Legal Dictionary of Pakistan

flash-of-genius rule

Patents. The now-defunct principle that a device is not patentable if it was invented as the result of trial and error rather than as a "flash of creative genius." ( The rule, which takes its name from language in Cuno Engineering Corp. v. Automatic Devices Corp., 314 U.S. 84, 91, 62 S.Ct. 37, 41 (1941), was legislatively overturned in 1952. 35 USCA § 103.