Patent law gives the patentee a right in a specific period to exclude an implementation of his patent right by others without consent. Therefore, some requirements must to be possessed by the claimed invention to prevent general technologies or conventional skill from obtaining the protection of patent system, if not it will be contrary to the legislative intent of encouraging the invention and the creation, and the granted patent monopoly will cause a stagnation in the level of industrial technology. From the history of patent system development, we can find the concept of inventive step emerged from an insufficiency of maintaining the normal function of patent system by the requirement of industrial applicability and novelty.As to the requirement of non-obviousness of U.S. patent system, although not statutorily codified until §103 was enacted as part of the 1952 Patent Act, this concept has been recognized in U.S. patent case law since at least 1851. This ill-defined term proved incapable of precise application. The discrepancy in the mind of each examiner and judge confused the applicants. In 1966, the Supreme Court set out a framework for applying the statutory language of §103 in Graham v. John Deere Co., the rationale became relatively consistent. Under §103, the scope and content of the prior art are to be determined; differences between the prior art and the claims at issue are to be ascertained; and the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art resolved. Also, in the April of 2007, the Supreme Court explained the "Graham standard" again in KSR when challenging TSM test developed by CAFC and its application for determining non-obviousness of the claimed invention. In this article, the back-grounds and contents of the "Graham standard" set by the US Supreme Court, and the "TSM test" developed by CAFC will be explained in detail. Next, the essential thoughts of KSR and the possible impacts to non-obviousness determination brought by the KSR opinion will be explained. Finally, the comparison between "non-obviousness" defined by KSR and "inventive step" of Taiwan's patent law will be explained.