Patentability Under the Patents Act
The statutory threshold
A candidate must be able to run the s 18 filter in order: subject matter (manner of manufacture, s 18(1)(a)), then novelty, inventive step, utility, and finally the s 40 requirements on the specification itself. Each ground is independent - a claim can be novel yet lack an inventive step, or involve an inventive step yet fail utility.
Manner of manufacture
Ask whether the claim defines an artificially created state of affairs with economic utility (the NRDC v Commissioner principle). Traps: mere discoveries, abstract schemes, and computer programs per se fail; a business method implemented in computer hardware may succeed. Question-writers love the boundary between a discovery and its practical application.
Novelty and inventive step
Novelty is assessed against the prior art base - the common general knowledge and prior publications/uses - claim by claim, with the prior art read as a whole but not combined. Inventive step asks whether the invention was obvious to the notional skilled person, with the common general knowledge and s 7(3) information available. Traps: importing a second document into a novelty comparison; forgetting that the skilled person may combine references only where the combination was obvious.
Utility and s 40
Utility requires the claimed invention to work as described across its scope - a claim that covers inoperative embodiments fails. Section 40 enforces clarity, succinctness, support, and best method.
Rule of thumb: run the grounds as a checklist in statutory order, and never let an obviousness argument contaminate the novelty analysis.