Elements of Patentability :

As stated above, a patent is granted for an invention which may be related to any process or product. An invention is different from a discovery. Discovery is something that already existed but had not been found. Not all inventions are patentable. An invention must fulfill certain requirements known as conditions of patentability. The word “invention” under the Patents Act 1970 means “a new product or process involving an inventive step and capable of industrial application. (Section 2(1)(j)).

The patent must be in respect of an invention and not a discovery. The fundamental principle of Patent Law is that a patent is granted only for an invention which must be new and useful. That is to say, it must have novelty and utility. It is essential for the validity of a patent that it must be the inventor’s own discovery as opposed to mere verification of what was already known before the date of the patent… It is important to bear in mind that in order to be patentable an improvement on something known before or a combination of different matters already known, should be something more than a mere workshop improvement; and must independently satisfy the test of invention or an “inventive step”. To be patentable the improvement or the combination must produce a new result, or a new article or a better or cheaper article than before.

“New invention” is defined as any invention or technology which has not been anticipated by publication in any document or used in the country or elsewhere in the world before the date of filing of patent application with complete specification, i.e., the subject matter has not fallen in public domain or that it does not form part of the state of the art [Section 2(1)(l); Where, capable of industrial application, in relation to an invention, means that the invention is capable of being made or used in an industry [Section 2(1)(ac)].

In Raj Prakash v. Mangat Ram Choudhary AIR 1978 Del.1, it was held that invention, as is well known, is to find out some thing or discover some thing not found or discovered by anyone before. It is not necessary that the invention should be any thing complicated. The essential thing is that the inventor was first to adopt it. The principal therefore, is that every simple invention that is claimed, so long as it is something which is novel or new, it would be an invention and the claims and specifications have to be read in that light.

Therefore, the conditions of patentability are:

• Novelty

• Inventive step (non-obviousness) and

• Industrial applicability (utility)