Ingenious vs obvious: is your invention patentable?

摘要

Dr Andrew Gregory, Registered Patent Attorney, FB Rice In many industries inventions provide solutions to known problems. Although an invention may be useful, an inventor has to prove that their invention justifies the granting of a patent. Patent law dictates that to qualify for patent protection, all inventions must be novel and possess an inventive step. Establishing novelty is generally a factual exercise - is the invention new as compared with known information (prior art)? However, establishing that an inventive step exists and an invention is not obvious, is somewhat subjective in nature and often difficult to prove once the invention is disclosed due to hindsight.