The Grim Outlook For Business Method Patents

Many people understand Muniauction Inc. v. Thomson Corp., 532 F.3d 1318 (Fed. Cir. 2008) to stand for the proposition that inventions are per se obvious if they merely involve placing a prior-art system on the Internet.

The case may be more important, however, in validating the opinions of those who believed KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc. 127 S. Ct. 1727 (2007) would usher in an era of judicial activism in the obviousness area.

Using Muniauction as a lodestar, judges will likely feel freer to find obvious inventions that seem too simple, without following the rigors of the approach KSR rejected.

Recent History Of The Law On Obviousness

KSR V. Teleflex

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit had, for more than twenty years, applied some form of a test for obviousness known as the "teaching, suggestion, or motivation" or "TSM" test, which required the courts to find some teaching, suggestion or motivation to combine the prior art teachings before