“Obviousness” v. “Anticipation”—Similar but Different Patent Law Defenses

“Anticipation” is a patent defense that must be based on a single prior art reference.

“Obviousness” is a patent defense that may be based on multiple prior art references; but requires the additional element of proof that a “teaching” suggests a “motivation” to combine the elements of the prior art references into a single invention.

The End of Bright-Line Tests in Patent Litigation

In Bilski v. Kappos, the United Supreme Court is deciding whether a patentable “process” must be tied to a particular machine or apparatus or transfer an article into a different state or thing. The Court’s ruling in this case portends possible dramatic changes to the world of software and internet patents, most of which are process-based and operate on general-purpose computing platforms.