Utilitarianism and Obviousness

Obviousness Inquiry after Ksr

One of the most important and delicate judicial tasks in patent law is to keep the obviousness doctrine in reasonable working order. There are several reasons why the obviousness doctrine has been the subject of frequent judicial tinkering. First, patentability doctrines interact with each other, so doctrinal alterations that seem to be entirely external to the obviousness doctrine frequently h...

Utilitarianism and Personal Identity

Utilitarianism, Conscience and Animals

Obviousness and Inventive Step -New Differences

In a paper resented at the Fordham Conference two years ago, I asked the question when considering the requirement of non-obviousness or inventive step in patent law is “what is the requirement for?”. Implicit in the question was the idea that these requirements had the same purpose. Internationally, it has been agreed that the term “non-obvious” used in the United States statute and possession...

Formulation Patents and Dermatology and Obviousness

Most patents covering dermatologic products contain patent claims directed to the pharmaceutical formulation of the product. Such patents, known as formulation patents, are vulnerable to attacks based on the legal argument that the formulations covered are obvious over formulations already known prior to the filing of the patent application. Because obviousness is an important concept in patent...