How “generic skepticism” affects the motivation to combine

Description

Abstract: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit gave new life to a challenge of a robotic surgery patent after rejecting the relevance of surgeons’ skepticism for robotic surgery. This article examines a decision holding that the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) improperly found such generic skepticism about a field — as opposed to skepticism about a specific invention — rendered the patented invention nonobvious. Auris Health, Inc. v. Intuitive Surgical Operations, Inc., No. 21-1732 (Fed. Cir. April 29, 2022).