On Tuesday, September 3 Banner Witcoff’s Alaina Pak joined a panel discussion on the obviousness standard in design patent law, led by Chicago-Kent law professors.
In May, the Federal Circuit issued its en banc decision in LKQ v. GM. It was the court’s first patent en banc case in five years and its third design patent en banc case ever. In its decision, the Federal Circuit revamped the standard for deciding when a design is obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103. Alaina and her co-panelists discussed how the law changed, the open legal questions, and what to expect going forward.