In a recent turn of events, the Federal Circuit granted another opportunity for Inline Plastics Corp., a recognized player in the plastics industry, to argue its intellectual property battle before a Massachusetts federal jury. The crux of this case is inline Plastic’s assertion that their tamper-resistant plastic containers have witnessed such exceptional market success, challenging the grounds of the patent’s invalidity on account of being obvious.
This proceeding gives Inline Plastics a renewed chance to assert its patents against naysayers who assert the technology is too obvious to warrant protection. In the intellectual property realm, a key question that often arises is how profound does the innovation need to be to qualify for a patent? This legal development underscores this very question and how patent legitimacy is not necessarily incompatible with market success.
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Law360.