According to Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966), in order to determine whether a claim would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made, a court is to carefully consider the following:
- the scope and content of the prior art;
- the differences between the claimed invention and that prior art; and
- the level of ordinary skill in the art.
- the commercial success of the claimed invention;
- whether the claimed invention satisfied a long felt but unsolved need; and
- the failure of others to solve the problem that the claimed invention solved.