Law360, New York (May 24, 2012, 4:02 PM ET) -- The Federal Circuit ruled Thursday that a reissue application for a patent on artificial joints would have been obvious because one skilled in the art would have been motivated to combine two earlier patents to arrive at the claimed invention.
The 2-1 split panel decision included a dissent maintaining that combining the earlier patents was only obvious with hindsight knowledge of the patent-in-suit, and that there was no evidence that the combination would be obvious.
The majority rejected the argument by the inventors, Suong-Hyu Hyon and...
Combined Prior Art Nixes Joint Patent, Fed. Circ. Rules
To view the full article, take a free trial now.
