Test for "Obvious" Patents Questioned

bulled writes "News.com is running a story about a case coming before the US Supreme Court on testing new patents for 'obviousness'. The decision has potential to significantly impact the High Tech industry." From the article: "Several Silicon Valley heavyweights, including Intel and Cisco Systems, have submitted supporting briefs that urge the Supreme Court to revise an earlier ruling. That ruling, they claim, has helped make it easier to obtain patents on seemingly 'obvious' combinations of pre-existing inventions."

For a more technical read on the case

[almost entirely lega]

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=116463689942 5 [law.com] is the law.com/Legal Times article on KSR International v. Teleflex, which will be argued before the Supreme Court today. As the article points out, depending upon how wide ranging a decision the Court issues, this case has implications for millions of patents, many of which have been considered unassailable, having stood up to years of attacks.

Re:How about reforming patents all together...

[Kattspya]

Here's a link to a study that supports the OP: http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/again st.htm [dklevine.com] (PDF-warning)

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Re:How about reforming patents all together...

[Anonymous Coward]

>There is actually little to no real evidence of patents being beneficial to the economical system. For any technological discipline.

Huh?

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=pate nt+%22economic+growth%22&as_ylo=2005&as_yhi=2006&b tnG=Search [google.com]