Call for review of the 'obviousness' (inventive step) standard in the US

Via Lawrence Lessig - conservative think tank, the Progress and Freedom Foundation, has called for a review of the Federal Circuit's obviousness standard, saying it is letting too many bad patents through. 2 Senior Fellows of the Foundation filed an amicus brief (pdf) in the case of KSR v Teleflex. According to a press release, the case is about:

'a patent held by the respondent that claims "invention" of the combination of two pre-existing designs -- an automobile adjustable accelerator pedal and an electronic throttle control. A district court ruled against the patent, finding that anyone with an undergraduate degree or modest industry experience "would have found it obvious" to connect the two devices. A Federal Circuit Court of Appeals panel vacated that judgment because the petitioners hadn't found objective evidence that anyone suggested the combination before the respondents filed their patent.'

According to the PFF fellows,

'PFF, precisely because of its fierce insistence on the importance of intellectual property rights and markets to the world economy, is concerned that the patent system not overreach by trying to protect too much," DeLong and Singleton say. "Extensions of the system to cover creations that are not true advances cause misallocation of resources and provide ammunition to those whose goal it is to undermine the basic idea of patents....
...The Federal Circuit's test says, in essence, that all doubtful cases, all cases in the gray area, will be decided in favor of patentability. It has decided to run zero risk of rejecting a meritorious claim even at the cost of accepting numerous non-meritorious claims...This is not sensible doctrine. Nor is it in accord with the statutory language or the precedents of this Court'

24 Law Professors also filed an amicus in the case (pdf). The case has not yet been granted certiorari by the Supreme Court.