OCTOBER TERM, 1995

															Syllabus

															MARKMAN ET AL. v. WESTVIEW INSTRUMENTS, INC., ET AL.

															CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FEDERAL
CIRCUIT No. 95-26. Argued January 8, 1996-Decided April 23, 1996 Petitioner Markman owns the patent to a system that tracks
clothing through the dry-cleaning process using a keyboard and data
processor to generate transaction records, including a bar code
readable by optical detectors. According to the patent's claim, the
portion of the patent document that defines the patentee's rights,
Markman's product can "maintain an inventory total" and "detect and
localize spurious additions to inventory." The product of
respondent Westview Instruments, Inc., also uses a keyboard and
processor and lists dry-cleaning charges on bar-coded tickets that
can be read by optical detectors. In this infringement suit, after
hearing an expert witness testify about the meaning of the claim's
language, the jury found that Westview's product had infringed
Markman's patent. The District Court nevertheless directed a
verdict for Westview on the ground that its device is unable to
track "inventory" as that term is used in the claim. The Court of
Appeals affirmed, holding the interpretation of claim terms to be
the exclusive province of the court and the Seventh Amendment to be
consistent with that conclusion. Held: The construction of a patent, including terms of
art within its claim, is exclusively within the province of the
court. Pp. 376-391.

															(a) The Seventh Amendment right of trial by jury is the right
which existed under the English common law when the Amendment was
adopted. Baltimore & Carolina Line, Inc. v. Redman, 295 U.
S. 654 , 657. Thus, the Court asks, first, whether infringement
cases either were tried at law at the time of the founding or are
at least analogous to a cause of action that was. There is no
dispute that infringement cases today must be tried before a jury,
as their predecessors were more than two centuries ago. This
conclusion raises a second question: whether the particular trial
issue (here a patent claim's construction) is necessarily a jury
issue. This question is answered by comparing the modern practice
to historical sources. Where there is no exact antecedent in the
common law, the modern practice should be compared to earlier
practices whose allocation to court or jury is known, and the 371 best analogy that can be drawn between an old and the new must
be sought. Pp. 376-378.

															(b) There is no direct antecedent of modern claim construction
in the historical sources. The closest 18th-century analogue to
modern claim construction seems to have been the construction of
patent specifications describing the invention. Early patent cases
from England and this Court show that judges, not juries, construed
specification terms. No authority from this period supports
Markman's contention that even if judges were charged with
construing most patent terms, the art of defining terms of art in a
specification fell within the jury's province. Pp. 378-384.

															(c) Since evidence of common-law practice at the time of the
framing does not entail application of the Seventh Amendment's jury
guarantee to the construction of the claim document, this Court
must look elsewhere to characterize this determination of meaning
in order to allocate it as between judge or jury. Existing
precedent, the relative interpretive skills of judges and juries,
and statutory policy considerations all favor allocating
construction issues to the court. As the former patent
practitioner, Justice Curtis, explained, the first issue in a
patent case, construing the patent, is a question of law, to be
determined by the court. The second issue, whether infringement
occurred, is a question of fact for a jury. Winans v. Denmead, 15 How. 330, 338. Contrary to Markman's contention, Bischoff v. Wethered, 9 Wall. 812, and Tucker v. Spalding, 13 Wall. 453, neither indicate that
19th-century juries resolved the meaning of patent terms of art nor
undercut Justice Curtis's authority. Functional considerations also
favor having judges define patent terms of art. A judge, from his
training and discipline, is more likely to give proper
interpretation to highly technical patents than a jury and is in a
better position to ascertain whether an expert's proposed
definition fully comports with the instrument as a whole. Finally,
the need for uniformity in the treatment of a given patent favors
allocation of construction issues to the court. Pp.384-391. 52 F.3d
967 , affirmed.

															SOUTER, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court. William B. Mallin argued the cause for petitioners.

															With him on the briefs were Timothy P. Ryan, Timothy S. Coon,
Lewis F. Gould, Jr., and Stephan P. Gribok. 372 Frank H. Griffin III argued the cause for
respondents.

															With him on the brief were Peter A. Vogt and Polly M. Shaffer.
*

															JUSTICE SOUTER delivered the opinion of the Court.

															The question here is whether the interpretation of a socalled
patent claim, the portion of the patent document that defines the
scope of the patentee's rights, is a matter of law reserved
entirely for the court, or subject to a Seventh Amendment guarantee
that a jury will determine the meaning of any disputed term of art
about which expert testimony is offered. We hold that the
construction of a patent, including terms of art within its claim,
is exclusively within the province of the court. * Jeffrey Robert White, Pamela A. Liapakis, and Joseph W Cotchett filed a brief for the Association of Trial
Lawyers of America as amicus curiae urging reversal.

															Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the
American Intellectual Property Law Association by Don W Martens,
Charles L. Gholz, R. Carl Moy, Roger W Parkhurst, Joseph R. Re,
Paul A. Stewart, and Harold C. Wegner; for the Federal Circuit Bar
Association by David H. T. Kane and Rudolph P. Hofmann; for the
Dallas-Fort Worth Intellectual Property Law Association; for
Honeywell, Inc., by Richard G. Taranto and David L. Shapiro; for
Intellectual Property Owners by Rex E. Lee, Carter G. Phillips,
Mark E. Haddad, and Constantine L. Trela; for Matsushita Electric
Corp. of America et al. by Morton Amster and Joel E. Lutzker; for
United States Surgical Corp. by John G. Kester, J. Alan
Galbraith, William E. McDaniels, Arthur R. Miller, Thomas R.
Bremer, and John C. Andres; for John T. Roberts, pro se; and for
Douglas W. Wyatt by Mr. Wyatt, pro se, Paul M. Janicke, and John R.
Kirk, Jr.

															Briefs of amici curiae were filed for Airtouch Communications,
Inc., by Allan N. Littman and Robert P. Taylor; for the American
Automobile Manufacturers Association by Charles W Bradley, Stanley
L. Amberg, Phillip D. Brady, and Andrew D. Koblenz; for the
American Board of Trial Advocates by Robert G. Vial; for Exxon
Corp. et al. by Donald B. Craven, Gerald Goldman, James P. Tuite,
and James R. Lovelace; and for Litton Systems, Inc., by Laurence H.
Tribe, Jonathan S. Massey, and Kenneth J. Chesebro. 373 I

															The Constitution empowers Congress "[t]o promote the Progress of
Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors
and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and
Discoveries." Art. I, § 8, cl. 8. Congress first exercised this
authority in 1790, when it provided for the issuance of "letters
patent," Act of Apr. 10, 1790, ch. 7, § 1, 1 Stat. 109, which, like
their modern counterparts, granted inventors "the right to exclude
others from making, using, offering for sale, selling, or importing
the patented invention," in exchange for full disclosure of an
invention, H. Schwartz, Patent Law and Practice 1, 33 (2d ed.
1995). It has long been understood that a patent must describe the
exact scope of an invention and its manufacture to "secure to [the
patentee] all to which he is entitled, [and] to apprise the public
of what is still open to them." McClain v. Ortmayer, 141 U. S. 419 ,
424 (1891). Under the modern American system, these objectives are
served by two distinct elements of a patent document. First, it
contains a specification describing the invention "in such full,
clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in
the art ... to make and use the same." 35 U. S. C. § 112; see also
3 E. Lipscomb, Walker on Patents § 10:1, pp. 183-184 (3d ed. 1985)
(Lipscomb) (listing the requirements for a specification). Second,
a patent includes one or more "claims," which "particularly poin[t]
out and distinctly clai[m] the subject matter which the applicant
regards as his invention." 35 U. S. C. § 112. "A claim covers and
secures a process, a machine, a manufacture, a composition of
matter, or a design, but never the function or result of either,
nor the scientific explanation of their operation." 6 Lipscomb §
21:17, at 315316. The claim "define[s] the scope of a patent
grant," 3 id., § 11:1, at 280, and functions to forbid not
only exact copies of an invention, but products that go to "the
heart of an invention but avoids the literal language of the claim
by making a 374 noncritical change," Schwartz, supra, at 82.1 In this
opinion, the word "claim" is used only in this sense peculiar to
patent law.

															Characteristically, patent lawsuits charge what is known as
infringement, Schwartz, supra, at 75, and rest on
allegations that the defendant "without authority ma[de], use[d] or
[sold the] patented invention, within the United States during the
term of the patent therefor .... " 35 U. S. C. § 271(a). Victory in
an infringement suit requires a finding that the patent claim
"covers the alleged infringer's product or process," which in turn
necessitates a determination of "what the words in the claim mean."
Schwartz, supra, at 80; see also 3 Lipscomb § 11:2, at
288-290.

															Petitioner in this infringement suit, Markman, owns United
States Reissue Patent No. 33,054 for his "Inventory Control and
Reporting System for Drycleaning Stores." The patent describes a
system that can monitor and report the status, location, and
movement of clothing in a drycleaning establishment. The Markman
system consists of a keyboard and data processor to generate
written records for each transaction, including a bar code readable
by optical detectors operated by employees, who log the progress of
clothing through the dry-cleaning process. Respondent Westview's
product also includes a keyboard and processor, and it lists
charges for the dry-cleaning services on bar-coded tickets that can
be read by portable optical detectors.

															Markman brought an infringement suit against Westview and Althon
Enterprises, an operator of dry-cleaning estab-

															1 Thus, for example, a claim for a ceiling fan with three blades
attached to a solid rod connected to a motor would not only cover
fans that take precisely this form, but would also cover a similar
fan that includes some additional feature, e. g., such a fan with a cord or switch for turning it on and off, and may
cover a product deviating from the core design in some noncritical
way, e. g., a three-bladed ceiling fan with blades
attached to a hollow rod connected to a motor. H. Schwartz, Patent
Law and Practice 81-82 (2d ed. 1995). 375 lishments using Westview's products (collectively, Westview).
Westview responded that Markman's patent is not infringed by its
system because the latter functions merely to record an inventory
of receivables by tracking invoices and transaction totals, rather
than to record and track an inventory of articles of clothing. Part
of the dispute hinged upon the meaning of the word "inventory," a
term found in Markman's independent claim 1, which states that
Markman's product can "maintain an inventory total" and "detect and
localize spurious additions to inventory." The case was tried
before a jury, which heard, among others, a witness produced by
Markman who testified about the meaning of the claim language.

															After the jury compared the patent to Westview's device, it
found an infringement of Markman's independent claim 1 and
dependent claim 10.2 The District Court nevertheless granted
Westview's deferred motion for judgment as a matter of law, one of
its reasons being that the term "inventory" in Markman's patent
encompasses "both cash inventory and the actual physical inventory
of articles of clothing." 772 F. Supp. 1535, 1537-1538 (ED Pa.
1991). Under the trial court's construction of the patent, the
production, sale, or use of a tracking system for dry cleaners
would not infringe Markman's patent unless the product was capable
of tracking articles of clothing throughout the cleaning process
and generating reports about their status and location. Since
Westview's system cannot do these things, the District Court
directed a verdict on the ground that Westview's device does not
have the "means to maintain an inventory total" and thus cannot
"'detect and localize spurious additions to inventory as well as
spurious deletions therefrom,'" as required by claim 1. Id., at 1537.

															2 Dependent claim 10 specifies that, in the invention of claim
1, the input device is an alpha-numeric keyboard in which single
keys may be used to enter the attributes of the items in
question. 376 Markman appealed, arguing it was error for the District Court to
substitute its construction of the disputed claim term 'inventory'
for the construction the jury had presumably given it. The United
States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed, holding
the interpretation of claim terms to be the exclusive province of
the court and the Seventh Amendment to be consistent with that
conclusion. 52 F.3d
967 (1995). Markman sought our review on each point, and we
granted certiorari. 515 U. S. 1192 (1995). We now affirm.

															II

															The Seventh Amendment provides that "[i]n Suits at common law,
where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the
right of trial by jury shall be preserved .... " u. S. Const.,
Arndt. 7. Since Justice Story's day, United States v. Wonson, 28 F. Cas. 745, 750 (No. 16,750) (CC Mass. 1812), we
have understood that "[t]he right of trial by jury thus preserved
is the right which existed under the English common law when the
Amendment was adopted." Baltimore & Carolina Line,
Inc. v. Redman, 295 U. S. 654 , 657
(1935). In keeping with our longstanding adherence to this
"historical test," Wolfram, The Constitutional History of the
Seventh Amendment, 57 Minn. L. Rev. 639, 640-643 (1973), we ask,
first, whether we are dealing with a cause of action that either
was tried at law at the time of the founding or is at least
analogous to one that was, see, e. g., Tull v. United States, 481 U. S. 412 , 417
(1987). If the action in question belongs in the law category, we
then ask whether the particular trial decision must fall to the
jury in order to preserve the substance of the common-law right as
it existed in 1791. See infra, at 377-378.3

															3 Our formulations of the historical test do not deal with the
possibility of conflict between actual English common-law practice
and American assumptions about what that practice was, or between
English and American practices at the relevant time. No such
complications arise in this case. 377 A

															As to the first issue, going to the character of the cause of
action, "[t]he form of our analysis is familiar. 'First we compare
the statutory action to 18th-century actions brought in the courts
of England prior to the merger of the courts of law and equity.'" Grarifinanciera, S. A. v. Nordberg, 492 U. S. 33 , 42 (1989)
(citation omitted). Equally familiar is the descent of today's
patent infringement action from the infringement actions tried at
law in the 18th century, and there is no dispute that infringement
cases today must be tried to a jury, as their predecessors were
more than two centuries ago. See, e. g., Bramah v. Hardcastle, 1 Carp. P. C. 168 (K. B. 1789).

															B

															This conclusion raises the second question, whether a particular
issue occurring within a jury trial (here the construction of a
patent claim) is itself necessarily a jury issue, the guarantee
being essential to preserve the right to a jury's resolution of the
ultimate dispute. In some instances the answer to this second
question may be easy because of clear historical evidence that the
very subsidiary question was so regarded under the English practice
of leaving the issue for a jury. But when, as here, the old
practice provides no clear answer, see infra, at 378-380, we
are forced to make a judgment about the scope of the Seventh
Amendment guarantee without the benefit of any foolproof test.

															The Court has repeatedly said that the answer to the second
question "must depend on whether the jury must shoulder this
responsibility as necessary to preserve the 'substance of the
common-law right of trial by jury.'" Tull v. United States,
supra, at 426 (emphasis added) (quoting Colgrove v. Battin, 413 U.
S. 149 , 157 (1973)); see also Baltimore & Carolina Line, supra, at 657. '" "Only those incidents which
are regarded as fundamental, as inherent in and of the essence of
the system of trial by jury, are placed be- 378 yond the reach of the legislature."'" Tull v. United
States, supra, at 426 (citations omitted); see also Galloway v. United States, 319 U. S. 372 , 392
(1943).

															The "substance of the common-law right" is, however, a pretty
blunt instrument for drawing distinctions. We have tried to sharpen
it, to be sure, by reference to the distinction between substance
and procedure. See Baltimore & Carolina Line,
supra, at 657; see also Galloway v. United States,
supra, at 390-391; Ex parte Peterson, 253 U. S. 300 , 309 (1920); Walker v. New Mexico & Southern
Pacific R. Co., 165 U. S. 593, 596 (1897); but see Sun Oil
Co. v. Wortman, 486 U. S. 717, 727 (1988). We have also
spoken of the line as one between issues of fact and law. See Baltimore & Carolina Line, supra, at 657; see
also Ex parte Peterson, supra, at 310; Walker v. New Mexico & Southern Pacific R. Co., supra, at
597; but see Pullman-Standard v. Swint, 456 U. S. 273 , 288
(1982).

															But the sounder course, when available, is to classify a mongrel
practice (like construing a term of art following receipt of
evidence) by using the historical method, much as we do in
characterizing the suits and actions within which they arise. Where
there is no exact antecedent, the best hope lies in comparing the
modern practice to earlier ones whose allocation to court or jury
we do know, cf. Baltimore & Carolina Line, supra, at 659, 660; Dimick v. Schiedt, 293 U. S. 474 , 477, 482
(1935), seeking the best analogy we can draw between an old and the
new, see Tull v. United States, supra, at 420-421 (we
must search the English common law for "appropriate analogies"
rather than a "precisely analogous common-law cause of
action").

															c

															"Prior to 1790 nothing in the nature of a claim had appeared
either in British patent practice or in that of the 379 American states," Lutz, Evolution of the Claims of U. S.
Patents, 20 J. Pat. Off. Soc. 134 (1938), and we have accordingly
found no direct antecedent of modern claim construction in the
historical sources. Claim practice did not achieve statutory
recognition until the passage of the Act of July 4, 1836, ch. 357,
§ 6, 5 Stat. 119, and inclusion of a claim did not become a
statutory requirement until 1870, Act of July 8, 1870, ch. 230, §
26, 16 Stat. 201; see 1 A. Deller, Patent Claims § 4, p. 9 (2d ed.
1971). Although, as one historian has observed, as early as 1850
"judges were ... beginning to express more frequently the idea that
in seeking to ascertain the invention 'claimed' in a patent the
inquiry should be limited to interpreting the summary, or 'claim,'"
Lutz, supra, at 145, "[t]he idea that the claim is just as
important if not more important than the description and drawings
did not develop until the Act of 1870 or thereabouts." Deller, supra, § 4, at 9.

															At the time relevant for Seventh Amendment analogies, in
contrast, it was the specification, itself a relatively new
development, H. Dutton, The Patent System and Inventive Activity
During the Industrial Revolution, 1750-1852, pp. 75-76 (1984), that
represented the key to the patent. Thus, patent litigation in that
early period was typified by so-called novelty actions, testing
whether "any essential part of [the patent had been] disclosed to
the public before," Hud dart v. Grimshaw, Dav. Pat.
Cas. 265, 298 (K. B. 1803), and "enablement" cases, in which juries
were asked to determine whether the specification described the
invention well enough to allow members of the appropriate trade to
reproduce it, see, e. g., Arkwright v. Nightingale, Dav. Pat. Cas. 37, 60 (C. P. 1785).

															The closest 18th-century analogue of modern claim construction
seems, then, to have been the construction of specifications, and
as to that function the mere smattering 380 of patent cases that we have from this period 4 shows no
established jury practice sufficient to support an argument by
analogy that today's construction of a claim should be a guaranteed
jury issue. Few of the case reports even touch upon the proper
interpretation of disputed terms in the specifications at issue,
see, e. g., Bramah v. Hardcastle, 1 Carp. P. C. 168
(K. B. 1789); King v. Else, 1 Carp. P. C. 103, Dav.
Pat. Cas. 144 (K. B. 1785); Dollond's Case, 1 Carp. P. C. 28
(C. P. 1758); Administrators of Calthorp v. Waymans, 3 Keb. 710, 84 Eng. Rep. 966 (K. B. 1676), and none demonstrates
that the definition of such a term was determined by the jury.5
This absence of an established practice should not surprise us,
given the primitive state of jury patent practice at the end of the
18th century, when juries were still new to the field. Although by
1791 more than a century had passed since the enactment of the
Statute of Monopolies, which pro-

															4 Before the turn of the century, "no more than twenty-two
[reported] cases came before the superior courts of London." H.
Dutton, The Patent System and Inventive Activity During the
Industrial Revolution, 17501852, p. 71 (1984).

															5 Marlrman relies heavily upon Justice Buller's notes of Lord
Mansfield's instructions in Liardet v. Johnson (K. B.
1778), in 1 J. Oldham, The Mansfield Manuscripts and the Growth of
English Law in the Eighteenth Century 748 (1992). Liardet was an enablement case about the invention of stucco, in which a
defendant asserted that the patent was invalid because it did not
fully describe the appropriate method for producing the substance.
Even setting aside concerns about the accuracy of the summary of
the jury instructions provided for this case from outside the
established reports, see 1 Oldham, supra, at 752, n. 11, it
does not show that juries construed disputed terms in a patent.
From its ambiguous references, e. g., 1 Oldham, supra, at 756 ("[Lord Mansfield] left to the jury 1st, on
all objections made to exactness, certainty and propriety of the
Specification, & whether any worlrman could make it by [the
Specification]"), we cannot infer the existence of an established
practice, cf. Galloway v. United States, 319 U. S. 372 , 392 (1943)
(expressing concern regarding the "uncertainty and the variety of
conclusions which follows from an effort at purely historical
accuracy"), especially when, as here, the inference is undermined
by evidence that judges, rather than jurors, ordinarily construed
written documents at the time. See infra, at 381-383. 381 vided that the validity of any monopoly should be determined in
accordance with the common law, patent litigation had remained
within the jurisdiction of the Privy Council until 1752 and hence
without the option of a jury trial. E. Walterscheid, Early
Evolution of the United States Patent Law: Antecedents (Part 3), 77
J. Pat. & Tm. Off. Soc. 771, 771-776 (1995). Indeed, the state
of patent law in the common-law courts before 1800 led one
historian to observe that "the reported cases are destitute of any
decision of importance .... At the end of the eighteenth century,
therefore, the Common Law Judges were left to pick up the threads
of the principles of law without the aid of recent and reliable
precedents." Hulme, On the Consideration of the Patent Grant, Past
and Present, 13 L. Q. Rev. 313, 318 (1897). Earlier writers
expressed similar discouragement at patent law's amorphous
character,6 and, as late as the 1830's, English commentators were
irked by enduring confusion in the field. See Dutton, supra, at 69-70.

															Markman seeks to supply what the early case reports lack in so
many words by relying on decisions like Turner v. Winter, 1 T. R. 602, 99 Eng. Rep. 1274 (K. B. 1787), and Arkwright v. Nightingale, Dav. Pat. Cas. 37 (C. P.
1785), to argue that the 18th-century juries must have acted as
definers of patent terms just to reach the verdicts we know they
rendered in patent cases turning on enablement or novelty. But the
conclusion simply does not follow. There is no more reason to infer
that juries supplied plenary interpretation of written instruments
in patent litigation than in other cases implicating the meaning of
documentary terms, and we do know that in other kinds of cases
during this period judges,

															6 See, e. g., Boulton and Watt v. Bull, 2 H. Bl. 463, 491, 126 Eng. Rep. 651, 665 (C. P. 1795) (Eyre, C. J.) ("Patent rights are no where that I can find
accurately discussed in our books"); Dutton, supra n. 4, at
70-71 (quoting Abraham Weston as saying "it may with truth be said
that the [Law] Books are silent on the subject [of patents] and
furnish no clue to go by, in agitating the Question What is the Law
of Patents?"). 382 not juries, ordinarily construed written documents.7 The
probability that the judges were doing the same thing in the patent
litigation of the time is confirmed by the fact that as soon as the
English reports did begin to describe the construction of patent
documents, they show the judges construing the terms of the
specifications. See Bovill v. Moore, Dav. Pat. Cas.
361, 399, 404 (C. P. 1816) (judge submits question of novelty to
the jury only after explaining some of the language and "stat[ing]
in what terms the specification runs"); cf. Russell v. Cowley & Dixon, Webs. Pat. Cas. 457, 467-470
(Exch. 1834) (construing the terms of the specification in
reviewing a verdict); Haworth v. Hardcastle, Webs.
Pat. Cas. 480, 484-485 (1834) (same). This evidence is in fact
buttressed by cases from this Court; when they first reveal actual
practice, the practice revealed is of the judge construing the
patent. See, e. g., Winans v. New York & Erie R. Co., 21 How. 88, 100 (1859); Winans v. Denmead, 15 How. 330, 338 (1854); Hogg v. Emerson, 6 How. 437, 484 (1848); cf. Parker v. Hulme, 18 F. Cas. 1138 (No. 10,740) (CC ED Pa. 1849). These
indications of our patent practice are the more impressive for
being all of a piece with what we know about the analogous
contemporary practice of inter-

															7 See, e. g., Devlin, Jury Trial of Complex Cases:
English Practice at the Time of the Seventh Amendment, 80 Colum. L.
Rev. 43, 75 (1980); Weiner, The Civil Jury Trial and the Law-Fact
Distinction, 54 Calif. L. Rev. 1867, 1932 (1966). For example, one
historian observed that it was generally the practice of judges in
the late 18th century "to keep the construction of writings out
of the jury's hands and reserve it for themselves," a
"safeguard" designed to prevent a jury from "constru[ing] or
refin[ing] it at pleasure." 9 J. Wigmore, Evidence §2461, p. 194
(J. Chadbourn rev. ed. 1981) (emphasis in original; internal
quotation marks omitted). The absence of any established practice
supporting Markman's view is also shown by the disagreement between
Justices Willis and Buller, reported in Mac beath v. Haldimand, 1 T. R. 173, 180-182, 99 Eng. Rep. 1036,
1040-1041 (K. B. 1786), as to whether juries could ever construe
written documents when their meaning was disputed. 383 preting terms within a land patent, where it fell to the judge,
not the jury, to construe the words.8

															D

															Losing, then, on the contention that juries generally had
interpretive responsibilities during the 18th century, Markman
seeks a different anchor for analogy in the more modest contention
that even if judges were charged with construing most terms in the
patent, the art of defining terms of art employed in a
specification fell within the province of the jury. Again, however,
Markman has no authority from the period in question, but relies
instead on the later case of Neilson v. Harford, Webs. Pat. Cas. 328 (Exch. 1841). There, an exchange between the
judge and the lawyers indicated that although the construction of a
patent was ordinarily for the court, id., at 349 (Alderson,
B.), judges should "leav[e] the question of words of art to the
jury," id., at 350 (Alderson, B.); see also id., at
370 (judgment of the court); Hill v. Evans, 4 De. G.
F. & J. 288, 293-294, 45 Eng. Rep. 1195, 1197 (Ch. 1862).
Without, however, in any way disparaging the weight to which Baron
Alderson's view is entitled, the most we can say is that an English
report more than 70 years after the time that concerns us indicates
an exception to what probably had been occurring earlier.9 In place
of

															8 As we noted in Brown v. Huger, 21 How. 305, 318
(1859):

															''With regard to the second part of this objection, that which
claims for the jury the construction of the patent, we remark that
the patent itself must be taken as evidence of its meaning; that,
like other written instruments, it must be interpreted as a whole
... and the legal deductions drawn therefrom must be conformable
with the scope and purpose of the entire document. This
construction and these deductions we hold to be within the
exclusive province of the court."

															9 In explaining that judges generally construed all terms in a
written document at the end of the 18th century, one historian
observed that "[i]nterpretation by local usage for example (today
the plainest case of legitimate deviation from the normal standard)
was still but making its way." 9 Wigmore, Evidence § 2461, at 195;
see also id., at 195, and n. 6 (providing examples of this
practice). We need not in any event consider here 384 Markman's inference that this exceptional practice existed in
1791 there is at best only a possibility that it did, and for
anything more than a possibility we have found no scholarly
authority.

															III

															Since evidence of common-law practice at the time of the framing
does not entail application of the Seventh Amendment's jury
guarantee to the construction of the claim document, we must look
elsewhere to characterize this determination of meaning in order to
allocate it as between court or jury. We accordingly consult
existing precedent 10 and consider both the relative interpretive
skills of judges and juries and the statutory policies that ought
to be furthered by the allocation.

															A

															The two elements of a simple patent case, construing the patent
and determining whether infringement occurred, were characterized
by the former patent practitioner, Justice Curtis.ll "The first is
a question of law, to be determined by the court, construing the
letters-patent, and the description of the invention and
specification of claim annexed to them. The second is a question of
fact, to be submitted to a jury." Winans v. Denmead,
supra, at 338; see Winans v.

															whether our conclusion that the Seventh Amendment does not
require terms of art in patent claims to be submitted to the jury
supports a similar result in other types of cases.

															10 Because we conclude that our precedent supports classifying
the question as one for the court, we need not decide either the
extent to which the Seventh Amendment can be said to have
crystallized a law/fact distinction, cf. Ex parte Peterson, 253 U. S. 300 ,
310 (1920); Walker v. New Mexico & Southern
Pacific R. Co., 165 U. S. 593 , 597
(1897), or whether post1791 precedent classifying an issue as one
of fact would trigger the protections of the Seventh Amendment if
(unlike this case) there were no more specific reason for
decision.

															11 See 1 A Memoir of Benjamin Robbins Curtis, L. L. D., 84 (B.
Curtis ed. 1879); cf. O'Reilly v. Morse, 15 How. 62,
63 (1854) (noting his involvement in a patent case). 385 New York & Erie R. Co., supra, at 100; Hogg v. Emerson,
supra, at 484; cf. Parker v. Hulme, supra, at 1140.

															In arguing for a different allocation of responsibility for the
first question, Markman relies primarily on two cases, Bischoff v. Wethered, 9 Wall. 812 (1870), and Tucker v. Spalding, 13 Wall. 453 (1872). These are
said to show that evidence of the meaning of patent terms was
offered to 19thcentury juries, and thus to imply that the meaning
of a documentary term was a jury issue whenever it was subject to
evidentiary proof. That is not what Markman's cases show,
however.

															In order to resolve the Bischoff suit implicating the
construction of rival patents, we considered "whether the court
below was bound to compare the two specifications, and to instruct
the jury, as a matter of law, whether the inventions therein
described were, or were not, identicaL" 9 Wall., at 813 (statement
of the case). We said it was not bound to do that, on the ground
that investing the court with so dispositive a role would
improperly eliminate the jury's function in answering the ultimate
question of infringement. On that ultimate issue, expert testimony
had been admitted on "the nature of the various mechanisms or
manufactures described in the different patents produced, and as to
the identity or diversity between them." Id., at 814.
Although the jury's consideration of that expert testimony in
resolving the question of infringement was said to impinge upon the
wellestablished principle "that it is the province of the court,
and not the jury, to construe the meaning of documentary evidence," id., at 815, we decided that it was not so. We said: "[T]he specifications ... profess to describe mechanisms and
complicated machinery, chemical compositions and other manufactured
products, which have their existence in pais, outside of the
documents themselves; and which are commonly described by terms of
the art or mystery to which they respectively belong; and these 386 descriptions and terms of art often require peculiar knowledge
and education to understand them aright .... Indeed, the whole
subject-matter of a patent is an embodied conception outside of the
patent itself .... This outward embodiment of the terms contained
in the patent is the thing invented, and is to be properly sought,
like the explanation of all latent ambiguities arising from the
description of external things, by evidence in pais."
Ibid. Bischoff does not then, as Markman contends, hold that
the use of expert testimony about the meaning of terms of art
requires the judge to submit the question of their construction to
the jury. It is instead a case in which the Court drew a line
between issues of document interpretation and product
identification, and held that expert testimony was properly
presented to the jury on the latter, ultimate issue, whether the
physical objects produced by the patent were identical. The Court
did not see the decision as bearing upon the appropriate treatment
of disputed terms. As the opinion emphasized, the Court's "view of
the case is not intended to, and does not, trench upon the doctrine
that the construction of written instruments is the province of the
court alone. It is not the construction of the instrument, but
the character of the thing invented, which is sought in questions
of identity and diversity of inventions." Id., at 816 (emphasis
added). Tucker, the second case proffered by Markman, is to
the same effect. Its reasoning rested expressly on Bischoff, and it just as clearly noted that in addressing the ultimate issue
of mixed fact and law, it was for the court to "lay down to the
jury the law which should govern them." Tucker, supra, at
455.12

															12We are also unpersuaded by petitioner's heavy reliance upon
the decision of Justice Story on circuit in Washburn v. Gould, 29 F. Cas. 312 (No. 17,214) (CC Mass. 1844).
Although he wrote that "[t]he jury are to judge of the meaning of
words of art, and technical phrases," id., at 325, he did so
in describing the decision in Neilson v. Harford, Webs. Pat. Cas. 328 387 If the line drawn in these two opinions is a fine one, it is one
that the Court has drawn repeatedly in explaining the respective
roles of the jury and judge in patent cases,13 and one understood
by commentators writing in the aftermath of the cases Markman
cites. Walker, for example, read Bischoff as holding that
the question of novelty is not decided by a construction of the
prior patent, "but depends rather upon the outward embodiment of
the terms contained in the [prior patent]; and that such outward
embodiment is to be properly sought, like the explanation of latent
ambiguities arising from the description of external things, by
evidence in pais." A. Walker, Patent Laws § 75, p. 68 (3d
ed. 1895). He also emphasized in the same treatise that matters of
claim construction, even those aided by expert testimony, are
questions for the court: "Questions of construction are questions of law for the judge,
not questions of fact for the jury. As it cannot be expected,
however, that judges will always possess the requisite knowledge of
the meaning of the terms of art or science used in letters patent,
it often becomes necessary that they should avail themselves of the
light furnished by experts relevant to the significance of such
words and phrases. The judges are not, however, obliged to blindly
follow such testimony." Id., § 189, at 173 (footnotes
omitted). Virtually the same description of the court's use of evidence in
its interpretive role was set out in another contemporary
treatise:

															(Exch. 1841), which we discuss, supra, at 383, and,
whether or not he agreed with Neilson, he stated, "[b]ut I
do not proceed upon this ground." 29 F. Cas., at 325.

															13 See, e. g., Coupe v. Royer, 155 U. S. 565 ,579-580
(1895); Silsby v. Foote, 14 How. 218, 226 (1853); Hogg v. Emerson, 6 How. 437, 484 (1848); cf. Brown v. Piper, 91 U. S. 37 ,41 (1875); Winans v. New York & Erie R. Co., 21 How.
88, 100 (1859); cf. also U. S. Industrial Chemicals,
Inc. v. Carbide & Carbon Chemicals
Corp., 315 U. S.
668 , 678 (1942). 388 "The duty of interpreting letters-patent has been committed to
the courts. A patent is a legal instrument, to be construed, like
other legal instruments, according to its tenor .... Where
technical terms are used, or where the qualities of substances or
operations mentioned or any similar data necessary to the
comprehension of the language of the patent are unknown to the
judge, the testimony of witnesses may be received upon these
subjects, and any other means of information be employed. But in
the actual interpretation of the patent the court proceeds upon its
own responsibility, as an arbiter of the law, giving to the patent
its true and final character and force." 2 W. Robinson, Law of
Patents § 732, pp. 481-483 (1890) (emphasis added; footnotes
omitted). In sum, neither Bischoffnor Tucker indicates that juries
resolved the meaning of terms of art in construing a patent, and
neither case undercuts Justice Curtis's authority.

															B

															Where history and precedent provide no clear answers, functional
considerations also play their part in the choice between judge and
jury to define terms of art. We said in Miller v. Fenton, 474 U.
S. 104 , 114 (1985), that when an issue "falls somewhere between
a pristine legal standard and a simple historical fact, the
fact/law distinction at times has turned on a determination that,
as a matter of the sound administration of justice, one judicial
actor is better positioned than another to decide the issue in
question." So it turns out here, for judges, not juries, are the
better suited to find the acquired meaning of patent terms.

															The construction of written instruments is one of those things
that judges often do and are likely to do better than jurors
unburdened by training in exegesis. Patent construction in
particular "is a special occupation, requiring, like all others,
special training and practice. The judge, from his training and
discipline, is more likely to give a proper 389 interpretation to such instruments than a jury; and he is,
therefore, more likely to be right, in performing such a duty, than
a jury can be expected to be." Parker v. Hulme, 18 F.
Cas., at 1140. Such was the understanding nearly a century and a
half ago, and there is no reason to weigh the respective strengths
of judge and jury differently in relation to the modern claim;
quite the contrary, for "the claims of patents have become highly
technical in many respects as the result of special doctrines
relating to the proper form and scope of claims that have been
developed by the courts and the Patent Office." Woodward,
Definiteness and Particularity in Patent Claims, 46 Mich. L. Rev.
755, 765 (1948).

															Markman would trump these considerations with his argument that
a jury should decide a question of meaning peculiar to a trade or
profession simply because the question is a subject of testimony
requiring credibility determinations, which are the jury's forte.
It is, of course, true that credibility judgments have to be made
about the experts who testify in patent cases, and in theory there
could be a case in which a simple credibility judgment would
suffice to choose between experts whose testimony was equally
consistent with a patent's internal logic. But our own experience
with document construction leaves us doubtful that trial courts
will run into many cases like that. In the main, we expect, any
credibility determinations will be subsumed within the necessarily
sophisticated analysis of the whole document, required by the
standard construction rule that a term can be defined only in a way
that comports with the instrument as a whole. See Bates v. Coe, 98 U. S.
31 , 38 (1878); 6 Lipscomb § 21:40, at 393; 2 Robinson, supra, § 734, at 484; Woodward, supra, at 765; cf. U. S. Industrial Chemicals, Inc. v. Carbide & Carbon Chemicals Co., 315 U. S. 668 , 678
(1942); cf. 6 Lipscomb § 21:40, at 393. Thus, in these cases a
jury's capabilities to evaluate demeanor, cf. Miller, supra, at 114, 117, to sense the "mainsprings of human conduct," Commissioner v. Duberstein, 363 U. S. 278 , 289
(1960), or to reflect community 390 standards, United States v. McConney, 728 F.2d
1195 , 1204 (CA9 1984) (en bane), are much less significant than
a trained ability to evaluate the testimony in relation to the
overall structure of the patent. The decisionmaker vested with the
task of construing the patent is in the better position to
ascertain whether an expert's proposed definition fully comports
with the specification and claims and so will preserve the patent's
internal coherence. We accordingly think there is sufficient reason
to treat construction of terms of art like many other
responsibilities that we cede to a judge in the normal course of
trial, notwithstanding its evidentiary underpinnings.

															C

															Finally, we see the importance of uniformity in the treatment of
a given patent as an independent reason to allocate all issues of
construction to the court. As we noted in Gen eral Elec. Co.
v. Wabash Appliance Corp., 304 U. S. 364 , 369
(1938), "[t]he limits of a patent must be known for the protection
of the patentee, the encouragement of the inventive genius of
others and the assurance that the subject of the patent will be
dedicated ultimately to the public." Otherwise, a "zone of
uncertainty which enterprise and experimentation may enter only at
the risk of infringement claims would discourage invention only a
little less than unequivocal foreclosure of the field," United
Carbon Co. v. Binney & Smith Co., 317 U. S. 228 ,
236 (1942), and "[t]he public [would] be deprived of rights
supposed to belong to it, without being clearly told what it is
that limits these rights." Merrill v. Yeomans, 94 U. S. 568 , 573
(1877). It was just for the sake of such desirable uniformity that
Congress created the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit as an
exclusive appellate court for patent cases, H. R. Rep. No. 97-312,
pp. 20-23 (1981), observing that increased uniformity would
"strengthen the United States patent system in such a way as to
foster technological growth and industrial innovation." Id., at 20. 391 Uniformity would, however, be ill served by submitting issues of
document construction to juries. Making them jury issues would not,
to be sure, necessarily leave evidentiary questions of meaning wide
open in every new court in which a patent might be litigated, for
principles of issue preclusion would ordinarily foster uniformity.
Cf. BlonderTongue Laboratories, Inc. v. University of
Ill. Foundation, 402 U. S. 313 (1971). But
whereas issue preclusion could not be asserted against new and
independent infringement defendants even within a given
jurisdiction, treating interpretive issues as purely legal will
promote (though it will not guarantee) intrajurisdictional
certainty through the application of stare decisis on those
questions not yet subject to interjurisdictional uniformity under
the authority of the single appeals court.

															***

															Accordingly, we hold that the interpretation of the word
"inventory" in this case is an issue for the judge, not the jury,
and affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Federal
Circuit.

															It is so ordered.


OPINION OF THE COURT KSR INT'L CO. V. TELEFLEX INC. 550 U. S. ____ (2007) SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES NO. 04-1350 KSR INTERNATIONAL CO., PETITIONER v. TELEFLEX INC. et al.

															on writ of certiorari to the united states court of
appeals for the federal circuit

															[April 30, 2007]

															   Justice Kennedy delivered the
opinion of the Court.

															   Teleflex Incorporated and its
subsidiary Technology Holding Company—both referred to here as
Teleflex—sued KSR International Company for patent infringement.
The patent at issue, United States Patent No. 6,237,565 B1, is
entitled “Adjustable Pedal Assembly With Electronic Throttle
Control.” Supplemental App. 1. The patentee is Steven J. Engelgau,
and the patent is referred to as “the Engelgau patent.” Teleflex
holds the exclusive license to the patent.

															   Claim 4 of the Engelgau patent describes a
mechanism for combining an electronic sensor with an adjustable
automobile pedal so the pedal’s position can be transmitted to a
computer that controls the throttle in the vehicle’s engine. When
Teleflex accused KSR of infringing the Engelgau patent by adding an
electronic sensor to one of KSR’s previously designed pedals, KSR
countered that claim 4 was invalid under the Patent Act, 35 U.
S. C. §103, because its subject matter was obvious.

															   Section 103 forbids issuance of a patent when
“the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented
and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would
have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person
having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter
pertains.”

															   In Graham v. John Deere Co. of
Kansas City , 383
U. S. 1 (1966), the Court set out a framework for applying the
statutory language of §103, language itself based on the logic of
the earlier decision in Hotchkiss v. Greenwood ,
11 How. 248 (1851), and its progeny. See 383 U. S., at 15–17. The
analysis is objective:

															“Under §103, the scope and content of the prior art
are to be determined; differences between the prior art and the
claims at issue are to be ascertained; and the level of ordinary
skill in the pertinent art resolved. Against this background the
obviousness or nonobviousness of the subject matter is determined.
Such secondary considerations as commercial success, long felt but
unsolved needs, failure of others, etc., might be utilized to give
light to the circumstances surrounding the origin of the subject
matter sought to be patented.” Id. , at 17–18.

															While the sequence of these questions might be
reordered in any particular case, the factors continue to define
the inquiry that controls. If a court, or patent examiner, conducts
this analysis and concludes the claimed subject matter was obvious,
the claim is invalid under §103.

															   Seeking to resolve the question of obviousness
with more uniformity and consistency, the Court of Appeals for the
Federal Circuit has employed an approach referred to by the parties
as the “teaching, suggestion, or motivation” test (TSM test), under
which a patent claim is only proved obvious if “some motivation or
suggestion to combine the prior art teachings” can be found in the
prior art, the nature of the problem, or the knowledge of a person
having ordinary skill in the art. See, e.g., Al-Site
Corp. v. VSI Int’l, Inc. , 174 F. 3d 1308,
1323–1324 (CA Fed. 1999). KSR challenges that test, or at least its
application in this case. See 119 Fed. Appx. 282, 286–290 (CA Fed.
2005). Because the Court of Appeals addressed the question of
obviousness in a manner contrary to §103 and our precedents, we
granted certiorari, 547 U. S.___ (2006). We now reverse.

															I

															A

															   In car engines without
computer-controlled throttles, the accelerator pedal interacts with
the throttle via cable or other mechanical link. The pedal arm acts
as a lever rotating around a pivot point. In a cable-actuated
throttle control the rotation caused by pushing down the pedal
pulls a cable, which in turn pulls open valves in the carburetor or
fuel injection unit. The wider the valves open, the more fuel and
air are released, causing combustion to increase and the car to
accelerate. When the driver takes his foot off the pedal, the
opposite occurs as the cable is released and the valves slide
closed.

															   In the 1990’s it became more
common to install computers in cars to control engine operation.
Computer-controlled throttles open and close valves in response to
electronic signals, not through force transferred from the pedal by
a mechanical link. Constant, delicate adjustments of air and fuel
mixture are possible. The computer’s rapid processing of factors
beyond the pedal’s position improves fuel efficiency and engine
performance.

															   For a computer-controlled throttle to respond
to a driver’s operation of the car, the computer must know what is
happening with the pedal. A cable or mechanical link does not
suffice for this purpose; at some point, an electronic sensor is
necessary to translate the mechanical operation into digital data
the computer can understand.

															   Before discussing sensors further we turn to
the mechanical design of the pedal itself. In the traditional
design a pedal can be pushed down or released but cannot have its
position in the footwell adjusted by sliding the pedal forward or
back. As a result, a driver who wishes to be closer or farther from
the pedal must either reposition himself in the driver’s seat or
move the seat in some way. In cars with deep footwells these are
imperfect solutions for drivers of smaller stature. To solve the
problem, inventors, beginning in the 1970’s, designed pedals that
could be adjusted to change their location in the footwell.
Important for this case are two adjustable pedals disclosed in U.
S. Patent Nos. 5,010,782 (filed July 28, 1989) (Asano) and
5,460,061 (filed Sept. 17, 1993) (Redding). The Asano patent
reveals a support structure that houses the pedal so that even when
the pedal location is adjusted relative to the driver, one of the
pedal’s pivot points stays fixed. The pedal is also designed so
that the force necessary to push the pedal down is the same
regardless of adjustments to its location. The Redding patent
reveals a different, sliding mechanism where both the pedal and the
pivot point are adjusted.

															   We return to sensors. Well before Engelgau
applied for his challenged patent, some inventors had obtained
patents involving electronic pedal sensors for computer-controlled
throttles. These inventions, such as the device disclosed in U. S.
Patent No. 5,241,936 (filed Sept. 9, 1991) (’936), taught that it
was preferable to detect the pedal’s position in the pedal
assembly, not in the engine. The ’936 patent disclosed a pedal with
an electronic sensor on a pivot point in the pedal assembly. U. S.
Patent No. 5,063,811 (filed July 9, 1990) (Smith) taught that to
prevent the wires connecting the sensor to the computer from
chafing and wearing out, and to avoid grime and damage from the
driver’s foot, the sensor should be put on a fixed part of the
pedal assembly rather than in or on the pedal’s footpad.

															   In addition to patents for pedals with
integrated sensors inventors obtained patents for self-contained
modular sensors. A modular sensor is designed independently of a
given pedal so that it can be taken off the shelf and attached to
mechanical pedals of various sorts, enabling the pedals to be used
in automobiles with computer-controlled throttles. One such sensor
was disclosed in U. S. Patent No. 5,385,068 (filed Dec. 18, 1992)
(’068). In 1994, Chevrolet manufactured a line of trucks using
modular sensors “attached to the pedal support bracket, adjacent to
the pedal and engaged with the pivot shaft about which the pedal
rotates in operation.” 298 F. Supp. 2d 581, 589 (ED Mich.
2003).

															   The prior art contained patents involving the
placement of sensors on adjustable pedals as well. For example, U.
S. Patent No. 5,819,593 (filed Aug. 17, 1995) (Rixon) discloses an
adjustable pedal assembly with an electronic sensor for detecting
the pedal’s position. In the Rixon pedal the sensor is located in
the pedal footpad. The Rixon pedal was known to suffer from wire
chafing when the pedal was depressed and released.

															   This short account of pedal and sensor
technology leads to the instant case.

															B

															   KSR, a Canadian company,
manufactures and supplies auto parts, including pedal systems. Ford
Motor Company hired KSR in 1998 to supply an adjustable pedal
system for various lines of automobiles with cable-actuated
throttle controls. KSR developed an adjustable mechanical pedal for
Ford and obtained U. S. Patent No. 6,151,976 (filed July 16, 1999)
(’976) for the design. In 2000, KSR was chosen by General Motors
Corporation (GMC or GM) to supply adjustable pedal systems for
Chevrolet and GMC light trucks that used engines with
computer-controlled throttles. To make the ’976 pedal compatible
with the trucks, KSR merely took that design and added a modular
sensor.

															   Teleflex is a rival to KSR in the
design and manufacture of adjustable pedals. As noted, it is the
exclusive licensee of the Engelgau patent. Engelgau filed the
patent application on August 22, 2000 as a continuation of a
previous application for U. S. Patent No. 6,109,241, which was
filed on January 26, 1999. He has sworn he invented the patent’s
subject matter on February 14, 1998. The Engelgau patent discloses
an adjustable electronic pedal described in the specification as a
“simplified vehicle control pedal assembly that is less expensive,
and which uses fewer parts and is easier to package within the
vehicle.” Engelgau, col. 2, lines 2–5, Supplemental App. 6. Claim 4
of the patent, at issue here, describes:

															“A vehicle control pedal apparatus comprising:

															a support adapted to be mounted to a vehicle
structure;

															an adjustable pedal assembly having a pedal arm moveable in
for[e] and aft directions with respect to said support;

															a pivot for pivotally supporting said adjustable pedal assembly
with respect to said support and defining a pivot axis; and

															an electronic control attached to said support for controlling a
vehicle system;

															said apparatus characterized by said electronic control being
responsive to said pivot for providing a signal that corresponds to
pedal arm position as said pedal arm pivots about said pivot axis
between rest and applied positions wherein the position of said
pivot remains constant while said pedal arm moves in fore and aft
directions with respect to said pivot.” Id., col. 6, lines
17–36, Supplemental App. 8 (diagram numbers omitted).

															We agree with the District Court that the claim
discloses “a position-adjustable pedal assembly with an electronic
pedal position sensor attached to the support member of the pedal
assembly. Attaching the sensor to the support member allows the
sensor to remain in a fixed position while the driver adjusts the
pedal.” 298 F. Supp. 2d, at 586–587.

															   Before issuing the Engelgau patent the U. S.
Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) rejected one of the patent claims
that was similar to, but broader than, the present claim 4. The
claim did not include the requirement that the sensor be placed on
a fixed pivot point. The PTO concluded the claim was an obvious
combination of the prior art disclosed in Redding and Smith,
explaining:

															“ ‘Since the prior ar[t] references are from
the field of endeavor, the purpose disclosed … would have been
recognized in the pertinent art of Redding. Therefore it would have
been obvious … to provide the device of Redding with the … means
attached to a support member as taught by Smith.’ ” Id. , at 595.

															In other words Redding provided an example of an
adjustable pedal and Smith explained how to mount a sensor on a
pedal’s support structure, and the rejected patent claim merely put
these two teachings together.

															   Although the broader claim was rejected, claim
4 was later allowed because it included the limitation of a fixed
pivot point, which distinguished the design from Redding’s. Ibid . Engelgau had not included Asano among the prior art
references, and Asano was not mentioned in the patent’s
prosecution. Thus, the PTO did not have before it an adjustable
pedal with a fixed pivot point. The patent issued on May 29, 2001
and was assigned to Teleflex.

															   Upon learning of KSR’s design for GM, Teleflex
sent a warning letter informing KSR that its proposal would violate
the Engelgau patent. “ ‘Teleflex believes that any supplier of
a product that combines an adjustable pedal with an electronic
throttle control necessarily employs technology covered by one or
more’ ” of Teleflex’s patents. Id. , at 585. KSR
refused to enter a royalty arrangement with Teleflex; so Teleflex
sued for infringement, asserting KSR’s pedal infringed the Engelgau
patent and two other patents. Ibid. Teleflex later
abandoned its claims regarding the other patents and dedicated the
patents to the public. The remaining contention was that KSR’s
pedal system for GM infringed claim 4 of the Engelgau patent.
Teleflex has not argued that the other three claims of the patent
are infringed by KSR’s pedal, nor has Teleflex argued that the
mechanical adjustable pedal designed by KSR for Ford infringed any
of its patents.

															C

															   The District Court granted
summary judgment in KSR’s favor. After reviewing the pertinent
history of pedal design, the scope of the Engelgau patent, and the
relevant prior art, the court considered the validity of the
contested claim. By direction of 35 U. S. C. §282, an issued
patent is presumed valid. The District Court applied Graham ’s framework to determine whether under
summary-judgment standards KSR had overcome the presumption and
demonstrated that claim 4 was obvious in light of the prior art in
existence when the claimed subject matter was invented. See
§102(a).

															   The District Court determined, in
light of the expert testimony and the parties’ stipulations, that
the level of ordinary skill in pedal design was “ ‘an
undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering (or an equivalent
amount of industry experience) [and] familiarity with pedal control
systems for vehicles.’ ” 298 F. Supp. 2d, at 590. The
court then set forth the relevant prior art, including the patents
and pedal designs described above.

															   Following Graham ’s direction, the
court compared the teachings of the prior art to the claims of
Engelgau. It found “little difference.” 298 F. Supp. 2d, at
590. Asano taught everything contained in claim 4 except the use of
a sensor to detect the pedal’s position and transmit it to the
computer controlling the throttle. That additional aspect was
revealed in sources such as the ’068 patent and the sensors used by
Chevrolet.

															   Under the controlling cases from the Court of
Appeals for the Federal Circuit, however, the District Court was
not permitted to stop there. The court was required also to apply
the TSM test. The District Court held KSR had satisfied the test.
It reasoned (1) the state of the industry would lead inevitably to
combinations of electronic sensors and adjustable pedals, (2) Rixon
provided the basis for these developments, and (3) Smith taught a
solution to the wire chafing problems in Rixon, namely locating the
sensor on the fixed structure of the pedal. This could lead to the
combination of Asano, or a pedal like it, with a pedal position
sensor.

															   The conclusion that the Engelgau design was
obvious was supported, in the District Court’s view, by the PTO’s
rejection of the broader version of claim 4. Had Engelgau included
Asano in his patent application, it reasoned, the PTO would have
found claim 4 to be an obvious combination of Asano and Smith, as
it had found the broader version an obvious combination of Redding
and Smith. As a final matter, the District Court held that the
secondary factor of Teleflex’s commercial success with pedals based
on Engelgau’s design did not alter its conclusion. The District
Court granted summary judgment for KSR.

															   With principal reliance on the TSM test, the
Court of Appeals reversed. It ruled the District Court had not been
strict enough in applying the test, having failed to make
“ ‘finding[s] as to the specific understanding or principle
within the knowledge of a skilled artisan that would have motivated
one with no knowledge of [the] invention’ … to attach an electronic
control to the support bracket of the Asano assembly.” 119 Fed.
Appx., at 288 (brackets in original) (quoting In re
Kotzab , 217 F. 3d 1365, 1371 (CA Fed. 2000)). The Court
of Appeals held that the District Court was incorrect that the
nature of the problem to be solved satisfied this requirement
because unless the “prior art references address[ed] the precise
problem that the patentee was trying to solve,” the problem would
not motivate an inventor to look at those references. 119 Fed.
Appx., at 288.

															   Here, the Court of Appeals found, the Asano
pedal was designed to solve the “ ‘constant ratio
problem’ ”—that is, to ensure that the force required to
depress the pedal is the same no matter how the pedal is
adjusted—whereas Engelgau sought to provide a simpler, smaller,
cheaper adjustable electronic pedal. Ibid. As for Rixon,
the court explained, that pedal suffered from the problem of wire
chafing but was not designed to solve it. In the court’s view Rixon
did not teach anything helpful to Engelgau’s purpose. Smith, in
turn, did not relate to adjustable pedals and did not “necessarily
go to the issue of motivation to attach the electronic control on
the support bracket of the pedal assembly.” Ibid. When the
patents were interpreted in this way, the Court of Appeals held,
they would not have led a person of ordinary skill to put a sensor
on the sort of pedal described in Asano.

															   That it might have been obvious to try the
combination of Asano and a sensor was likewise irrelevant, in the
court’s view, because “ ‘ “[o]bvious to try” has long
been held not to constitute obviousness.’ ” Id. , at
289 (quoting In re Deuel , 51 F. 3d 1552, 1559
(CA Fed. 1995)).

															   The Court of Appeals also faulted the District
Court’s consideration of the PTO’s rejection of the broader version
of claim 4. The District Court’s role, the Court of Appeals
explained, was not to speculate regarding what the PTO might have
done had the Engelgau patent mentioned Asano. Rather, the court
held, the District Court was obliged first to presume that the
issued patent was valid and then to render its own independent
judgment of obviousness based on a review of the prior art. The
fact that the PTO had rejected the broader version of claim 4, the
Court of Appeals said, had no place in that analysis.

															   The Court of Appeals further held that genuine
issues of material fact precluded summary judgment. Teleflex had
proffered statements from one expert that claim 4 “ ‘was a
simple, elegant, and novel combination of features,’ ” 119
Fed. Appx., at 290, compared to Rixon, and from another expert that
claim 4 was nonobvious because, unlike in Rixon, the sensor was
mounted on the support bracket rather than the pedal itself. This
evidence, the court concluded, sufficed to require a trial.

															II

															A

															   We begin by rejecting the rigid
approach of the Court of Appeals. Throughout this Court’s
engagement with the question of obviousness, our cases have set
forth an expansive and flexible approach inconsistent with the way
the Court of Appeals applied its TSM test here. To be sure, Graham recognized the need for “uniformity and
definiteness.” 383 U. S., at 18. Yet the principles laid down in Graham reaffirmed the “functional approach” of Hotchkiss , 11 How. 248. See 383 U. S., at 12. To this end, Graham set forth a broad inquiry and invited courts, where
appropriate, to look at any secondary considerations that would
prove instructive. Id. , at 17.

															   Neither the enactment of §103 nor
the analysis in Graham disturbed this Court’s earlier
instructions concerning the need for caution in granting a patent
based on the combination of elements found in the prior
art . For over a half century, the Court has held that a
“patent for a combination which only unites old elements with no
change in their respective functions . . . obviously withdraws what
is already known into the field of its monopoly and diminishes the
resources available to skillful men.” Great Atlantic &
Pacific Tea Co. v. Supermarket Equipment Corp. , 340 U. S. 147 ,
152 (1950). This is a principal reason for declining to allow
patents for what is obvious. The combination of familiar elements
according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no
more than yield predictable results. Three cases decided after Graham illustrate the application of this doctrine.

															   In United States v. Adams , 383 U. S. 39 , 40
(1966), a companion case to Graham , the Court considered
the obviousness of a “wet battery” that varied from prior designs
in two ways: It contained water, rather than the acids
conventionally employed in storage batteries; and its electrodes
were magnesium and cuprous chloride, rather than zinc and silver
chloride. The Court recognized that when a patent claims a
structure already known in the prior art that is altered by the
mere substitution of one element for another known in the field,
the combination must do more than yield a predictable result. 383
U. S., at 50–51. It nevertheless rejected the Government’s claim
that Adams’s battery was obvious. The Court relied upon the
corollary principle that when the prior art teaches away from
combining certain known elements, discovery of a successful means
of combining them is more likely to be nonobvious. Id. , at
51–52. When Adams designed his battery, the prior art warned that
risks were involved in using the types of electrodes he employed.
The fact that the elements worked together in an unexpected and
fruitful manner supported the conclusion that Adams’s design was
not obvious to those skilled in the art.

															   In Anderson’s-Black Rock, Inc. v. Pavement Salvage Co. , 396 U. S. 57 (1969), the
Court elaborated on this approach. The subject matter of the patent
before the Court was a device combining two pre-existing elements:
a radiant-heat burner and a paving machine. The device, the Court
concluded, did not create some new synergy: The radiant-heat burner
functioned just as a burner was expected to function; and the
paving machine did the same. The two in combination did no more
than they would in separate, sequential operation. Id. , at
60–62. In those circumstances, “while the combination of old
elements performed a useful function, it added nothing to the
nature and quality of the radiant-heat burner already patented,”
and the patent failed under §103. Id., at 62 (footnote
omitted).

															   Finally, in Sakraida v. AG Pro,
Inc. , 425 U. S.
273 (1976), the Court derived from the precedents the
conclusion that when a patent “simply arranges old elements with
each performing the same function it had been known to perform” and
yields no more than one would expect from such an arrangement, the
combination is obvious. Id. , at 282.

															   The principles underlying these cases are
instructive when the question is whether a patent claiming the
combination of elements of prior art is obvious. When a work is
available in one field of endeavor, design incentives and other
market forces can prompt variations of it, either in the same field
or a different one. If a person of ordinary skill can implement a
predictable variation, §103 likely bars its patentability. For the
same reason, if a technique has been used to improve one device,
and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it
would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique
is obvious unless its actual application is beyond his or her
skill. Sakraida and Anderson’s-Black Rock are
illustrative—a court must ask whether the improvement is more than
the predictable use of prior art elements according to their
established functions.

															   Following these principles may be more
difficult in other cases than it is here because the claimed
subject matter may involve more than the simple substitution of one
known element for another or the mere application of a known
technique to a piece of prior art ready for the improvement. Often,
it will be necessary for a court to look to interrelated teachings
of multiple patents; the effects of demands known to the design
community or present in the marketplace; and the background
knowledge possessed by a person having ordinary skill in the art,
all in order to determine whether there was an apparent reason to
combine the known elements in the fashion claimed by the patent at
issue. To facilitate review, this analysis should be made explicit.
See In re Kahn , 441 F. 3d 977, 988 (CA Fed.
2006) (“[R]ejections on obviousness grounds cannot be sustained by
mere conclusory statements; instead, there must be some articulated
reasoning with some rational underpinning to support the legal
conclusion of obviousness”). As our precedents make clear, however,
the analysis need not seek out precise teachings directed to the
specific subject matter of the challenged claim, for a court can
take account of the inferences and creative steps that a person of
ordinary skill in the art would employ.

															B

															   When it first established the
requirement of demonstrating a teaching, suggestion, or motivation
to combine known elements in order to show that the combination is
obvious, the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals captured a helpful
insight. See Application of Bergel, 292 F. 2d 955,
956–957 (1961). As is clear from cases such as Adams , a
patent composed of several elements is not proved obvious merely by
demonstrating that each of its elements was, independently, known
in the prior art. Although common sense directs one to look with
care at a patent application that claims as innovation the
combination of two known devices according to their established
functions, it can be important to identify a reason that would have
prompted a person of ordinary skill in the relevant field to
combine the elements in the way the claimed new invention does.
This is so because inventions in most, if not all, instances rely
upon building blocks long since uncovered, and claimed discoveries
almost of necessity will be combinations of what, in some sense, is
already known.

															   Helpful insights, however, need
not become rigid and mandatory formulas; and when it is so applied,
the TSM test is incompatible with our precedents. The obviousness
analysis cannot be confined by a formalistic conception of the
words teaching, suggestion, and motivation, or by overemphasis on
the importance of published articles and the explicit content of
issued patents. The diversity of inventive pursuits and of modern
technology counsels against limiting the analysis in this way. In
many fields it may be that there is little discussion of obvious
techniques or combinations, and it often may be the case that
market demand, rather than scientific literature, will drive design
trends. Granting patent protection to advances that would occur in
the ordinary course without real innovation retards progress and
may, in the case of patents combining previously known elements,
deprive prior inventions of their value or utility.

															   In the years since the Court of Customs and
Patent Appeals set forth the essence of the TSM test, the Court of
Appeals no doubt has applied the test in accord with these
principles in many cases. There is no necessary inconsistency
between the idea underlying the TSM test and the Graham analysis. But when a court transforms the general principle into a
rigid rule that limits the obviousness inquiry, as the Court of
Appeals did here, it errs.

															C

															   The flaws in the analysis of the
Court of Appeals relate for the most part to the court’s narrow
conception of the obviousness inquiry reflected in its application
of the TSM test. In determining whether the subject matter of a
patent claim is obvious, neither the particular motivation nor the
avowed purpose of the patentee controls. What matters is the
objective reach of the claim. If the claim extends to what is
obvious, it is invalid under §103. One of the ways in which a
patent’s subject matter can be proved obvious is by noting that
there existed at the time of invention a known problem for which
there was an obvious solution encompassed by the patent’s
claims.

															   The first error of the Court of
Appeals in this case was to foreclose this reasoning by holding
that courts and patent examiners should look only to the problem
the patentee was trying to solve. 119 Fed. Appx., at 288. The Court
of Appeals failed to recognize that the problem motivating the
patentee may be only one of many addressed by the patent’s subject
matter. The question is not whether the combination was obvious to
the patentee but whether the combination was obvious to a person
with ordinary skill in the art. Under the correct analysis, any
need or problem known in the field of endeavor at the time of
invention and addressed by the patent can provide a reason for
combining the elements in the manner claimed.

															   The second error of the Court of Appeals lay
in its assumption that a person of ordinary skill attempting to
solve a problem will be led only to those elements of prior art
designed to solve the same problem. Ibid. The primary
purpose of Asano was solving the constant ratio problem; so, the
court concluded, an inventor considering how to put a sensor on an
adjustable pedal would have no reason to consider putting it on the
Asano pedal. Ibid. Common sense teaches, however, that
familiar items may have obvious uses beyond their primary purposes,
and in many cases a person of ordinary skill will be able to fit
the teachings of multiple patents together like pieces of a puzzle.
Regardless of Asano’s primary purpose, the design provided an
obvious example of an adjustable pedal with a fixed pivot point;
and the prior art was replete with patents indicating that a fixed
pivot point was an ideal mount for a sensor. The idea that a
designer hoping to make an adjustable electronic pedal would ignore
Asano because Asano was designed to solve the constant ratio
problem makes little sense. A person of ordinary skill is also a
person of ordinary creativity, not an automaton.

															   The same constricted analysis led the Court of
Appeals to conclude, in error, that a patent claim cannot be proved
obvious merely by showing that the combination of elements was
“obvious to try.” Id. , at 289 (internal quotation marks
omitted). When there is a design need or market pressure to solve a
problem and there are a finite number of identified, predictable
solutions, a person of ordinary skill has good reason to pursue the
known options within his or her technical grasp. If this leads to
the anticipated success, it is likely the product not of innovation
but of ordinary skill and common sense. In that instance the fact
that a combination was obvious to try might show that it was
obvious under §103.

															   The Court of Appeals, finally, drew the wrong
conclusion from the risk of courts and patent examiners falling
prey to hindsight bias. A factfinder should be aware, of course, of
the distortion caused by hindsight bias and must be cautious of
arguments reliant upon ex post reasoning. See Graham , 383 U. S., at 36 (warning against a “temptation to
read into the prior art the teachings of the invention in issue”
and instructing courts to “ ‘guard against slipping into the
use of hindsight’ ” (quoting Monroe Auto Equipment
Co. v. Heckethorn Mfg. & Supply Co. , 332
F. 2d 406, 412 (CA6 1964))). Rigid preventative rules that
deny factfinders recourse to common sense, however, are neither
necessary under our case law nor consistent with it. We note the Court of Appeals has
since elaborated a broader conception of the TSM test than was
applied in the instant matter. See, e.g., DyStar
Textilfarben GmbH & Co. Deutschland KG v. C. H.
Patrick Co. , 464 F. 3d 1356, 1367 (2006) (“Our suggestion
test is in actuality quite flexible and not only permits, but requires , consideration of common knowledge and common
sense”); Alza Corp. v. Mylan Labs., Inc. , 464
F. 3d 1286, 1291 (2006) (“There is flexibility in our
obviousness jurisprudence because a motivation may be found implicitly in the prior art. We do not have a rigid test
that requires an actual teaching to combine . . .”). Those
decisions, of course, are not now before us and do not correct the
errors of law made by the Court of Appeals in this case. The extent
to which they may describe an analysis more consistent with our
earlier precedents and our decision here is a matter for the Court
of Appeals to consider in its future cases. What we hold is that
the fundamental misunderstandings identified above led the Court of
Appeals in this case to apply a test inconsistent with our patent
law decisions.

															III

															   When we apply the standards we
have explained to the instant facts, claim 4 must be found obvious.
We agree with and adopt the District Court’s recitation of the
relevant prior art and its determination of the level of ordinary
skill in the field. As did the District Court, we see little
difference between the teachings of Asano and Smith and the
adjustable electronic pedal disclosed in claim 4 of the Engelgau
patent. A person having ordinary skill in the art could have
combined Asano with a pedal position sensor in a fashion
encompassed by claim 4, and would have seen the benefits of doing
so.

															A

															   Teleflex argues in passing that
the Asano pedal cannot be combined with a sensor in the manner
described by claim 4 because of the design of Asano’s pivot
mechanisms. See Brief for Respondents 48–49, and n. 17.
Therefore, Teleflex reasons, even if adding a sensor to Asano was
obvious, that does not establish that claim 4 encompasses obvious
subject matter. This argument was not, however, raised before the
District Court. There Teleflex was content to assert only that the
problem motivating the invention claimed by the Engelgau patent
would not lead to the solution of combining of Asano with a sensor.
See Teleflex’s Response to KSR’s Motion for Summary Judgment of
Invalidity in No. 02–74586 (ED Mich.), pp. 18–20, App. 144a–146a.
It is also unclear whether the current argument was raised before
the Court of Appeals, where Teleflex advanced the nonspecific,
conclusory contention that combining Asano with a sensor would not
satisfy the limitations of claim 4. See Brief for
Plaintiffs-Appellants in No. 04–1152 (CA Fed.), pp. 42–44.
Teleflex’s own expert declarations, moreover, do not support the
point Teleflex now raises. See Declaration of Clark J. Radcliffe,
Ph.D., Supplemental App. 204–207; Declaration of Timothy L.
Andresen, id., at 208–210. The only statement in either
declaration that might bear on the argument is found in the
Radcliffe declaration:

															“Asano . . . and Rixon . . . are complex mechanical
linkage-based devices that are expensive to produce and assemble
and difficult to package. It is exactly these difficulties with
prior art designs that [Engelgau] resolves. The use of an
adjustable pedal with a single pivot reflecting pedal position
combined with an electronic control mounted between the support and
the adjustment assembly at that pivot was a simple, elegant, and
novel combination of features in the Engelgau ’565 patent.” Id., at 206, ¶16.

															Read in the context of the declaration as a whole
this is best interpreted to mean that Asano could not be used to
solve “[t]he problem addressed by Engelgau ’565[:] to provide a
less expensive, more quickly assembled, and smaller package
adjustable pedal assembly with electronic control.” Id., at 205, ¶10.

															   The District Court found that combining Asano
with a pivot-mounted pedal position sensor fell within the scope of
claim 4. 298 F. Supp. 2d, at 592–593. Given the sigificance of
that finding to the District Court’s judgment, it is apparent that
Teleflex would have made clearer challenges to it if it intended to
preserve this claim. In light of Teleflex’s failure to raise the
argument in a clear fashion, and the silence of the Court of
Appeals on the issue, we take the District Court’s conclusion on
the point to be correct.

															B

															   The District Court was correct to
conclude that, as of the time Engelgau designed the subject matter
in claim 4, it was obvious to a person of ordinary skill to combine
Asano with a pivot-mounted pedal position sensor. There then
existed a marketplace that created a strong incentive to convert
mechanical pedals to electronic pedals, and the prior art taught a
number of methods for achieving this advance. The Court of Appeals
considered the issue too narrowly by, in effect, asking whether a
pedal designer writing on a blank slate would have chosen both
Asano and a modular sensor similar to the ones used in the
Chevrolet truckline and disclosed in the ’068 patent. The District
Court employed this narrow inquiry as well, though it reached the
correct result nevertheless. The proper question to have asked was
whether a pedal designer of ordinary skill, facing the wide range
of needs created by developments in the field of endeavor, would
have seen a benefit to upgrading Asano with a sensor.

															   In automotive design, as in many
other fields, the interaction of multiple components means that
changing one component often requires the others to be modified as
well. Technological developments made it clear that engines using
computer-controlled throttles would become standard. As a result,
designers might have decided to design new pedals from scratch; but
they also would have had reason to make pre-existing pedals work
with the new engines. Indeed, upgrading its own pre-existing model
led KSR to design the pedal now accused of infringing the Engelgau
patent.

															   For a designer starting with Asano, the
question was where to attach the sensor. The consequent legal
question, then, is whether a pedal designer of ordinary skill
starting with Asano would have found it obvious to put the sensor
on a fixed pivot point. The prior art discussed above leads us to
the conclusion that attaching the sensor where both KSR and
Engelgau put it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary
skill.

															   The ’936 patent taught the utility of putting
the sensor on the pedal device, not in the engine. Smith, in turn,
explained to put the sensor not on the pedal’s footpad but instead
on its support structure. And from the known wire-chafing problems
of Rixon, and Smith’s teaching that “the pedal assemblies must not
precipitate any motion in the connecting wires,” Smith, col. 1,
lines 35–37, Supplemental App. 274, the designer would know to
place the sensor on a nonmoving part of the pedal structure. The
most obvious nonmoving point on the structure from which a sensor
can easily detect the pedal’s position is a pivot point. The
designer, accordingly, would follow Smith in mounting the sensor on
a pivot, thereby designing an adjustable electronic pedal covered
by claim 4.

															   Just as it was possible to begin with the
objective to upgrade Asano to work with a computer-controlled
throttle, so too was it possible to take an adjustable electronic
pedal like Rixon and seek an improvement that would avoid the
wire-chafing problem. Following similar steps to those just
explained, a designer would learn from Smith to avoid sensor
movement and would come, thereby, to Asano because Asano disclosed
an adjustable pedal with a fixed pivot.

															   Teleflex indirectly argues that the prior art
taught away from attaching a sensor to Asano because Asano in its
view is bulky, complex, and expensive. The only evidence Teleflex
marshals in support of this argument, however, is the Radcliffe
declaration, which merely indicates that Asano would not have
solved Engelgau’s goal of making a small, simple, and inexpensive
pedal. What the declaration does not indicate is that Asano was
somehow so flawed that there was no reason to upgrade it, or pedals
like it, to be compatible with modern engines. Indeed, Teleflex’s
own declarations refute this conclusion. Dr. Radcliffe states that
Rixon suffered from the same bulk and complexity as did Asano. See id., at 206. Teleflex’s other expert, however, explained
that Rixon was itself designed by adding a sensor to a pre-existing
mechanical pedal. See id., at 209. If Rixon’s base pedal
was not too flawed to upgrade, then Dr. Radcliffe’s declaration
does not show Asano was either. Teleflex may have made a plausible
argument that Asano is inefficient as compared to Engelgau’s
preferred embodiment, but to judge Asano against Engelgau would be
to engage in the very hindsight bias Teleflex rightly urges must be
avoided. Accordingly, Teleflex has not shown anything in the prior
art that taught away from the use of Asano.

															   Like the District Court, finally, we conclude
Teleflex has shown no secondary factors to dislodge the
determination that claim 4 is obvious. Proper application of Graham and our other precedents to these facts therefore
leads to the conclusion that claim 4 encompassed obvious subject
matter. As a result, the claim fails to meet the requirement of
§103.

															   We need not reach the question whether the
failure to disclose Asano during the prosecution of Engelgau voids
the presumption of validity given to issued patents, for claim 4 is
obvious despite the presumption. We nevertheless think it
appropriate to note that the rationale underlying the
presumption—that the PTO, in its expertise, has approved the
claim—seems much diminished here.

															IV

															   A separate ground the Court of
Appeals gave for reversing the order for summary judgment was the
existence of a dispute over an issue of material fact. We disagree
with the Court of Appeals on this point as well. To the extent the
court understood the Graham approach to exclude the
possibility of summary judgment when an expert provides a
conclusory affidavit addressing the question of obviousness, it
misunderstood the role expert testimony plays in the analysis. In
considering summary judgment on that question the district court
can and should take into account expert testimony, which may
resolve or keep open certain questions of fact. That is not the end
of the issue, however. The ultimate judgment of obviousness is a
legal determination. Graham , 383 U. S., at 17. Where, as
here, the content of the prior art, the scope of the patent claim,
and the level of ordinary skill in the art are not in material
dispute, and the obviousness of the claim is apparent in light of
these factors, summary judgment is appropriate. Nothing in the
declarations proffered by Teleflex prevented the District Court
from reaching the careful conclusions underlying its order for
summary judgment in this case.

															*  *  *

															   We build and create by bringing
to the tangible and palpable reality around us new works based on
instinct, simple logic, ordinary inferences, extraordinary ideas,
and sometimes even genius. These advances, once part of our shared
knowledge, define a new threshold from which innovation starts once
more. And as progress beginning from higher levels of achievement
is expected in the normal course, the results of ordinary
innovation are not the subject of exclusive rights under the patent
laws. Were it otherwise patents might stifle, rather than promote,
the progress of useful arts. See U. S. Const., Art. I, §8,
cl. 8. These premises led to the bar on patents claiming
obvious subject matter established in Hotchkiss and
codified in §103. Application of the bar must not be confined
within a test or formulation too constrained to serve its
purpose.

															   KSR provided convincing evidence
that mounting a modular sensor on a fixed pivot point of the Asano
pedal was a design step well within the grasp of a person of
ordinary skill in the relevant art. Its arguments, and the record,
demonstrate that claim 4 of the Engelgau patent is obvious. In
rejecting the District Court’s rulings, the Court of Appeals
analyzed the issue in a narrow, rigid manner inconsistent with §103
and our precedents. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
reversed, and the case remanded for further proceedings consistent
with this opinion.

															It is so ordered.