The Court itself stated, ” … inventions in most, if not all, instances rely upon building blocks long since uncovered, and claimed discoveries almost of necessity will be combinations of what, in some sense, is already known.”

Let’s summarize what the SC has said: (1) Almost all inventions are combinations of previously known elements, and (2) any known problem or known need provides a motivation to combine previously known elements rendering the invention (new combination obvious.

Thus, almost all “inventions” are obvious. The only out seems to be for “unexpected results” or “teaching away”.

This is nonsense. As a farcical example consider that Peanut Butter and Chocolate existed as desert options long before the Reese’s Peanut Butter cup, but I doubt anyone would have considered the combination obvious at the time of its introduction. Indeed, their whole marketing campaign showed the “cleverness” of combining the two.

As a non-farcical example consider that there has always been a “need” to make electronics smaller, and transistors have been known forever, so the PNP gate was just an obvious reaction to market driven forces with known elements.