What is the relationship between long-felt need and commercial success in patent law?
What is the relationship between long-felt need and commercial success in patent law?
Long-felt need and commercial success are both secondary considerations in patent law that can help establish non-obviousness. While they are distinct factors, they often have a close relationship:
- Long-felt need demonstrates that there was a persistent problem in the field that others failed to solve.
- Commercial success can be evidence that the invention met this long-felt need effectively.
The MPEP states: Evidence of long-felt need may be particularly probative of obviousness when it demonstrates both that a demand existed for the patented invention, and that others tried but failed to satisfy that demand.
(MPEP 716.04)
When an invention achieves commercial success shortly after its introduction, it can suggest that the invention satisfied a long-standing demand in the market, further supporting the argument for non-obviousness.
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