KSR Intern. Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 US 398 - Supreme Court 2007

In that decision, the Supreme Court rejected the Federal Circuit's "rigid approach" to the "teaching, suggestion, or motivation" ("TSM") test for obviousness, instead reaffirming the more "expansive and flexible" approach set out in Graham.

—cautioning against "the distortion caused by hindsight bias" and obviousness "arguments reliant upon ex post reasoning

"[A] ny need or problem known in the field of endeavor at the time of invention and addressed by the patent can provide a reason for combining the elements in the manner claimed."

T] he analysis need not seek out precise teachings directed to the specific subject matter of the challenged claim, for a court can take account of the inferences and creative steps that a person of ordinary skill in the art would employ

"When there is a design need or market pressure to solve a problem and there are a finite number of identified, predictable solutions, a person of ordinary skill has good reason to pursue the known options within his or her technical grasp."

Among the factual determinations are "the scope and content of the prior art, differences between the prior art and the claims at issue, the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art, and any objective indicia of non-obviousness."

"The combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results."

A patent is obvious if "the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains." 35 USC § 103 (a).

"[A] patent composed of several elements is not proved obvious merely by demonstrating that each of its elements was, independently, known in the prior art."

"If a person of ordinary skill in the art can implement a predictable variation, and would see the benefit of doing so, § 103 likely bars its patentability."