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USPTO Issues New Guidance On Rejecting Patent Claims for Obviousness
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) recently published new guidance explaining the requirements for patent examiners to reject patent claims for obviousness in view of what was already known in the prior art. 89 Fed. Reg. 14449 (Feb. 27, 2024).
Under 35 U.S.C. §103, "[a] patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained … if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains." This question of obviousness is often amorphous, and presents uncertainty in patent examination and patent disputes. The new guidance seeks to provide added clarity to patent examiners and practitioners regarding application of the law in this critical area.
According to Kathi Vidal, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO, "[i]n addition to issuing robust and reliable patent rights to innovators, our goal is to give those innovators clarity and certainty by applying the same standards whenever those rights are challenged before the USPTO. By providing this guidance, we are injecting greater consistency and transparency not only into our processes, but into the entire innovation ecosystem."
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