Hacker Friendly

Ars Technica reports that the Supreme Court has invalidated Teleflex’s patent on a self-adjusting gas pedal in KSR v. Teleflex. The Supremes ruled that the Federal Circuit court that heard Teleflex’s appeal did not appropriately apply the test for obviousness. The obviousness test says that an invention cannot be patented if a “person having ordinary skill in the art” would consider it an obvious design.

“The results of ordinary innovation are not the subject of exclusive rights under the patent laws,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the Court. “Were it otherwise, patents might stifle rather than promote the progress of useful arts.”

Word. While the existing patent system still needs a great deal of work, this seems to be a step in the right direction.

This decision could have very wide-reaching effects in the tech community. For example, Ars points out that the patents being debated in the ongoing Verizon vs. Vonage drama might just fail the obviousness test, too. Hopefully we are finally on the road to avoiding ongoing 1-Click debacles.