Lewis & Clark Law Review’s latest issue and it features a business forum on the Supreme Court’s recent patent decision in KSR v. Teleflex. If you want to talk KSR, this is your stop. There are eleven action-packed articles related to this decision and this is a great way to get your fill of opinions.
Not to be missed is the article by Joseph Scott Miller, of Fire and Genius, which looks at how the Supreme Court’s KSR decision transforms the way we think about patent law’s ordinary artisan. If you remember, the Supreme Court states that the ordinary artisan “is also a person of ordinary creativity, not an automaton.” That’s why they get paid the big bucks. Looking through the history of nonobviousness, Prof. Miller shows that the modern “level of skill” inquiry can comfortably rely on evidence of long-felt, unmet need in the art and the failure of others to meet that need.
In Creativity, Innovation, and Obviousness, Psychologis R. Keith Sawyer discusses how creativity research could help resolve the unanswered questions of KSR: (1) the role of prior art in invention; (2) the distinction between ordinary and exceptional innovation; and (3) the relative importance of proper posing of a problem and the combination that results in the solution.
Links to each article, along with abstracts, are at the current issue page.
