Inventive Step (Non-obviousness) :

Inventive step is a feature of an invention that involves technical advance as compared to existing knowledge or having economic significance or both, making the invention non obvious to a person skilled in art. Here definition of inventive step has been enlarged to include economic significance of the invention apart from already existing criteria for determining inventive step.

An invention shall not be considered as involving an inventive step, if, having regard to the state of the art, it is obvious to a person skilled in the art. The term “obvious” means that which does not go beyond the normal progress of technology but merely follows plainly or logically from the prior art, i.e. something which does not involve the exercise of any skill or ability beyond that to be expected of the person skilled in the Art.

For this purpose a “person skilled in the art” should be presumed to be an ordinary practitioner aware of what was general common knowledge in the relevant art at the relevant date. In some cases the person skilled in the art may be thought of as a group or team of persons rather than as a single person.