That's a very good point, but recall that the standard is the hypothetical person who is presumed to have known the relevant art at the time of the invention. F

That's a very good point, but recall that the standard is the hypothetical person who is presumed to have known the relevant art at the time of the invention. From KSR, we know that it's this person who's the baseline for determining which, if any, inferences or creative steps are obvious. If a person NOT falling within this definition were to independently arrive at an invention and could have arrived at the same invention prior to the issuance of that invention's patent, then there's an issue. KSR states: "a person of ordinary skill in the art is also a person of ordinary creativity, not an automaton." It follows that a hyper-creative, one-of-a-kind person who proves that he or she independently arrived at the invention would not be this hypothetical person. Although obvious to a genius in the art, it was non-obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art. That's where I disagree with your reasoning. EDIT: This is not to say that the genius in the art should be out-of-luck. He or she should be entitled to continue practicing the invention, but the patent itself shouldn't be invalidated. This should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis and treated as an exception to the general rule.