"The Fellowes patent win is significant for its timing after the U.S. Supreme Court's April 30, 2007 decision in the case of KSR International v. Teleflex Inc., in which a patent underpinning KSR's case against fellow automotive component manufacturer Teleflex was found to be "obvious," or invalid, by the Court. The ensuing "KSR decision," a landmark legal precedent in the intellectual property (IP) community, effectively lowered the bar for patent challenges in court and automatically raised the stakes for IP litigation by emboldening patent challengers. The positive post-KSR ruling in this case for Fellowes demonstrates strategic IP claims will remain a critical tool for manufacturers in highly competitive sectors, and can be effectively pursued in spite of the developing patent climate.

"The Fellowes inventions were unique and took different approaches to issues faced by shredder designers, showing that they were not the obvious type of invention addressed by the KSR court," adds Bryan Collins, a Pillsbury IP partner on the trial team and author of one of the two patents at issue."

   I don't think the MMP will be proven "obvious" either, they are rather unique and novel and it's good to see a jury side with this train of thought.