The Legacy of KSR v. Teleflex

Part of the legacy of KSR will depend upon how the case is treated by the Federal Circuit (CAFC). Graham v. John Deere is the seminal patent case on obviousness, and is cited by most patent decisions involving the question of obviousness.  Cases like Sakraida and Anderson's Black-Rock are much less likely to be relied-on. Sakraida, for instance, is fifty-times (50x) less likely to be cited by the CAFC than Graham -- even though Sakraida represented (until 2007) the Supreme Court's most recent pronouncement on obviousness.  Sakraida's low-level influence has waned in recent times.  For instance, the cow-dung case has only been cited once by the CAFC in the past decade. (in DyStar).

The table above shows the number of Shepard's citations found for the Supreme Court's set of obviousness decisions. Total citations include all known citations while "total court" citations include only instances where the case was cited in a court opinion. The No. 2 case (in CAFC citations) is US v. Adams. That case is notorious as the only nonobviousness case -- i.e., were the Supreme Court found the claims nonobvious.

The KSR Opinion has much more meat than Sakraida, but the case will never challenge the canonical status of Graham v. John Deere.  Of course, the question of KSR's legacy is now in the hands of the CAFC.