2.5.3.10.5 Copying of Invention in Preference to Prior Art

Date Published

Copying of the invention in preference to the prior art is indicative of an inventive step:

"when once it has been found ... that the problem had waited solution for many years, and that the device is in fact novel and superior to what had gone before, and has been widely used, and used in preference to alternative devices, it is ... practically impossible to say that there is not present that scintilla of invention necessary to support the Patent ... . No evidence is more cogent of the success of the invention than that the defendants simply copied it and made profits by making and selling the products."

Samuel Parkes & Co Ltd v Cocker Brothers Ld (1929) 46 RPC 241 at page 248

and:

"The fact that some of the defendant companies purchased large quantities ... of the plaintiff's windows and subsequently manufactured themselves an article which can only be described as a copy in all material respects, demonstrates the existence of the kind of public need which is relevant to the question of obviousness."

Meyers Taylor Pty Ltd v Vicarr Industries Ltd (1977) CLR 228 at page 239