USA: In re Hubbell Inc., United States Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit, No. 2015-1222, 7 April 2016

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board did not err in affirming a patent examiner’s obviousness rejection of 23 claims of a Hubbell patent titled “Convertible electrical device cover and method for installing same,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has ruled (In re Hubbell Inc., April 7, 2016, per curiam). The court affirmed the decision of the Board because prior art did not teach away from the combinations that rendered the claims obvious, the record evidence was sufficient to support a motivation to combine, and the record evidence was insufficient to conclude that the commercial success of the patent-covered products were attributable to the claimed invention.

A full summary of this case has been published on Kluwer IP Law.