Anderson's-Black Rock, Inc. v. Pavement Salvage Co.
Case Date: 07/22/1969
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Anderson's-Black Rock, Inc. v. Pavement Salvage Co., 396 U.S. 57 (1969), is a 1969 decision of the United States Supreme Court on the legal standard governing the obviousness of claimed inventions. It stands for the proposition that, when old elements are combined in a way such that they do not interact in a novel, unobvious way, then the resulting combination is obvious and therefore unpatentable.
Drawing of the machine patented in this case
The patent (U.S. Pat. No. 3,055,280) sought to solve a problem in paving asphalt roads—the joint between the new section and old, cold sections tends to bond poorly. Previously, one machine spread and shaped the new deposit of asphalt and a second machine contained a radiant-heat burner, which softened cold asphalt. The claimed invention combined on one machine chassis the spreading and shaping equipment along with a radiant-heat burner. “The combination of putting the burner together with the other elements in one machine, though perhaps a matter of great convenience, did not produce a ‘new or different function,’” Accordingly, the Court held the combination obvious.
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