KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc.

In 2007 the Supreme Court took on the case of 550 US 398, a case between KRS International and Teleflex Inc concerning the issue of obviousness as applied to patent claims. Teleflex sued KSR under the claim that one of KSR's products was an infringement on Teleflex's patent (US 6237565 B1) which is titled: Adjustable pedal assembly with electronic throttle control. However, KRS responded that the invention and combination of those two object was "obvious," thus making it not worthy of a patent. This stems from 35 U.S.C. Section 103(a), stating that obvious inventions cannot be patented. According to this condition, in order to determine the obviousness of a patent claim, the courts must "consider the prior art, the differences between the prior art and the subject matter of the claim, and the ordinary skill level required of a person in the subject matter of the claim before considering secondary factors and the test for teaching, suggestion, or the patentee's motivation."

At first, the case was taken to district courts where they voted in favour of KRS, agreeing with the fact that the patent is in fact "obvious" so the infringement is in fact allowed. The court stated and ruled that anyone with knowledge or experience in the industry would have considered it obvious that the two components could be combined. However, Teleflex would not accept that and decided to take the case to the Court of Appeals in 2005. In this court the original decision by the District Court was reversed. The Circuit Court reversed it because they found that the district court's analysis was incomplete, mostly because they had not applied a full "teaching-suggestion-motivation test" (TSM). The TSM test, established by the Federal Circuit, "requires evidence of some reason to combine various references that teach the elements of the invention, as claimed." Thus, in order to describe patent US 6237565 B1 as 'obvious' the District Court would have had to identify the exact "teaching, suggestion, or motivation" that would have led any competent person to think to put together the two previously-existing components. But KRS did not accept the new decision and decided to take the case to the Supreme Court. Finally, April 30, 2007, the Supreme Court unanimously reversed the decision of the Federal Circuit, holding that the patent was 'obvious' under the requirements of 35 U.S.C. section 103, and that in "rejecting the District Court’s rulings, the Court of Appeals analyzed the issue in a narrow, rigid manner inconsistent with §103 and our precedents," which refers to the Federal Circuit's use of the "teaching-suggestion-motivation" (TSM) test.

Overall, this case is a perfect representative of the vagueness of the idea of obviousness when it comes to claims and court cases. It went through two different courts before reaching the Supreme Court. This shows how this idea of vagueness needs to be further defined and analyzed to make it a clear and distinct differentiation for patents.