View source for PL Homework 2 -- Due Friday, January 28

Homework 2

Due: Friday, January 28

The references I will be looking at for this assignment are

Patent 4,433,839- Basketball rim assembly

Patent 4,575,079- Articulated resiliently-biased mounted means for basketball hoop

Under the Hotchkiss ruling of 1850, my patent would most likely be ruled invalid because it is an aggregation of other known parts.  The Hotchkiss case ruled that the clay knob was not patentable because every feature of the part could be found in previous parts or was publicly known.  For instance, the dovetail shape was not new, the fusing of the knob with melted metal was not new, and the spindle and shank had both been used in the same way before.  Also, knobs had been made of clay before.  When each feature of the knob was analyzed and it was determined that the knob did not require new skills to create, the orginality of the invention was decidedly minimal and the patent declared invalid.  Despite it's new material, which made the knob cheaper and gave it a more elegant apperance, the judges in this case (besides McLean) failed to find novelty in the knob.

My patent consits strictly of mechanical parts which have been used in other inventions, often with similar if not identical applications.  For example, the two springs which my patent uses to absorb shock from a dynamic force is seen in Patent 4,575,079 doing the same thing.  However, in the older patent, the springs are arranged differently, which is one reason my patent was issued in the first place.  Under the reasoning given for the Hotchkiss decision, my patent would not be valid because of this strict interpretation of the novelty required for an invention.  Seeing as my patent serves the same purpose as the two patents cited above, and does so with the same materials, well known mechanisms, and with no higher skill or processing knowledge required, it would not meet the definition of an invention as stated in Hotchkiss.

If we look at McLean's...


Under the Supreme Court's ruling of A&P Tea v. Supermarket, I beleive my patent would be considered valid.  The judges focused their decision in this case on combination patents and what is required for invention.