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Ruling on Patents Roils Companies
Tweet Share on Facebook May 3, 2007 CommentGetting a patent got a little harder this week with the latest in a series of Supreme Court decisions. The case, in which KSR International challenged a Teleflex patent over an adjustable gas pedal, is likely to have the most impact on fields like biotechnology and software, where small firms play an important role.
In a unanimous ruling Monday, the court took its biggest dive into patent law for decades, broadening the standards for rejecting a patent. It showed the court's belief that too many of the patents that have been issued don't pass the key test of not being "obvious."
Renuka Rayasam covers small business, biotechnology, and other business news for U.S. News. Her stories have included a piece on the latest trends in corporate dining, as well as regular small-business profiles. She has written for the Austin-American Statesman, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Bloomberg News, and tech magazine Ziff Davis Smart Business. She has a bachelor of arts in political economy and German from the University of California – Berkeley and a master of international affairs from Columbia University.