INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY

In patent law, 'industrial applicability' or 'industrial application' is a patentability requirement according to which a patent can only be granted for an invention which is susceptible of industrial application, i.e. for an invention which can be made or used in some kind of industry. In this context, the concept of "industry" is far-reaching: it includes indeed agriculture for instance. An example of invention which would ''not'' be susceptible of industrial application is "a method of contraception [...] to be applied in the private and personal sphere of a human being". ^[1]

Contents

European patent law

Relationship with United States patent law

References

External links

European patent law

At the European Patent Office (EPO), the requirement that an invention is susceptible of an industrial application has generally been taken to be more or less automatically fulfilled but recent decisions of the Boards of Appeal of the EPO have seen this requirement analysed in new detail. In decision T870/04 it was held that the mere fact that a substance can be made in some way does not necessarily mean that the requirements of are fulfilled, unless there is also some "profitable use" for which the substance can be employed. ^[2]
The industrial application requirement is related to the requirement of sufficiency of disclosure, i.e. the fact that a "patent application must disclose the invention in a manner sufficiently clear and complete for it to be carried out by a person skilled in the art". ^[3]

Relationship with United States patent law

The utility is a more or less corresponding requirement in US patent law, but different however.

References

1. Decision T 74/93 of the Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office
2. Decision T 870/04
3. "''In T 541/96 the board noted that according to Art. 52(1) EPC a European patent could be granted for an invention which was, inter alla, susceptible of industrial application. This concept was related to the obligation on an applicant to give a sufficient description of the invention, as required by Art. 83 EPC. An invention or an application for a patent for an alleged invention which would not comply with the generally accepted laws of physics would be incompatible with the requirements of Art. 57 EPC and Art. 83 EPC because it could not be used and therefore lacked industrial application. The description would moreover be insufficient to the extent that the applicant would not be able to describe how it could be made to work.''" ''Case Law of the Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office'', Fourth Edition, December 2001, Page 143.

External links

★ Article 57 of the European Patent Convention

★ Article 33 of the Patent Cooperation Treaty, see in particular paragraph (4).

★ Article 1 of the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, see in particular paragraph (3) for guidances as to how the word "industry" should be interpreted.