Ranbaxy, 2005 EWHC 2142
Citation:Ranbaxy, 2005 EWHC 2142
Rule of thumb: How do you prove that you have an invention capable of being granted a patent? You have to (a) get the nearest prior art, and (b) show a significant step.
Judgment:
The Court in this case emphasised that they will be unwilling to delve too far back in time to look at publications in academic journals in using these as grounds for rejecting a new invention for not being sufficiently novel, particularly if there are new publications of leading books produced and the new invention is not in these, ‘... concentration on the closest prior art... must stem from a belief that if an invention is not obvious in light of the closest prior art it cannot be obvious in the light of anything further away. This runs the risk of offending against the principle that a skilled man must be permitted to that which is obvious in the light of each individual item of prior art seen in the light of the common general knowledge...’
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