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Patents - Obviousness (2). AGI Suretrack, LLC v. Farmers Edge Inc.
In AGI Suretrack, LLC v. Farmers Edge Inc. (Fed CA, 2025) the Federal Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal from a dismissed patent infringement action.
Here the court considers the patent issue of 'obviousness':[109] The legal principles identified and considered by the FC in its claim-by-claim analysis for obviousness are not in dispute: Sanofi and Shire provide analytical frameworks to assist the Court in this task. Of note, the cumulative effect of the prior art is considered in determining, objectively and purposively, whether, without knowledge of the invention, a skilled person with their CGK would have come directly and without difficulty to the invention having regard to the problem it was designed to address (Tearlab Corporation v. I-MED Pharma Inc., 2019 FCA 179, at paras. 19, 81; Shire, at para. 103).
[110] Regarding the role of the disclosure in the obviousness analysis, the Court must take a balanced approach: the disclosure cannot be ignored, but the claims themselves cannot be abandoned. Since a single inventive concept must flow through the patent, a general inventive concept should not be imported from the disclosure, but the disclosure can be helpful in construing the inventive concept (Shire, at paras. 55, 77). . Usinage Pro-24 Inc. v. Valley Blades Ltd.
In Usinage Pro-24 Inc. v. Valley Blades Ltd. (Fed CA, 2025) the Federal Court of Appeal dismissed a patent appeal, here where an issue was 'obviousness':[15] The Federal Court began its discussion of obviousness with an explanation of the applicable legal principles, which are not in dispute here. This included a recognition that obviousness is assessed on a claim-by-claim basis, and citing the well-known four-part approach set out by the Supreme Court of Canada in Apotex Inc. v. Sanofi-Synthelabo Canada Inc., 2008 SCC 61, [2008] 3 S.C.R. 265 (Sanofi-Synthelabo) at paragraph 67:(1)(a) Identify the notional “person skilled in the art”;
(b) Identify the relevant common general knowledge of that person;
(2) Identify the inventive concept of the claim in question or if that cannot readily be done, construe it;
(3) Identify what, if any, differences exist between the matter cited as forming part of the “state of the art” and the inventive concept of the claim or the claim as construed;
(4) Viewed without any knowledge of the alleged invention as claimed, do those differences constitute steps which would have been obvious to the person skilled in the art or do they require any degree of invention? [Emphasis added.] [16] The Federal Court also recognized that hindsight is prohibited when considering obviousness.
[17] The Federal Court then proceeded with its obviousness analysis, generally as directed by the Supreme Court, considering the following issues: (i) the person skilled in the art (the POSITA), (ii) the common general knowledge and the prior art, (iii) the inventive concept of the claims in issue, (iv) any differences between the inventive concept and the prior art, and (v) whether any such differences would have been obvious for the POSITA to bridge.
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