Patent Criteria Family
Skilled-Person and Background Assumptions
Defines the baseline knowledge, expectations, and technical context attributed to the relevant skilled person. These topics shape how later sections evaluate support, predictability, experimentation, and obviousness.
Overview
A review of enablement, sufficiency, inventive step, or subject-matter eligibility often turns on what the skilled person would have known, expected, or been able to do at the relevant time. This family of criteria defines that baseline.
The skilled person (or PHOSITA — person having ordinary skill in the art) is a hypothetical construct used in patent law to assess whether an invention would be obvious, enabled, or sufficient. The identification of the skilled person shapes the entire analysis that follows.
Topic 1.1: Person Having Ordinary Skill in the Art
The skilled person is identified through a structured inquiry that considers the problem being solved, the established field in which it sits, the expected level of education and sophistication, the pace of innovation, and whether the relevant skilled person is an individual or a team.
Key considerations:
- What problem does the invention aim to solve?
- What is the established field in which the problem can be located?
- Who is the notional person or team in that field that represents the relevant skilled person?
- What is the educational level of active workers in the field?
- What types of problems are encountered in the art?
- What prior art solutions exist?
- How rapidly do innovations occur?
- What is the sophistication of the technology?
The skilled person is presumed to have known the relevant art at the time of the invention and had access to everything in the prior art, including documents cited in search reports. The skilled person is also presumed to have had the means and capacity for routine work and experimentation normal for the field.
Topic 1.2: Common General Knowledge
Common general knowledge (CGK) distinguishes information that is generally known in the art from information that might only be uncovered through routine research. It serves as part of the assumed baseline from which the rest of the review is conducted.
Material that would be found by routine research while developing cited prior art may be considered in assessing obviousness, but it is not common general knowledge as such. The distinction matters because CGK is presumed to be known by the skilled person without citation, while other material must be explicitly referenced.
📥 Skilled Person and Background Assumptions — PDF
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Why This Family Matters
A review of enablement, sufficiency, inventive step, or subject-matter eligibility often turns on what the skilled person would have known, expected, or been able to do at the relevant time.
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