Coming Soon: KSR Training Guidelines for Patent Examiners
According to the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) web site, the PTO has sent to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review draft final guidance for use by patent examiners in determining if an invention is obvious in view of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in KSR v. Teleflex. The PTO will reportedly make the final guidance document available on its web site after OMB concludes its review (a link to the guidelines will be posted on this web site when they become available). Until the guidelines are finalized, the PTO will train its examiners on how to implement KSR. Practitioners should expect to see more Office Actions containing rejections based on KSR in the immediate future.
