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ARTICLE · 29 MAY 2007

IP Litigation Summer 2007 Newsletter

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The United States Supreme Court (Court) rejected the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's (Federal Circuit) teaching-suggestion-motivation (TSM) test in KSR v. Teleflex. No 04-1350 (April 30, 2007).

United StatesIntellectual Property
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By Courtenay Brinkerhoff, Kristy J. Downing, G. Michael Halfenger, James G. Morrow, Gilberto M. Villacorta and John F. Zabriskie

KSR v. Teleflex– The U.S. Supreme Court Provides a Not-So-Obvious Result as It Rejects the Teaching-Suggestion-Motivation Test

Kristy J. Downing and James G. Morrow

The United States Supreme Court (Court) rejected the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's (Federal Circuit) teaching-suggestion-motivation (TSM) test in KSR v. Teleflex. No 04-1350 (April 30, 2007). In a unanimous opinion written by Justice Kennedy, the Court primarily rejected the TSM test because of its "narrow" scope — essentially obviating a patent only where the prior art taught specific encouragement to combine the prior art in the claimed manner, rather than asking the general question of whether the patentee would have found some predictable benefit in combining the prior art references.

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