Irwin IP is pleased to announce that the Federal Circuit has agreed to rehear its appeal of a Patent Office decision confirming the validity of a GM design patent. The Federal Circuit rarely agrees to hear appeals en banc. In granting our request to hear this appeal en banc, the court has asked the parties to brief, among other things, whether the Supreme Court’s faulting, in KSR, of “a rigid rule that limits the obviousness inquiry” for utility patents and adopting “an expansive and flexible approach,” should cause the Federal Circuit to eliminate or modify the current rigid and inflexible test used for evaluate obviousness of design patents.
Read the full order here.