ASSIGNMENT 4

Curt is a baseball player who enjoys practicing his pitching in his backyard. Unfortunately, he has nobody who is willing to play with him. Therefore, he has to throw his ball against the wall of his house and wait for it to bounce back to him. This is inefficient, as the ball often bounces in other directions and having to retrieve the ball breaks his concentration.   After a lot of thinking and some trial and error, Curt figures out that if you combine certain kinds of hard plastics and use them to manufacture a screen, baseballs thrown against the screen will quickly bounce back to the thrower. Therefore, he sets us a small vertical platform in the shape of a baseball strike zone made of a certain hard plastics that will reflect thrown balls back to the thrower. After using this successfully for some time, Curt applies for and receives a patent for his invention. Later, Randy develops the same product on his own and begins marketing it.   In the subsequent lawsuit, Randy claims that Curt’s patent should not have been issued because the invention was obvious.   Please discuss, based on applicable case law, what the standards the court will use to analyze this question. Also, please apply that analysis and discuss who should win the case.  An IRAC-style essay is appropriate for this assignment.