By Jason Rantanen
Kinetic Concepts, Inc. v. Smith & Nephew, Inc. (Fed. Cir. 2012) Panel: Bryson, Dyk (concurring in the result), O'Malley (author) Download 11-1105
Dennis will be writing about the advisory jury issue in Kinetic Concepts in more detail, so I'll provide only a brief summary here. Wake Forest, the patent holder, appealed a district court grant of JMOL of invalidity for obviousness of a claimed invention for treating difficult-to-heal wounds by applying suction (negative pressure). The CAFC reversed, holding that (1) the jury's "advisory" opinion on the ultimate issue obviousness gave rise to implied findings of facts that the district court was required to accept provided that they were supported by substantial evidence, despite the presence of special interrogatories on the verdict form; (2) the jury's implied findings of facts on the Graham factors were supported by substantial evidence; and (3) the ultimate conclusion of obviousness was that the claims were not obvious.
In arriving at the ultimate (legal) conclusion of nonobvious, the Federal Circuit focused its discussion on the lack of a reason to combine the prior art references (itself a factual finding), referencing concerns about hindsight reconstruction. In a statement suggesting a technology-based limitation on the use of common sense, the court held that "although expert testimony regarding motivation to combine is not always required, the technology at issue here is not the type of technology where common sense would provide the motivation to combine these references." Slip Op. at 45.
