight problem in Graham and proposed that "legal inferences" resulting from "secondary considerations" might help to overcome it. 383 U.S. at 36 ("[Secondary considerations] may also serve to guard against slipping into use of hindsight, and to resist the temptation to read into the prior art the teachings of the invention in issue." (internal quotations omitted)). By requiring the Board to explain the motivation, suggestion, or teaching as part of its prima facie case, the law guards against hindsight in all cases—whether or not the applicant offers evidence on secondary considerations—which advances Congress’s goal of creating a more practical, uniform, and definite test for patentability. See Dann, 424 U.S. at 225-26 ("[I]t was only in 1952 that Congress, in the interest of ‘uniformity and definiteness,’ articulated the requirement in a statute." (quoting S. Rep. No. 1979, at 6 (1952); H.R. Rep. No. 1923, at 7 (1952))); Graham, 383 U.S. at 17 ("The § 103 [test], when followed realistically, will permit a more practical test of patentability.").

Although our predecessor court was the first to articulate the motivation-suggestion-teaching test, a related test—the "analogous art" test—has long been part of the primary Graham analysis articulated by the Supreme Court. See Dann, 425 U.S. at 227-29; Graham, 383 U.S. at 35. The analogous-art test requires that the Board show that a reference is either in the field of the applicant’s endeavor or is reasonably pertinent to the problem with which the inventor was concerned in order to rely on that reference as a basis for rejection. In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1447 (Fed. Cir. 1992). References are selected as being reasonably pertinent to the problem based on the judgment of a person having ordinary skill in the art. Id. ("[I]t is necessary to consider ‘the reality of the circumstances,’—in other words, common sense—in deciding in which fields a person of ordinary skill would reasonably be expected to look for a solution to the problem facing the inventor." (quoting In re Wood, 599 F.2d 1032, 1036 (C.C.P.A. 1979))). We have explained that this test begins the inquiry into whether a skilled artisan would have been motivated to combine references by defining the prior art relevant for the obviousness determination, and that it is meant to defend against hindsight. See id.; In re Clay, 966 F.2d 656, 659-60 (Fed. Cir. 1992).

The motivation-suggestion-teaching test picks up where the analogous art test leaves off and informs the Graham analysis. To reach a non-hindsight driven conclusion as to whether a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention would have viewed the subject matter as a whole to have been obvious in view of multiple references, the Board must provide some rationale, articulation, or reasoned basis to explain why the conclusion of obviousness is correct. The requirement of such an explanation is consistent with governing obviousness law, see § 103(a); Graham, 383 U.S. at 35; Dann, 425 U.S. at 227-29, and helps ensure predictable patentability determinations.

A suggestion, teaching, or motivation to combine the relevant prior art teachings does not have to be found explicitly in the prior art, as

the teaching, motivation, or suggestion may be implicit from the prior art as a whole, rather than expressly stated in the references. . . . The test for an implicit showing is what the combined teachings, knowledge of one of ordinary skill in the art, and the nature of the problem to be solved as a whole would have suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art.

In re Kotzab, 217 F.3d 1365, 1370 (Fed. Cir. 2000) (internal citations omitted). However, rejections on obviousness grounds cannot be sustained by mere conclusory statements; instead, there must be some articulated reasoning with some rational underpinning to support the legal conclusion of obviousness. See Lee, 277 F.3d at 1343-46; Rouffett, 149 F.3d at 1355-59. This requirement is as much rooted in the Administrative Procedure Act, which ensures due process and non-arbitrary decisionmaking, as it is in § 103. See id. at 1344-45.

In considering motivation in the obviousness analysis, the problem examined is not the specific problem solved by the invention but the general problem that confronted the inventor before the invention was made. See, e.g., Cross Med. Prods., Inc. v. Medtronic Sofamor Danek, Inc., 424 F.3d 1293, 1323 (Fed. Cir. 2005) ("One of ordinary skill in the art need not see the identical problem addressed in a prior art reference to be motivated to apply its teachings."); Ecolochem, Inc. v. S. Cal. Edison Co., 227 F.3d 1361, 1372 (Fed. Cir. 2000) ("Although the suggestion to combine references may flow from the nature of the problem, ‘[d]efining the problem in terms of its solution reveals improper hindsight in the selection of the prior art relevant to obviousness.’" (internal citation omitted) (quoting Monarch Knitting Mach. Corp. v. Sulzer Morat GmbH, 139 F.3d 877, 881 (Fed. Cir. 1998))); In re Beattie, 974 F.2d 1309, 1312 (Fed. Cir. 1992) ("[T]he law does not require that the references be combined for the reasons contemplated by the inventor."); Princeton Biochemicals, Inc. v. Beckman Coulter, Inc., 411 F.3d 1332, 1337 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (characterizing the relevant inquiry as "[would] an artisan of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention, confronted by the same problems as the inventor and with no knowledge of the claimed invention,[] have selected the various elements from the prior art and combined them in the manner claimed"); see also Graham, 383 U.S. at 35 (characterizing the problem as involving mechanical closures rather than in terms more specific to the patent in the context of determining the pertinent prior art). Therefore, the "motivation-suggestion-teaching" test asks not merely what the references disclose, but whether a person of ordinary skill in the art, possessed with the understandings and knowledge reflected in the prior art, and motivated by the general problem facing the inventor, would have been led to make the combination recited in the claims. See Cross Med. Prods., 424 F.3d at 1321-24. From this it may be determined whether the overall disclosures, teachings, and suggestions of the prior art, and the level of skill in the art—i.e., the understandings and knowledge of persons having ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention—support the legal conclusion of obviousness. See Princeton Biochemicals, 411 F.3d at 1338 (pointing to evidence supplying detailed analysis of the prior art and the reasons one of ordinary skill would have possessed the knowledge and motivation to combine).

 

Comments

[Gary Pulsinelli]

Interesting to see the court lay this out in such detail (we're finishing obviousness in my patent law course and I'm going to give this to my students). I wonder if this is in effect the Federal Circuit's "brief" in KSR v. Teleflex. It reads very much like a justification of the Federal Circuit's obviousness jurisprudence, including showing how it aligns with the Supreme Court's pronouncements. It doesn't deal directly with Sakraida, but the language about "Most inventions arise from a combination of old elements" might be seen as a swipe at that case.