2.5.3.10.1 Long Felt Need

Date Published

If a claim solves a "long felt need", there is a presumption that it is not obvious, as other inventors must have also tried to solve the need and not succeeded:

"... the question of obviousness is probably best tested, if this be possible, by the guidance given by contemporaneous events. ... If an invention has resulted in the solution of a problem which has been troubling industry for years and achieves immediate success upon its introduction, then the suggestion after the event that the step was obvious inevitably rings a little hollow."

Lucas and Another v Gaedor Ltd and Others [1978] RPC 297 at page 358.