8.5.1 The Statutory Basis for Inventive Step

Also in this Chapter:

• 8.5.2 Prior Art Base

• 8.5.3 Assessing Inventive Step in Examination

• 8.5.4 Common General Knowledge

• 8.5.5 Determining the Problem

• 8.5.6 Identifying the Person Skilled in the Art

• 8.5.7 Could the PSA have Ascertained, Understood, Regard as Relevant and Combined the Prior Art Information

Key Legislation:

Patents Act:

• s7 Novelty, inventive step and innovative 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."