This hypothetical person is considered to have the normal skills and knowledge in a particular technical field (an "art"), without being a genius.
This legal fiction basically translates the need for each invention to be considered in the context of the technical field it belongs to.
28.3 The subject-matter defined by a claim in an application for a patent in Canada must be subject-matter that would not have been obvious on the claim date to a person skilled in the art or science to which it pertains...The person skilled in the art is described in Beloit Canada Ltd. v. Valmet Oy: the technician skilled in the art but having no scintilla of inventiveness or imagination; a paragon of deduction and dexterity, wholly devoid of intuition; a triumph of the left hemisphere over the right.
[7]The PHOSITA appears again in slightly different words in the provision requiring a proper disclosure: The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
Although the Court's opinion acknowledged other Federal Circuit cases that described a PHOSITA as having "common sense" and who could find motivation "implicitly in the prior art," Kennedy emphasized that his opinion was directed at correcting the "errors of law made by the Court of Appeals in this case" and does not necessarily overturn all other Federal Circuit precedent.
This was applied to the facts before the Court with the following: The proper question to have asked was whether a pedal designer of ordinary skill, facing the wide range of needs created by developments in the field of endeavor, would have seen a benefit to upgrading Asano with a sensor.Practically all patent legislations disallow the patentability of something obvious.
For example, the German Patent Act (Patentgesetz) requires that the invention "cannot be derived by a Fachmann from the state of the art in an obvious manner".
[11] The word Fachmann (an ordinary German word meaning somebody who has professional knowledge in a field) is made specific by ständiger Rechtsprechung (usual court opinion) as a "specialist with average knowledge and talent whom one would ordinarily ask to seek a solution for the (objective) problem the invention deals with"[12]