Merck & Co., Inc. v. Biocraft Laboratories, Inc.

I would affirm the district court’s decision that the claims at issue in United States Patent No. 3,781,430 (’430) were not shown to have been obvious under 35 U.S. C. § 103 (1982). The district court concluded that a combination of amiloride and hy-drochlorothiazide as claimed in the ’430 patent was merely “obvious to try” based on the prior art. Merck & Co., Inc. v. Biocraft Laboratories, Inc., 690 F.Supp. 1376, 1381 (D.N.J.1988) (citing In re Geiger, 815 F.2d 686, 688, 2 USPQ2d 1276, 1278 (Fed.Cir.1987) (rejecting “obvious to try” as the standard for determining obviousness)).

Obviousness,…