Source: http://www.ipsofactoj.com/DecidedCases/international/2007A/part08/int2007A(08)-011.htm
Timestamp: 2017-09-26 14:46:13
Document Index: 651685348

Matched Legal Cases: ['art 8', '§103', '§103', '§103', '§103', '§103']

KSR International Co v Teleflex Inc [USSC]
IpsofactoJ.com: International Cases [2007A] Part 8 Case 11 [USSC]
Teleflex Incorporated and its subsidiary Technology Holding Company – both referred to here as Teleflex – sued KSR International Company for patent infringement. The patent at issue, United States Patent No. 6,237,565 B1, is entitled “Adjustable Pedal Assembly With Electronic Throttle Control.” Supplemental App. 1. The patentee is Steven J. Engelgau, and the patent is referred to as “the Engelgau patent.” Teleflex holds the exclusive license to the patent.
In Graham v John Deere Co. of Kansas City, 383 U. S. 1 (1966) , the Court set out a framework for applying the statutory language of §103, language itself based on the logic of the earlier decision in Hotchkiss v Greenwood, 11How. 248 (1851), and its progeny. See 383 U. S., at 15–17. The analysis is objective, Id., at 17–18:
Seeking to resolve the question of obviousness with more uniformity and consistency, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has employed an approach referred to by the parties as the “teaching, suggestion, or motivation” test (TSM test), under which a patent claim is only proved obvious if “some motivation or suggestion to combine the prior art teachings” can be found in the prior art, the nature of the problem, or the knowledge of a person having ordinary skill in the art. See, e.g., Al-Site Corp. v VSI Int’l, Inc., 174 F. 3d 1308, 1323–1324 (CA Fed. 1999). KSR challenges that test, or at least its application in this case. See 119 Fed. Appx. 282, 286–290 (CA Fed. 2005). Because the Court of Appeals addressed the question of obviousness in a manner contrary to §103 and our precedents, we granted certiorari, 547 U. S ___ (2006). We now reverse.
Teleflex is a rival to KSR in the design and manufacture of adjustable pedals. As noted, it is the exclusive licensee of the Engelgau patent. Engelgau filed the patent application on August 22, 2000 as a continuation of a previous application for U. S. Patent No. 6,109,241, which was filed on January 26, 1999. He has sworn he invented the patent’s subject matter on February 14, 1998. The Engelgau patent discloses an adjustable electronic pedal described in the specification as a “simplified vehicle control pedal assembly that is less expensive, and which uses fewer parts and is easier to package within the vehicle.” Engelgau, col. 2, lines 2–5, Supplemental App. 6. Claim 4 of the patent, at issue here, describes, Id., col. 6, lines 17–36, Supplemental App. 8:
[diagram, numbers omitted]
Before issuing the Engelgau patent the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) rejected one of the patent claims that was similar to, but broader than, the present claim 4. The claim did not include the requirement that the sensor be placed on a fixed pivot point. The PTO concluded the claim was an obvious combination of the prior art disclosed in Redding and Smith, explaining, id., at 595:
‘Since the prior ar[t] references are from the field of endeavor, the purpose disclosed .... would have been recognized in the pertinent art of Redding. Therefore it would have been obvious .... to provide the device of Redding with the .... means attached to a support member as taught by Smith.’
Under the controlling cases from the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, however, the District Court was not permitted to stop there. The court was required also to apply the TSM test. The District Court held KSR had satisfied the test. It reasoned
the state of the industry would lead inevitably to combinations of electronic sensors and adjustable pedals,
Rixon provided the basis for these developments, and
Smith taught a solution to the wire chafing problems in Rixon, namely locating the sensor on the fixed structure of the pedal.
This could lead to the combination of Asano, or a pedal like it, with a pedal position sensor.
With principal reliance on the TSM test, the Court of Appeals reversed. It ruled the District Court had not been strict enough in applying the test, having failed to make “ ‘finding[s] as to the specific understanding or principle within the knowledge of a skilled artisan that would have motivated one with no knowledge of [the] invention’ .... to attach an electronic control to the support bracket of the Asano assembly.” 119 Fed. Appx., at 288 (brackets in original) (quoting In re Kotzab, 217 F. 3d 1365, 1371 (CA Fed. 2000)). The Court of Appeals held that the District Court was incorrect that the nature of the problem to be solved satisfied this requirement because unless the “prior art references address[ed] the precise problem that the patentee was trying to solve,” the problem would not motivate an inventor to look at those references. 119 Fed. Appx., at 288.
Here, the Court of Appeals found, the Asano pedal was designed to solve the “ ‘constant ratio problem’ ” – that is, to ensure that the force required to depress the pedal is the same no matter how the pedal is adjusted – whereas Engelgau sought to provide a simpler, smaller, cheaper adjustable electronic pedal. Ibid. As for Rixon, the court explained, that pedal sufferedfrom the problem of wire chafing but was not designed to solve it. In the court’s view Rixon did not teach anything helpful to Engelgau’s purpose. Smith, in turn, did not relate to adjustable pedals and did not “necessarily go to the issue of motivation to attach the electronic control on the support bracket of the pedal assembly.” Ibid. When the patents were interpreted in this way, the Court of Appeals held, they would not have led a person of ordinary skill to put a sensor on the sort of pedal described in Asano.
Neither the enactment of §103 nor the analysis in Graham disturbed this Court’s earlier instructions concerning the need for caution in granting a patent based on the combination of elements found in the prior art. For over a half century, the Court has held that a “patent for a combination which only unites old elements with no change in their respective functions .... obviously withdraws what is already known into the field of its monopoly and diminishes the resources available to skillful men.” Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. v Supermarket Equipment Corp., 340 U. S. 147, 152 (1950) . This is a principal reason for declining to allow patents for what is obvious. The combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results. Three cases decided after Graham illustrate the application of this doctrine.
In United States v Adams, 383 U. S. 39, 40 (1966) , a companion case to Graham, the Court considered the obviousness of a “wet battery” that varied from prior designs in two ways: It contained water, rather than the acids conventionally employed in storage batteries; and its electrodes were magnesium and cuprous chloride, rather than zinc and silver chloride. The Court recognized that when a patent claims a structure already known in the prior art that is altered by the mere substitution of one element for another known in the field, the combination must do more than yield a predictable result. 383 U. S., at 50–51. It nevertheless rejected the Government’s claim that Adams’s battery was obvious. The Court relied upon the corollary principle that when the prior art teaches away from combining certain known elements, discovery of a successful means of combining them is more likely to be nonobvious. Id., at 51–52. When Adams designed his battery, the prior art warned that risks were involved in using the types of electrodes he employed. The fact that the elements worked together in an unexpected and fruitful manner supported the conclusion that Adams’s design was not obvious to those skilled in the art.
In Anderson’s-Black Rock, Inc. v Pavement Salvage Co., 396 U. S. 57 (1969), the Court elaborated on this approach. The subject matter of the patent before the Court was a device combining two pre-existing elements: a radiant-heat burner and a paving machine. The device, the Court concluded, did not create some new synergy: The radiant-heat burner functioned just as a burner was expected to function; and the paving machine did the same. The two in combination did no more than they would in separate, sequential operation. Id., at 60–62. In those circumstances, “while the combination of old elements performed a useful function, it added nothing to the nature and quality of the radiant-heat burner already patented,” and the patent failed under §103. Id., at 62 (footnote omitted).
Finally, in Sakraida v AG Pro, Inc., 425 U. S. 273 (1976), the Court derived from the precedents the conclusion that when a patent “simply arranges old elements with each performing the same function it had been known to perform” and yields no more than one would expect from such an arrangement, the combination is obvious. Id., at 282.
The principles underlying these cases are instructive when the question is whether a patent claiming the combination of elements of prior art is obvious. When a work is available in one field of endeavor, design incentives and other market forces can prompt variations of it, either in the same field or a different one. If a person of ordinary skill can implement a predictable variation, §103 likely bars its patentability. For the same reason, if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious unless its actual application is beyond his or her skill. Sakraida and Anderson’s-Black Rock are illustrative – a court must ask whether the improvement is more than the predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions.
The Court of Appeals, finally, drew the wrong conclusion from the risk of courts and patent examiners falling prey to hindsight bias. A factfinder should be aware, of course, of the distortion caused by hindsight bias and must be cautious of arguments reliant upon ex post reasoning. See Graham, 383 U. S., at 36 (warning against a “temptation to read into the prior art the teachings of the invention in issue” and instructing courts to “ ‘guard against slipping into the use of hindsight’ ” (quoting Monroe Auto Equipment Co. v Heckethorn Mfg. & Supply Co., 332 F. 2d 406, 412 (CA6 1964))). Rigid preventative rules that deny factfinders recourse to common sense, however, are neither necessary under our case law nor consistent with it.
We note the Court of Appeals has since elaborated a broader conception of the TSM test than was applied in the instant matter. See, e.g., DyStar Textilfarben GmbH & Co. Deutschland KG v C. H. Patrick Co., 464 F. 3d 1356, 1367 (2006) (“Our suggestion test is in actuality quite flexible and not only permits, but requires, consideration of common knowledge and common sense”); Alza Corp. v Mylan Labs., Inc., 464 F. 3d 1286, 1291 (2006) (“There is flexibility in our obviousness jurisprudence because a motivation may be found implicitly in the prior art. We do not have a rigid test that requires an actual teaching to combine ....”). Those decisions, of course, are not now before us and do not correct the errors of law made by the Court of Appeals in this case. The extent to which they may describe an analysis more consistent with our earlier precedents and our decision here is a matter for the Court of Appeals to consider in its future cases. What we hold is that the fundamental misunderstandings identified above led the Court of Appeals in this case to apply a test inconsistent with our patent law decisions.
Teleflex argues in passing that the Asano pedal cannot be combined with a sensor in the manner described by claim 4 because of the design of Asano’s pivot mechanisms. See Brief for Respondents 48–49, and n. 17. Therefore, Teleflex reasons, even if adding a sensor to Asano was obvious, that does not establish that claim 4 encompasses obvious subject matter. This argument was not, however, raised before the District Court. There Teleflex was content to assert only that the problem motivating the invention claimed by the Engelgau patent would not lead to the solution of combining of Asano with a sensor. See Teleflex’s Response to KSR’s Motion for Summary Judgment of Invalidity in No. 02–74586 (ED Mich.), pp. 18–20, App. 144a–146a. It is also unclear whether the current argument was raised before the Court of Appeals, where Teleflex advanced the nonspecific, conclusory contention that combining Asano with a sensor would not satisfy the limitations of claim 4. See Brief for Plaintiffs-Appellants in No. 04–1152 (CA Fed.), pp. 42–44. Teleflex’s own expert declarations, moreover, do not support the point Teleflex now raises. See Declaration of Clark J. Radcliffe, Ph.D., Supplemental App. 204–207; Declaration of Timothy L. Andresen, id., at 208–210. The only statement in either declaration that might bear on the argument is found in the Radcliffe declaration, Id., at 206, ¶16:
Asano .... and Rixon .... are complex mechanical linkage-based devices that are expensive to produce and assemble and difficult to package. It is exactly these difficulties with prior art designs that [Engelgau] resolves. The use of an adjustable pedal with a single pivot reflecting pedal position combined with an electronic control mounted between the support and the adjustment assembly at that pivot was a simple, elegant, and novel combination of features in the Engelgau ’565 patent.