Supreme Court Patent Ruling
One of the things that I was desperately hoping would happen when Chief Justice Roberts was sworn in was that the Supreme Court would start taking cases dealing with technology law which have traditionally made the United States the laughing stock of the international community. This has actually come to pass!
The Supreme Court has ruled regarding the ‘obviousness’ test in Patent applications. (Basically, the idea is that you can’t patent something that is obvious; only something that is innovative can be patented.) Of course, there are many famous examples of things that received a patent, but also seemed unbelievably obvious. A great example of this is the Amazon.com One Click Patent. In the case the Supreme Court ruled on today, the patent was concerning a gas pedal and a sensor as if simply adding a sensor to a gas pedal was innovative.
One can only hope that this spells good news for all those who are concerned with Patent reform in the United States.
Posted: April 30th, 2007 under Politics and Law.
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