On June 27, 1989. Jeffrey Gorman and Marilyn Katz received U.S. Patent No. D301835 on a confection package:

However, Gorman and Katz are better known for the patent they didn’t get — on their application 06/882,480 for a utility patent on the product depicted in their design patent. The Patent Office rejected the claims of their utility patent were rejected in view of thirteen references. It seems logical to most inventors and may practitioners that if it takes 13 references to meet a claim that that claim cannot be obvious. However logical that may sound it is not the law.

The Federal Circuit in In re Gorman and Katz, 933 F.2d 982, 18 U.S.P.Q.2d 1885 (Fed. Cir. 1991), said:

The criterion, however, is not the number of references, but what they would have meant to a person of ordinary skill in the field of the invention. In Hybritech, Inc. v. Monoclonal Antibodies, Inc., 802 F.2d 1367, 1383, 231 USPQ 81, 93 (Fed.Cir.1986), cert. denied, 480 U.S. 947, 107 S.Ct. 1606, 94 L.Ed.2d 792 (1987), the court held that a combination of about twenty references that “skirt[ed] all around” the claimed invention did not show obviousness. In other instances, on other facts, we have upheld reliance on a large number of references to show obviousness. Compare In re Miller, 159 F.2d 756, 758-59, 72 USPQ 512, 514-15 (CCPA 1947) (rejecting argument that the need for eight references for rejection supported patentability) with Kansas Jack, Inc. v. Kuhn, 719 F.2d 1144, 1149, 219 USPQ 857, 860 (Fed.Cir.1983) (where teachings relied upon to show obviousness were repeated in a number of references, the conclusion of obviousness was strengthened). See also, e.g., In re Troiel, 274 F.2d 944, 947, 124 USPQ 502, 504 (CCPA 1960) (rejecting appellant’s argument that combining a large number of references to show obviousness was “farfetched and illogical”).

Gorman and Katz at least enjoyed the protection of a design patent for its 14-year term.