Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Table of statutes
- Table of cases
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Passing off
- 3 Registered trade marks
- 4 Exploitation of registered trade marks
- 5 Copyright: Introduction
- 6 Subsistence of copyright
- 7 Authorship and first ownership, nature of the rights and duration
- 8 Exploitation, infringement and defences
- 9 Moral rights, performers' rights and circuit layouts
- 10 Designs
- 11 Equitable doctrine of breach of confidence
- 12 Patents for inventions: introduction
- 13 Patents for inventions: validity
- 14 Patents for inventions: allocation of rights and ownership, the Register and dealings
- 15 Patents for inventions: exploitation, infringement and revocation
- 16 Plant breeder's rights
- 17 Remedies and miscellaneous issues
- Appendix
- Index
13 - Patents for inventions: validity
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Table of statutes
- Table of cases
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Passing off
- 3 Registered trade marks
- 4 Exploitation of registered trade marks
- 5 Copyright: Introduction
- 6 Subsistence of copyright
- 7 Authorship and first ownership, nature of the rights and duration
- 8 Exploitation, infringement and defences
- 9 Moral rights, performers' rights and circuit layouts
- 10 Designs
- 11 Equitable doctrine of breach of confidence
- 12 Patents for inventions: introduction
- 13 Patents for inventions: validity
- 14 Patents for inventions: allocation of rights and ownership, the Register and dealings
- 15 Patents for inventions: exploitation, infringement and revocation
- 16 Plant breeder's rights
- 17 Remedies and miscellaneous issues
- Appendix
- Index
Summary
Statutory requirements
The concept of a patentable invention appeared originally in s 6 of the Statute of Monopolies 1623 and was expressed in terms of any ‘manner of new manufacture’. The purpose of this section was ‘to allow the use of the prerogative to encourage national development in a field which already, in 1623, was seen to be excitingly unpredictable’.
There has never been a statutory definition of the phrase ‘manner of manufacture’. Over the centuries, judicial interpretation of s 6 gradually fleshed out the requirements of a ‘patentable invention’ which is now defined in sch 1 of the Patents Act 1990 (Cth) as meaning ‘an invention of the kind mentioned in section 18’. As to the meaning of ‘invention’, Schedule 1 provides that the word ‘invention’ (without any definite or indefinite article before it) means ‘any manner of new manufacture the subject of letters patent and grant of privilege within s 6 of the Statute of Monopolies, and includes an alleged invention’. The word ‘alleged’ relates to the word ‘new’. The term ‘new’ in s 6 was a broad and undefined concept that has subsequently been construed by the courts to encompass the separate notions of novelty and inventiveness. The use of the word ‘new’ in the context of the phrase ‘manner of new manufacture’ in the 1990 Act is not to be equated with what we now refer to as ‘novelty’.
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- Australian Intellectual Property Law , pp. 403 - 479Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008