2.4.6.1 Practical Utility

Date Published

In general, the information in a citation must be, for the purposes of "practical utility", equivalent to that provided in the complete specification under examination. There must be sufficient directions in the prior art for a skilled addressee to identify the claimed invention and to put it into practice:

"Whatever, therefore is essential to the invention must be read out of the prior publication. If specific details are necessary for the practical working and real utility of the alleged invention, they must be found substantially in the prior publication ... the prior knowledge of an invention to avoid a patent must be knowledge equal to that required to be given by a specification, namely, such knowledge as will enable the public to perceive the very discovery and to carry the invention into practical use."

See Hill v Evans (1862) 6 LT 90.