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2.5.1.2 The Statutory Basis for Inventive Step

Date Published

Note: The information in this part only applies to standard patent applications with an examination request filed before 15 April 2013.  For all other standard patent applications, see 2.5.1.2A The Statutory Basis for Inventive Step.

Section 7 provides that:

"(2) .... an invention is taken to involve an inventive step when compared with the prior art base unless the invention would have been obvious to a person skilled in the relevant art in the light of the common general knowledge as it existed in the patent area before the priority date of the relevant claim, whether that knowledge is considered separately or together with the information mentioned in subsection (3).

(3) The information for the purposes of subsection (2) is:

(a) any single piece of prior art information; or

(b) a combination of any 2 or more pieces of prior art information;

being information that the skilled person mentioned in subsection (2) could, before the priority date of the relevant claim, be reasonably expected to have ascertained, understood, regarded as relevant and, in the case of information mentioned in paragraph (b), combined as mentioned in that paragraph."

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