Graham v. John Deere Co.

Graham v. John Deere Co. is a landmark Supreme Court case from 1966 that established important principles regarding patentability and non-obviousness. The case involved a farmer who had improved a plow design and sought a patent. The Supreme Court ruled that for an invention to be patented, it must not only be new but also non-obvious to someone skilled in the field. This decision clarified that inventions that are merely incremental improvements on existing technologies might not qualify for patent protection if they do not involve a significant inventive step.