{"id":2066,"date":"2010-03-15T11:48:03","date_gmt":"2010-03-15T17:48:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/?p=2066"},"modified":"2010-03-15T12:13:40","modified_gmt":"2010-03-15T18:13:40","slug":"common-sense-vs-common-knowledge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/?p=2066","title":{"rendered":"“Common sense” vs. “Common knowledge”"},"content":{"rendered":"

The issue of “common sense” came up again in the oral arguments before the Federal Circuit.\u00a0 In Siemens AG v. Seagate Technology<\/span>, 2009-1382 (Fed. Cir. March 9, 2010), the panel questioned appellant’s counsel about “common sense” in regard to a highly technical field of art.\u00a0 The question was whether “common sense” in a KSR<\/span> analysis of a highly technical area refers to the “common sense” of an ordinary individual or the “common sense” of one of ordinary skill in the highly technical field of art at issue. [Listen<\/a>]<\/p>\n

In the opinion written by Judge Archer, the panel avoided the “common sense” issue\u00a0and referred \u00a0instead to “common knowledge”:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The jury implicitly found that all asserted claims of the \u2018838 patent were rendered obvious by known giant magnetoresistive (“GMR”) sensors combined with a coupling layer and magnetic layer from known artificial antiferromagnets (“AAF”). Siemens asserts that there was no motivation to make this combination. However, Seagate\u2019s expert, Dr. Wang, testified that AAF structures with a coupling layer and a magnetic layer were known to those of ordinary skill in the art in 1992 and were also found in prior art patents and publications. Dr. Wang further explained in detail that based on this common knowledge<\/strong><\/span> of AAFs and known problems with prior art GMR sensors (such as stray magnetic flux) and the design incentives for solving such problems, a person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to solve these problems using an AAF. In light of Dr. Wang\u2019s testimony, a reasonable jury could have found that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine known GMR sensors with the coupling and magnetic layers from known AAFs to make the claimed invention.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

\u00a0Black’s Law Dictionary defines both “common knowledge” and “common sense”:<\/span><\/p>\n

Common Knowledge.\u00a0 Refers to what court may declare applicable to action without necessity of proof.\u00a0 It is knowledge that every intelligent person has, and includes matter of learning, experience, history and facts of which judicial notice may be taken.\u00a0 Shelley v. Chilton’s Adm’r, 236 Ky. 221, 32 S.W.2d 974, 977.\u00a0 See also Judicial notice.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Common Sense.\u00a0 Sound practical judgment; that degree of intelligence and reason, as exercised upon the relations of persons and things and the ordinary affairs of life, which is possessed by the generality of mankind, and which would suffice to direct the conduct and actions of the individual in a manner to agree with the behavior of ordinary persons.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

You can listen to the entire oral argument here: [Listen<\/a>].<\/p>\n

You can read the court’s opinion here: [Read<\/a>].<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The issue of “common sense” came up again in the oral arguments before the Federal Circuit.\u00a0 In Siemens AG v. Seagate Technology, 2009-1382 (Fed. Cir. March 9, 2010), the panel questioned appellant’s counsel about “common sense” in regard to a highly technical field of art.\u00a0 The question was whether “common sense” in a KSR analysis […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2066"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2066"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2066\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2076,"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2066\/revisions\/2076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}