CAFC Explains What the PTO Must Find to Hold a Patent Obvious

In Outdry v. GEOX, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) rendered a decision, in which it upheld a finding of obviousness by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). The patent at issue was directed to a method for waterproofing leather, and the invention specifically defined either sewing or gluing a semi-permeable membrane to an interior surface of the leather. The claims called for “directly pressing” the membrane to the leather, but the specification did not provide any meaningful discussion on what this “directly pressing” entailed…

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