By Michael Borella — The legal concept of obviousness is tricky. A claimed invention is found obvious if the prior art teaches or suggests all claim limitations and one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the relevant teachings of the references. The inherent subjectivity of such an analysis can lead to reasonable people disagreeing on whether an invention is ultimately patentable. But it does not end there — like an onion, obviousness has layers.[1] Normally, whether the references themselves provide enabling disclosure is not relevant. Except when it is. Raytheon is the owner of…
