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In
United States patent law Under United States law, a patent is a right granted to the inventor of a (1) process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, (2) that is new, useful, and non-obvious. A patent is the right to exclude others, for a limited ...
, the flash of genius doctrine was a test for
patentability Within the context of a national or multilateral body of law, an invention is patentable if it meets the relevant legal conditions to be granted a patent. By extension, patentability also refers to the substantive conditions that must be met f ...
used by the
United States Federal Courts The federal judiciary of the United States is one of the three branches of the federal government of the United States organized under the United States Constitution and laws of the federal government. The U.S. federal judiciary consists primaril ...
for just over a decade, beginning circa 1940.


Origin

The doctrine was formalized by the Supreme Court's opinion in ''Cuno Engineering v. Automatic Devices'' (1941), which held that the inventive act had to come into the mind of an
inventor An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an id ...
in a "flash of genius" and not as a result of tinkering: "The new device, however useful it may be, must reveal the ''flash of creative genius'', not merely the skill of the calling. If it fails, it has not established its right to a private grant on the
public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired, ...
."


Overturned

The test was eventually rejected by
Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...
in its 1952 revision of the patent statute, now codified in
Title 35 of the United States Code Title 35 of the United States Code is a title of United States Code regarding patent law. The sections of Title 35 govern all aspects of patent law in the United States. There are currently 37 chapters, which include 376 sections (149 of which a ...
. Section 103 was amended to state the new standard of ''non-obviousness'': "Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made." The
United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point ...
acknowledged this new language in its landmark opinion on obviousness, ''
Graham v. John Deere Co. ''Graham v. John Deere Co.'', 383 U.S. 1 (1966), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court clarified the nonobviousness requirement in United States patent law, set forth in 35 U.S.C. § 103.. Facts and procedural history The case was ...
'' (1966), noting that the language in ''Cuno'' establishing the doctrine had never been intended to create a new standard in the first instance.''Id.'' at fn. 7


See also

*
Cripps question In patent law, the Cripps question is: :"Was it for all practical purpose obvious to any skilled chemist in the state of chemical knowledge existing at the date of the patent which consists of the chemical literature available (a selection of wh ...
, a question used to assess inventive step under UK patent law *
Epiphany (feeling) An epiphany (from the ancient Greek ἐπιφάνεια, ''epiphanea'', "manifestation, striking appearance") is an experience of a sudden and striking realization. Generally the term is used to describe a scientific breakthrough or a religious o ...
, an illuminating realization or discovery *
Brainstorming Brainstorming is a group creativity technique by which efforts are made to find a conclusion for a specific problem by gathering a list of ideas spontaneously contributed by its members. In other words, brainstorming is a situation where a group ...
*
Eureka effect The eureka effect (also known as the Aha! moment or eureka moment) refers to the common human experience of suddenly understanding a previously incomprehensible problem or concept. Some research describes the Aha! effect (also known as insight or ...
, named from a famous legend that the
ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...
polymath A polymath ( el, πολυμαθής, , "having learned much"; la, homo universalis, "universal human") is an individual whose knowledge spans a substantial number of subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific pro ...
Archimedes Archimedes of Syracuse (;; ) was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor from the ancient city of Syracuse in Sicily. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the leading scienti ...
, having found inspiration at a public bath, ran home naked, shouting "eureka" (I have found he solution *
Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door "Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door" is a phrase attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson in the late nineteenth century. It is unknown who wrote the phrase as it was popularized. The phrase is a metaphor about the powe ...


References


Further reading

* United States patent law {{SCOTUS-stub